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With the pomp and ceremony of the Queen’s Speech in the House of Lords, and the State Opening of Parliament, the Welsh Electorate would be forgiven for missing the events that were going on in The Sennedd on the same day.
Opposition AM David Melding tried to introduce a Legislative Competence Order (LCO) to give the Welsh Assembly the power to appoint a Welsh Language Commissioner. Many supporters of the Welsh Language would see this as a good thing, unfortunately, the motion was defeated.
The record of the voting shows Labour either voted against this motion or abstained.
The record of voting also shows that eight of the 11 Plaid Cymru Assembly Members voted against this motion to introduce a Welsh Language Commissioner, those voting against the motion included Bethan Jenkins & Dr Dai Lloyd. What does this say about Plaid’s commitment to the Welsh Language?
The Welsh Liberal Democrats voted for the motion.
1 comment:
As a Lib-Dem activist in London, can I add to your comments?
The Welsh language is not alone in fighting for its linguistic rights. Certainly the promulgation of English as the world's "lingua franca" is unethical and linguistically undemocratic. You know that I am a native English speaker!
Unethical because communication should be for all and not only for an educational or political elite. English is used, at an international level, in this way, now.
Undemocratic because minority languages are under attack worldwide due to the encroachment of majority ethnic languages. Even Mandarin Chinese is attempting to dominate as well, although not yet in Europe! The long-term solution must be found and a non-national language, which would place all ethnic languages on an equal footing is long overdue.
An interesting video can be seen at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU
The argument for Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
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