Aug 28 2009
Keeping Welsh Spoken In Patagonia
 Pic: Wikipaedia |
The Welsh Assembly Government has further signalled its commitment to the Welsh language by announcing that the Welsh language project in Patagonia is to continue for a further three years.
Announcing that the project will continue until 2012 whilst meeting a group of Welsh Language students from Patagonia over breakfast, the Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones said: "I’m pleased to announce that we have been able not only to continue funding this unique and worthwhile project to maintain the Welsh language in Argentina, but we have also been able to provide a small increase in funding." |
The Welsh language project in Patagonia is an initiative funded by the Welsh Assembly Government to boost and sustain the Welsh language in the Chubut Province of Patagonia in Argentina. The project will receive £162,000 over the next 3 years, increase of £21k over the previous three-year period.
The Minister added: "There are strong historical and cultural links between Wales and Chubut and these links enrich both sides. This project helps to keep those links strong and has had considerable success in raising the profile of the Welsh language in the province. I hope that the co-operation with Menter Patagonia to provide opportunities to socialise through the medium of Welsh will further advance the prominence of the language in its South American home."
Isaias Grandis, one of the students friom Chubut studying Welsh at Cardiff University over the summer, said: "The Welsh language is an important part of our identity in Chubut. More people want to learn the language now than ever before and this project will be a great help to developing that"
The programme to support the Welsh language in Patagonia has been running since 1997. The project allows for the secondment of teachers to key target communities, the development of native teachers, the establishment of structured courses and the promotion of Welsh language activities.
The project is managed for the Welsh Assembly Government by the British Council, in collaboration with the Wales-Argentina Society and the Welsh for Adults Centre – Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff University.
And all this just after two students who’d come to Wales from Pategonia to learn Welsh were turned away by immigration authorities at Heathrow for “not having a good enough reason to be here”… The assembly can do what it wants, we still have problems with those in England who are rather less supportive of our culture and language. I’m sure if they’d come to learn English the story would have been different…
Bendithion i bawb islaw’r deri,
~CalonDdraig
I live in a part of Pennsylvania that was settled by the Welsh; many of our placenames are Welsh, and the main branch of the library in my county has a number of old books in Welsh. Unfortunately, it’s completely died out here; I’m probably the only person in my county with any knowledge of Welsh, and I only started learning it in my twenties.
So anyway, I think it’s awesome what they’re doing.
I think the legacy you have with the Welsh place-names is superb – and it is a great shame that there are not more Welsh speakers around.
I, for one, could do with teacher in my home-town