All nations have right to their own language

HOWARD Gunn and Robert Ian Williams, in their letters to the Western Mail, underline, not for the first time, their inability to base their views on any facts and research on the Welsh language and education.

My career in teaching included an English part-boarding grammar school, a Heads of the Valleys English medium comprehensive school and a Welsh medium comprehensive on Mr Gunn’s doorstep. The latter consistently achieved superior results to the former in English, let alone most other subjects.

However, the most profound impact of Welsh medium education was to give all pupils opportunities to push themselves to the highest levels of cultural and competitive performance at Eisteddfodau at local, county and national levels.

Music, literature and sporting achievements at the Urdd Eisteddfod, Europe’s biggest competitive cultural event, not only produce experiences at the highest level for about 14,000 competitors each year, but also generate greatly enhanced levels of confidence, teamwork, a greatly enhanced sense of identity and achievement. They also propel many to become world figures in music and other aspects of their lives. The other schools I experienced gave nothing which could remotely match these annual linguistic and culture-enhancing outcomes.

The senior National Eisteddfod of Wales takes place at Bodedern, Ynys Môn, with not only exceptionally high levels of competition, but also staggeringly wonderful concerts each night.

Unless Messrs Gunn and Williams go to see these events for themselves, they will always wallow in profound ignorance of what is Wales’ most treasured identity – its language. All nations have a right to their own language, and each is their true DNA. No one has the right to brush aside any language or culture.

All researches into languages, and into the effects of bi, tri and more lingualism, conclude with the outcome of greatly increased cognitive development, and even the effect of fending off dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

So start learning Welsh, Messrs