Wales slams Amazon over lack of Kindle support A publisher has attacked Amazon over its failure to offer books in Welsh on the Kindle e-reading device. More than 1,500 people have also signed a petition demanding the all-conquering badboy of bookselling change its policy after the imprint attacked it in the Welsh press. Y Lolfa, a small publisher based near Aberystwyth, …
I'm ancient enough to remember when the only thing on BBC telly on (I think it was) Saturday mornings was Welsh language programmes form BBC Cymru . As a Londoner I was irritated and puzzled as to why we were being subjected to this -- later I learned about Political Correctness.
@hplash: "A BBC programme that wasn't London-centric. That must have been a shock, alright."
Indeed. It's always amused me that even shows such as the BBC News show which is about the worldwide perspective on things happening in the UK is called "Dateline London" and not something like "World View" or "Global Correspondents Report" or something; they have to get London in to the title despite it being really nothing to do with London.
And yes, I know that the international dateline runs through London.
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"As a Londoner I was irritated and puzzled as to why we were being subjected to this"
Why do so called National programmes rejoice about the great weather when it's only great in London, and put a downer on the 'really bad rain' when it's sunny and nice everywhere else.
Why are London related news items given so much more prominence on National television than those from the North, Scotland, South West, Northern Ireland and Wales?
Why are the National programmes so London centric?
As a non-Londoner, I (and I'm sure many others) are irritated and puzzled as to why we are being subjected to this.
@Jamie Jones: "As a non-Londoner, I (and I'm sure many others) are irritated and puzzled as to why we are being subjected to this."
Simple answer, more people live in the London Metropolitan Area than live in the whole of Wales, N.Ireland and Scotland combined! You may not like it but that is the hard truth. Both Welsh and Scottish programming actually get undue prominence when you consider population sizes. It is hard for some to realise that programming that appears to focus on the London area is actually relevant to upwards of 15% of the population of the entire UK.
(Note: I'm not suggesting there should be less regional programming, just trying to put things in perspective.)
@badvok 'It is hard for some to realise that programming that appears to focus on the London area is actually relevant to upwards of 15% of the population of the entire UK.'
And of no relevance to the remaining 85% of the population - but it's still forced fed to us on National TV and Radio.
@Tel Starr: "And of no relevance to the remaining 85% of the population - but it's still forced fed to us on National TV and Radio."
And if they removed any programming that wasn't relevant to more than 15% of the population there wouldn't be a lot on except a few reality TV shows and maybe the odd soap.
"Simple answer, more people live in the London Metropolitan Area than live in the whole of Wales, N.Ireland and Scotland combined! You may not like it but that is the hard truth. Both Welsh and Scottish programming actually get undue prominence when you consider population sizes. It is hard for some to realise that programming that appears to focus on the London area is actually relevant to upwards of 15% of the population of the entire UK."
I lived in London for 10 years, and hardly ever saw programmes focusing on the regions. I agree with your population statistics, but that still means that going by your figures, 85% of the National viewing population are not in London.
I could probably agree that when you count regional TV, we get more than (say) Londoners do of local programmes, but my beef was with the *nationally* orientated programmes that have presenters guffing about what an amazing day it is, then they pan to the weather, and most of the North is covered in snow, and in Wales it's raining :)
"This Morning" etc. is a big culprit of this (not that I ever watch it of course *cough*)
P.S. I'd be perfectly happy to agree with you if you said that the London regions should show more regional programmes - it's the nationals I have the beef with!
"The Welsh lobby generally make more noise than their actual size suggests."
A lot of people simply don't realise that in some parts of Wales, the Llŷn Peninsula for example, not only is the first language Welsh but a good proportion of people on Pen Llŷn have difficulties speaking English.
We have many friends on the peninsula and it's often easier for us to try to converse in Welsh than it is to have a conversation in English because after the third sentence it's back to Welsh anyway.
Sadly a lot of people who visit Wales only look at Cardiff, the South East and visit the English speaking sections. Get off the main roads and into the countryside and you will find that most of the locals speak Welsh first and foremost and, as I have said, have difficulty in speaking English.
I am not knocking those who don't understand this because, quite simply, it's never been brought to their attention. As for these figures about fewer and fewer speaking Welsh there's a lot of suspicion about these numbers but anecdotal evidence is that more are actually speaking Welsh than before For example, there are schools in the South of Wales which are now being built for Welsh speakers and ten years ago this would have been unheard of.
The Welsh language is not a tourist attraction, is certainly not dying but is a real and significan part of the way of life here in Wales and despite these 'facts and figures' issued from HMG (the same body which tried to forceable stamp it out within living memory) is strong and, more important, a core component of the Welsh culture.
And, at the and of the day, if we can stuff written in make believe languages such as Esperanto and Klingon (for Goodness' sake) and in languages from other parts of the globe then why not languages from these islands?
But if the books aren't available on Kindle, how can people buy them? Same argument as Network Rail not opening disused stations 'because nobody uses them'!
There must be a market for Welsh books as Lolfa have been in business for many years, and still publish and sell many, many Welsh books a year, as do the other Welsh-language publishers.
Costs to Amazon of allowing Welsh (and other minority language) would be peanuts, so why not?
Pen-y-gors, The cost to Amazon is only small if they don't have to create the e-book and do the proof reading.
All the Welsh publishers need to do, if they want their books to be available for the Kindle, is to supply Amazon with the books in mobi format. Until they do that I can't see Amazon setting up to proof read books in what is a niche language.
"that most of the locals speak Welsh first and foremost"
Rubbish. I've just come from living in Porthmadog, definitely Welsh language territory, and the only time you could guarantee the locals would speak Welsh is when an English person walked in the room.
You can always tell the English in Wales, they smile sometimes and don't dress like pig-sty's :)
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" the only time you could guarantee the locals would speak Welsh is when an English person walked in the room."
That old chestnut.
That's right. All native Welsh speakers choose to speak their second (and less natural) language to each other all the time, only defaulting to their first language to spite the English, who they obviously hate so much.
"That old chestnut."
Indeed, as as soon as they suspect that a Saesneg comes into their shop they quickly tear down the posters of Will Carling and quickly affix a picture of Owain Glyndwr to the walls before turning to the in-shop CD player whipping off the "Land of Hope and Glory" that's been playing and then quickly shoving on BrynTerfel's "Calon Lan".
I see it every time, you know, that I go in for a newspaper or a packet of matches.
One will find that the only time that they will speak Welsh is when they wish to converse with someone who's Welsh. It's odd that someone may wish to use their own language to talk to their fellow man.
I know Porthamdog and the shopkeeps here very well, as I do a lot of the establshments hereabouts, and I know that what the poster said a few posts ago about the shopkeepers is certainly not the norm. The only way that this may possibly have happened is if the poster went into the shop and upset the locals in some way. As an immigrant to the area I can assure you that his experience is certainly not normal.
But this is getting off-topic and, oh by the way, to respond to a third poster; Welsh is not only spoken in Wales. Again, not your fault for not knowing this but is symptomatic of the language issue; over in England a lot of falsehoods are presented as facts and when I see the number of downvotes on these threads it's simply because either people have an anti-Welsh agenda or just are plain ignorant of the facts and not realise how an important subject the language issue is.
And there are more Welsh speakers in the US, and in Patagonia, than in Wales... the former got very vocal when Bill Clinton used the verb 'to welsh' to describe a group that had reneged on a deal.
I was amused to visit the Regional Museum in Ica, Peru, to see the name Adolfo Bermudez Jenkins writ large across the entrance.
" the former got very vocal when Bill Clinton used the verb 'to welsh' to describe a group that had reneged on a deal"
All well and good, but unless it was written down the word he will have used will have been 'welch', which has nothing to do with Wales. It's similar to those idiots that get worked up about the use of the word niggardly, insisting that it's racist despite the etymology being nothing to do with race.
I'm sorry but it's absolute bollocks to say that there are any significant number of Welsh people who have difficulty with English. Welsh monolingualism has been rare since the 50s, so any that are left will be very old indeed. The best thing that those who love the Welsh language can do is to let it die with dignity instead of bleating and whinging.
By the same token, and based on percentages of speakers, the best thing the English could do is drop that impeding language called English, and all go and learn American, Simply isn't global any more, to be forced to learn a backward language when a new superset of it (American) exists.
Get used to it, other countries exist apart from England, and the dream of English imperialism is dead. Monoglot or bilingual, why should we let our language die because it might offend the English? Many English people can speak French, but do we suggest that they stop speaking English because they can speak something else? No. Let people speak what language they are comfortable speaking (or in this case reading!)
The dfference is that learning the Queen's English as a first language isn't a barrier to communicating with Americans (or Canadians, or Indians, or even Australians). Having your first language be something that is spoken by fewer people than the population of a decent sized city is.
It's great to keep a language alive, but most communities do it by creating more and more works in it, to pick up momentum. The only time I see the Welsh language is in posts complaining that various sites don't offer a version in their language.
P.S. - English imperialism is not dead, and even if it was, it's hard to blame it for killing a language (unless they killed all its speakers). There are 2 million Irish Gaelic speakers, 545 million Hindi speakers, and 18 million Malay speakers. Scots Gaelic is mostly dead, but I suspect that's because Scottish people don't care, because at the end of the day they still have to live in Scotland.
"I'm sorry but it's absolute bollocks to say that there are any significant number of Welsh people who have difficulty with English."
So, where do you get your information from? I get mine first hand from direct experience of knowing people here on the Llŷn Peninsula, so I can present this (and them too, I suppose) as fact.
Or does this experience make me out to be some sort of liar?
"A lot of people simply don't realise that in some parts of ... not only is the first language ... but a good proportion of people ... have difficulties speaking English." ... I can think of many places in England where the same is true today (including anyone under the age of 17!)
"For example, there are schools in the South of Wales which are now being built for Welsh speakers and ten years ago this would have been unheard of."
And that is a good thing? When you have English speaking parents sending their kids to these new schools, lured in by "new and shiny" facilities only to sit back and watch their children regress to cromagnon beasts who cannot converse in either language effectively. It is a stupid and puerile political agenda to push the Welsh language down our throats which ultimately will handicap the kids going to school.
There should be an entry requirement that these schools are built in areas where there is a large population where Welsh is the first language of at least one member of the household. And furthermore, entry denied to those who do not have at least one parent speaking fluent Welsh.
If this was the case, you would notice a distinct reduction in the numbers of Welsh Schools being built on the M4 corridor. I am not saying they should not be built, but built in appropriate places according to legitimate business cases on their efficacy.
> And that is a good thing? When you have English speaking parents sending their kids to these new schools, lured in by "new and shiny" facilities only to sit back and watch their children regress to cromagnon beasts who cannot converse in either language effectively.
So are you suggesting that English students learning other languages like French, German or Spanish in school will end up backwards because they should stick with the one "true" language of English? What kind of bollocks argument is that? The Welsh-speaking schools are there for parents that want their children to experience the Welsh language as well as English. It's their choice.
> It is a stupid and puerile political agenda to push the Welsh language down our throats which ultimately will handicap the kids going to school.
Who's pushing it down your throat? Is there something innately backwards about the Welsh language that regressing children somehow?
Seriously, there is an incredible amount of bizarre ire about a subject that effects practically no-one commenting in the forum. The news is some people want to learn their native language. It's really not that weird or strange.
BTW, to put right some of the bizarre facts here:
1) There are (and always have been) primarily Welsh speakers in Wales. This is not new. The language is seeing a resurgence after years of attempts to systematically eradicate the language by the English parliament.
2) The fact that you can drive there and there's no border to speak of, Wales is an entirely different country. They have different customs, language and history. You might just as well tell the French that they should speak English, love the Queen and not eat those snails for all the sense it makes.
Oh and Amazon: add the language to that drop-down selection box FFS.
In Jobs' words: Not that big a deal.
The world needs fewer languages, not more. By all means have a dead language if you want it (and this applies to any minority language, not just Welsh), but don't expect it to be supported by anyone else. It was a bleak day for improved communication when the Welsh got road-signs in their dead language, and I was appalled that it is the same in the west of Scotland ...
"They can't realistically expect Amazon to support every third world country that has some weird and virtually unused legacy dialect. Wales isn't really a proper country anyway. They don't even have a set at the UN and even Palestine managed that!"
Poor troll is poor.
Wales isn't a country. No one here has said it is. What has that got to do with anything?
... a prix-fixe-only restaurant that provides meat with every dish (chocolate dipped streaky bacon garnishing Maple/Vanilla ice cream for desert/afters ... YUMMMY!), simply because you are a vegan.
If $BigCo doesn't offer what you want, move on. Vote with your pocket-book and stop bitching about it.
Nothing of the sort, they aren't complaining about the facility to buy, it's a complaint about the facility to sell and Amazon used to put the items on the Kindle so it would be prixe-fixe only restaurant that served vegan food to go with your analogy.
Wild guess here, but the downvoters are humourless USAians who've never heard of a wallet.
Personally, the first time I heard the word "pocketbook", many years ago when I was a tad younger, I thought it was something like a small notebook. Separated by a common language.
Heard recently on an audiobook, I'm still trying to work out what a "clabbard house" is. The spelling may be wrong since I've only heard it, not seen it.
"What's a "pocket book", where do I get one and how do I vote with it it?
A place to carry money/small accessories. Wallet, purse, handbag, sporran ... pocket. Another way of saying "vote with your disposable income". Are you really unaware of this meaning?
"What language are you speaking?"
I'm not speaking. I'm typing. It's English, and in common usage. Are you really as thick as you seem to be?
It may be that the demand is so low that it would not be viable.
As welsh is only spoken in Wales and usually only when you are trying to buy something in a shop.
Unfortunately, although I agree that the Welsh language should not be allowed to die I question the ridiculous amount of money pumped into it by the tax payer to keep it alive. The viewing figures for Welsh TV are so low it has to be subsidised, any sane TV station CEO would have dropped it long ago with such low viewing figures.
Well, unless all 1000 are on the forbes rich list, I can't imagine that the spending power of the 1000 or so 40yr old vergins who have learnt klingon is greater than that of every welsh speaker.
Also if these virgins are anal enough to have learnt a fictional start trek language, how many are going to be worshipping christ? They are probably all follwers of what ever god klingons follow.
What's next? Shakespear in Romulan? LotR in elvish?
That still doesn't explain why there was a need to change the policy to stop them from being on the English store. The authors aren't asking for a Welsh only segment, most Welsh speakers are bilingual so can navigate a store in English.
Nobody's asking for special treatment, just that if Amazon will no longer put Welsh eBooks on the English Kindle store then to put in a Welsh Kindle store or more preferably go back to the previous way of doing things.
Yes they are known for being good at those two things, but I expect they're good at many more things too..
For one I am always pleased when I get a Welsh accent when I have the need to call customer support...
Compared to an adrenaline surge when I hear an Indian accent, as I begin to prepare for verbal battle and repeating myself...
Leaving aside the article treading a fine line on the border of taking the piss, and the usual insulting comments that Welsh topics generate, the issue is simply one of puzzlement. Why are Amazon, a global mega-corp whose basis for existing is selling stuff, seemingly incapable of publishing books in a language which, despite speaking numbers, is well-established and requires no special fonts?
"The number of Welsh speakers has fallen from 582,000 in 2001 to 562,000, according to the last census."
Since this is about books, we should take the number of Welsh readers, which is lower, at 431,000 (and this is self reporting, so almost certainly an overestimate). Generously, let's suppose that half of these people have a desire to read in Welsh, so much so that they would pick a Welsh title over the *many* competing titles in English, which they can also read. The best-selling book in the UK in 2012 was Fifty Shades, but that it an outlier. The next best selling is about 2m, so let's say that a given book is likely to be bought by 1 in 30. (This is an obvious wild overestimate.) We get to about 5000 copies, which is important for the author, but so irrelevant that it isn't worth Amazon employing someone to add the extra lines of code in their database.
As for minority languages like Galician, Basque and Catalan being supported, those are spoken languages, in the sense that they are the first language in their respective regions. Welsh, despite millions of funding, just isn't. You cannot compare it.
As I'm not Welsh, I couldn't care less if the language dies. Welsh speakers can jump up and down and shout at the government and private companies, but the fact of the matter is that Welsh, like may small languages, is dying in a more globalized world. Huge subsidies might delay the process but that is all.
"We get to about 5000 copies, which is important for the author, but so irrelevant that it isn't worth Amazon employing someone to add the extra lines of code in their database."
As someone who has been involved in i18n projects, I think it's very unlikely that the effort involved here is that considerable. Amazon only have to add a small premium to Welsh language books to cover it, so - whilst I agree that Welsh should not have any special subsidies, it isn't unreasonable for it to be a supported language.
As for those people who found Welsh language programmes on the telly annoying, a performance of La Traviata I once saw was utterly ruined for me by the near-stage-right presence of a signer, waving their arms and grimacing dramatically, presumably for the benefit of the small proportion of deaf people who (a) go to the opera and (b) are unable to read the surtitles. Now *that's* PC gone mad.
"I notice you can get Principia in Latin and there's not many 'deader' languages..."
There are arguably more people in the world who can *read* Latin than Welsh (think of christian churches, people in the medical sector etc) . A book seller couldn't care less whether anybody can *speak* it as long as people buy something they can read.
I was expecting to hear the national anthem of whales. What rhymes with plankton again?
You don't need to rhyme with plankton, when you've got kirll:
It's brill
To eat your fill
Of lovely krill
Or, I suppose, on a Whales in Wales theme, you could have:
Krill of Heaven, Krill of Heaven,
Feed me 'til I want no more - want no more,
Feed me 'til I want no more.
Did you read the article? It's not asking to have English literature written in Welsh, it's Welsh writers who have been selling their Welsh books on the Kindle store being told they can't do it anymore because they aren't in English and Amazon don't officially support the Welsh language.
Yes I read TFA.
Welsh speakers, just like speakers of Irish or Scots Gaelicare a tiny market and obviously not seen as viable by epublishers.
Again, like Irish or Scots Gaelic, I'd wager the number of Welsh speakers are even lower than the census figures suggest - people like to show their national pride by letting on they're fluent in x, y or z.
Downvote away... It's the truth.
BTW, Galician is mentioned in TFA, and is compared to Welsh by Mr Gruffudd. To put things in perspective 3 million people speak Galician - to a publisher that's still a tiny number of eyeballs but it's still a huge amount compared the number of people who use the Welsh language on a daily basis. 9 million people speak Catalan; again no comparison to Welsh...
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Given by the ignorance of stuff covered by the article shown in your original post, I suspect you only read the article after being called out. And you are really taking the piss or showing ignorance by implying the number of Irish Gaelic speakers is negligible and inflated.
Do you really think that there isn't also political element in speaking Galician and Basque and especially Catalan, considering the Spanish government's former attempts to eradicate the regional languages?
And you are really taking the piss or showing ignorance by implying the number of Irish Gaelic speakers is negligible and inflated.
Yes, the number of Irish speakers IS negligible. Guess know how I know?
Kids are forced to learn it in school for some unknown reason - never to be used again after leaving secondary school. The time wasted teaching kids a dead language like Irish or Welsh from the age of 4 or 5 would be much better spent teaching them German, French, Polish or some other language that would improve their job prospects.
Irish is an official EU language, unlike Scots Gaelic, but try using it in any kind of official situation like dealing with a cop, or buying your road tax and you'll soon find how dead and irrelevant it is.
You clearly didnt read the article.
Welsh speakers … are a tiny market and obviously not seen as viable by epublishers.
Y Lolfa, a small publisher based near Aberystwyth, is leading a campaign to put Cymru back on the Kindle.
Amazon won't distribute a publisher's books on the Kindle because 'Cymru' is not in their list of supported languages. They don't want to do this:
INSERT INTO kindle_supported_languages (name, iso-639-1, iso-639-2) VALUES ('Cymru', 'cy', 'cym');
and that is being dicks, given the number of other esoteric languages they do allow in there.
Amazon won't distribute a publisher's books on the Kindle because 'Cymru' is not in their list of supported languages. They don't want to do this:
INSERT INTO kindle_supported_languages (name, iso-639-1, iso-639-2) VALUES ('Cymru', 'cy', 'cym');
Here was me thinking that 'Cymraeg' is the language, and that 'Cymru' is the country...
I hope your programming skills are better than your grasp of the Welsh language.
Whinging about pedantry? You must be new here ... As for whether his point is on the money, you have no basis for that assertion; all he's done is go, "Look, I know some SQL. All they need to do is this ..." and spat out one line. Another old Reg reader habit when they think someone should do what they want.
“Wnes i ddarllen hyn mewn 5 diwrnod, doeddwn i ddim yn gally rhoi hi lawr! Werth pob ceiniog a awr! Joia pobl!”According to Google Translate, this means: “I read this in 5 days and could possibly have wished I did not put her down! Worth every penny and now! Polite people" [That can't be right].
I'm rusty, but I'd say something like:
"I read this in 5 days, and couldn't put it down. Worth every penny and more.[word that is not welsh] people"
By the way, why so much Welsh negativity? I can take a joke as can most of my fellow sheep-shaggers, but there are some not very nice undertones in some of these posts... Klingon ffs
@Pen-Y-Gos, and JustaKos: Cheers for the clarifications!
Incidentally, I grew up in the very "English [language]" South Gower. I do not natively speak Welsh, and like others, had to do it for a few years in Comprehensive School.
Not interested at all in languages, but having to take at least ONE at 'O' level (showing my age) I chose Welsh over French and German, simply because I found it easier. As it was, I failed the O level.
Growing up in this "insular" society, as a kid, Welsh was this annoying language that confused road signs, and often stole from our choice of TV channels.
It wasn't until I went to Cardiff University that I started to pay attention, as alot of the (mostly English) students would ask me if I spoke Welsh.. At the end of my time at Cardiff I was virtually fluent, through no specific learning classes.
It's at times like these, when I read the majority of posts on this topic, that I tend to brush up on it :)
It is highly problematical that a large organisation that controls the biggest selling eBook format should have the right to determine what books are sold or not sold. The cost of making the book suitable for the Kindle format is borne by the publisher. What would it cost Amazon to sell this book for the Kindle, even if it didn't sell a single copy? I would hope this is just bureaucratic sloppiness rather than anything more sinister.
@Anonymous Coward 101:
It is highly problematical that a large organisation that controls the biggest selling eBook format should have the right to determine what books are sold or not sold
They can use their distribution system as they see fit - they're not running a charity.
Nothing's stopping you writing a book, setting up your own website and looking after billing and distribution...
You can get self-published crud on Kindle but you can't get Welsh language books from an established publisher? The size of the market is irrelevant. I can understand a small independent bookseller being reluctant to keep a lot of Welsh stock, but these are eBooks and Amazon has plenty of server space. The default view that everyone should just speak English is anti-free trade. If people want to buy Welsh books on Kindle (and plainly they do as they bought them last year) then they should be permitted to do so.
Bit of a red herring - written Welsh is far more standardised than the spoken dialects, and there is no serious difficulty in comprehension for speakers, wherever they come from. There are differences between the spoken dialects in various corners of our little land, but probably rather less than between heavy-duty Glaswegian, Essex-speak and rural Devonian (and home counties plum-in-the-mouth).
Anyway, as far as publishing books goes, the author writes what the author wants to write.
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What are you trying to achieve with that, exactly? I'm sure Pen Y Groes will be impressed (or miffed; I think he's normally the one who goes for "Make a Welsh pride point by writing a post most people on the forum won't understand" and you've beaten him to it. Reminiscent of the earlier comments about Welsh people doing it to spite the English. Clap. Clap. Clap.
I wonder if Amazon's problem is to do with complaint-handling; if there's a complaint about the content of a book (eg copyright, obscenity, libel), then they will want to check over the book to make sure that complaint is valid before pulling the book. If they don't have anyone who can read Welsh, then that's going to be a problem, whereas Amazon probably does have someone who can read Klingon - at least, well enough to be able to chuck out completely groundless complaints.
It seems crazy, but you may be right. I can't think of any other practical difficulty that they might be having.
So the question then is : why can't they employ one or maybe two people at the most to do this? Are they afraid of having employees involved in something other than distribution in the UK?
"I wonder if Amazon's problem is to do with complaint-handling; if there's a complaint about the content of a book (eg copyright, obscenity, libel), then they will want to check over the book to make sure that complaint is valid before pulling the book. If they don't have anyone who can read Welsh, then that's going to be a problem, whereas Amazon probably does have someone who can read Klingon - at least, well enough to be able to chuck out completely groundless complaints."
A good point, however the Welsh assembly offer free translation services - I'm sure they'd also do free checks if there's a complaint, as you suggest.
There are already ties between Amazon and Wales with the HUGE distribution centre in Swansea... Ok, so it may be "just a big warehouse" but you can bet that channels were open between the Welsh assembly and amazon prior to this being built.
"There are already ties between Amazon and Wales with the HUGE distribution centre in Swansea... Ok, so it may be "just a big warehouse" but you can bet that channels were open between the Welsh assembly and amazon prior to this being built."
Yeah - if they're the same as in the North those ties were "Here - have a big grant to build a warehouse so you can employ our constituents for a lower wage than you would pay anywhere else in Britain."
I think it's closer to: "I read this in 5 days, couldn't put her down! Worth every penny and hour! Enjoy people!"
As many of the commenters have said, all the publishers want is a means of categorising their already existing e-books as Welsh, with just another category entry. Which Amazon say they're working on, splendid.
Currently there are Welsh publishers (including Y Lolfa, Gomer etc) who have Welsh language books in print. Many, many books. What they wish to do is offer these EXISTING Welsh books as ebooks on kindle, which is probably the most widely known epublishing platform, which they can't do since Amazon has stopped them submitting them as English titles, but not allowing them to be submitted as Welsh.
There's no call for a subsidy, no call for translating existing books or any of the other nonsense that some commentards have been complaining about. Simply access, at standard terms, to a publishing platform.
"There's no call for a subsidy, no call for translating existing books or any of the other nonsense that some commentards have been complaining about. Simply access, at standard terms, to a publishing platform."
Then they should set one up themselves. Apparently it's all the rage on the Internet, you know ... Actually, I'm surprised Cymdeithas Yr Iaith hasn't set something up for them, since they're recommending that Welsh authors move towards other platforms. But then Cymdeithas is probably too tied up putting their little stickers up wherever they see English in public life.
Other than the lawsuit/libel explanation given earlier I can see no reason why they can't add a new language option. So as an interim workaround why don't they publish the books as another non-English language?
E.g - Does amazon allow 'old english/anglo-saxon' language books (e.g. Beowulf)? If so what language are they classed as, and maybe Welsh could use that. If not then use Klingon.
Would Amazon know the difference? Would anybody know the difference (joke).
Just make sure that the title or cover has a clue to the fact that it is Welsh (discrete sheep/rugby ball/mt snowdon on the cover or a picture of the beautiful Pembrokeshire coastline)
They shouldn't have to do this though - sort it out Amazon
PS. I am not, never have been, and have no intention of ever being Welsh and.or speaking/reading Welsh - but support the protection of heritage (or more correctly I object to the blocking of the ability of Welsh to protect their own heritage)
... so that Cymraeg is treated in the same way as Breton or Catalan (or Manx or Kernowek).
Welsh is most certainly spoken in the Americas - think Thomas Jefferson/Pennsylvania, USA and Patagonia, Argentina.
The biggest irony is, of course, that Amazon have a major distribution centre located just off the M4 in Swansea/Abertawe - and I'm pretty sure there was a 'development grant' for them to do this from the WAG.
"Consistency would be appreciated
... so that Cymraeg is treated in the same way as Breton or Catalan (or Manx or Kernowek)."
Why do you use the Welsh name in an English sentence? That usage is more what I'd expect from the rabid types posting on Betsan's blog on the BBC News site, and goes against your own consistency request.
"The biggest irony is, of course, that Amazon have a major distribution centre located just off the M4 in Swansea/Abertawe - and I'm pretty sure there was a 'development grant' for them to do this from the WAG."
I made the "grant" point myself before reading your post, but there's no irony. Going by my dictionary, irony involves contradiction. All Amazon did was plonk down wherever they were given the highest bribe (factoring in what level of wages they could expect to pay), and there's nothing to contradict there.
> Why do you use the Welsh name in an English sentence? That usage is more what I'd expect from the rabid types posting on Betsan's blog on the BBC News site, and goes against your own consistency request.
Because he wanted to? Were you trying to make some kind of point?
It's bordering on the ad hom which, like sarcasm, is the tool of the ignorant.
Why is it that all their road signs are in Welsh too?
It's a diabolical plot to kill the evil saes!
there are loads of un gated level crossings in darkest wales - each of which is preceeded by the bilingual sign explaining what it is, and how it works and what to do in the case of an emergency. in welsh first!
now given welsh is an aincient tongue - so aincient indeed that words for new technologies have to be imported from other tongues - 'radio transistor' from the english (you have to say it with the accent) and fenester from the latin (i shit you not - welsh is older than windows, glass ones that is) so you can imagine the kind of essay you end up with trying to writh the level crossing warning.
consequently the saes never get as far as the bit they understand, and <hopefully> get hit by a train
Wosa an nowodhow da a-dro dhe'n kynsa lyver Kindle yn Kernewek, my a wayt Amazon a wra dalleth dyllo lyvrow yn lies yeth usyes le. Nyns eus travyth a wra Sowson dhe dhos ha bos serrys avel skoodhyans rag an yethow Keltek a Vreten Veur...
(After the good news about the first Kindle book in Cornish, I hope Amazon will start to publish books in many lesser-used languages. There is nothing that makes the English become angry like support for the Celtic languages of Great Britain...)
I know what you mean (I'm English) - but there are different things that make people angry. Some get angry at the expense of having to translate things into Welsh etc (government sites) for which they may have a point. But this is not about that, and no English should get angry about this other than anger with Amazon.
Even if Welsh died out as a living language there would still be a need for people to study it (as people today study old English or Latin). Printed books are being replaced with e-books so where will the documented material be in the future?.
Technology is not just a way to progress but also provides us with a better way to record history. If publishers start not allowing 'dead' languages in e-books (just by not having a section for them) then what will be used in the future for historical research? Where will students go to get the material? The library (if there are any left). And that is even if Welsh dies out - which it may or may not do.
So yes, I'm English and angry - but not with the Celtic language supporters in this case - but with Amazon.
Many years ago whilst living in Wales we had a party and a man recited a poem in Welsh.
Even though I could not understand it I felt that it was somehow moving. I asked what the poem was about and was told that it was a yearning for something so ancient that it had been forgotten what the yearning was for.
Quite magical, anyone know the name of the poem?
Not much to go on, and I'm no student of Welsh poetry, but the poem discussed here : ‘Cofio’ gan Waldo Williams; ‘Remembering’ seems to fit the bill.
could fail to appreciate all this whining and whinging about the electronic publication of the text of what is, above and beyond all else an aural language that has only been nailed to a page for 1500 years or so! (which is about 1/3 of it's history i think) - and then grievously fucked about to fit latin/english letter frequencies.
I don't even know what your point is? Only been nailed to a page for 1500 years? What? Do you mean it's too 'young'? What are you trying to say? Irony - where?
The version of English you are using, very badly by the way, in your comment has only been 'nailed to a page' for 600 years - and even since then it has gone through quite a substantial change - so this affects whether Amazon should have a section for it how, exactly?
The only irony is that you seem not to be able to use a modern language to clearly make a point about how useless old languages are. Perhaps you should try writing in Welsh to see if it's better.
"Why does the Welsh language attract such hatred from people (mainly English) who don't speak it?"
It's probably not the language as such, but the way that the Welsh speak about the English when it comes up. Doesn't matter what your attitude to the Welsh or the language is, you'll always be a bastad Sais and personally responsible for the Welsh being conquered. The English are simply responding in kind.
'Responding in kind', you say? Looking back over the comments there are plenty which are just gratuitously hostile (eg "Cast off your dribble-soaked language"), whereas the pro-Welsh comments tend to be civilised in the face of such nastiness.
This issue only matters to those who would like to be able to buy Welsh-language e-books from Amazon, and the cure to the problem would not affect anyone else. So why the hostility?
If you've had the misfortune to meet the sort of Welsh tosser who would see you only as a "bastad saes", then you have my sympathy. But we're not all like that, any more (I hope) than the examples present here represent all English.
My anger comes from the sheer inefficiency of supporting more languages than are really needed in the world, and resuscitating ones that are dying just beggars belief. We need to move towards fewer languages to improve communication, not more. (I have this argument with my wife, whose native language is even less useful than Welsh, but not often - have you ever tried telling a Czech that the country's founders would have been better off sticking with German* instead of forcibly re-introducing a language that few people other than the nationalist academics spoke?)
However, I am honest enough to admit to myself that part of it is that many of these zombie languages are a) politically motivated, and when it comes to Welsh especially I don't see any justification for it, and b) they are often totally lacking in aesthetic appeal (Czech is awful, and Welsh and the other Gaelic languages aren't much better). Someone else used the term "spittle-flecked", and it sums it up nicely for me - if a language sounds like you are hawking up a mouthful of spit, then I hear someone doing just that, and it is offensive to me.
*Remember the modern Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia derives from the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the official language was German until about 1922, so I'm not referring to WW2.
Then I suggest you start writing in American English, why support more than one way of spelling, very inefficient, having to maintain more than one language on a spell checker. I also suggest you don't take a holiday or attempt to broaden your horizons in any way just in case you become offended.
I was born in London, but moved to Wales shortly before beginning my adult career in IT. Where I work, in South Wales, I am surrounded by the very live and kicking Welsh language every day. It is used interchangeabley with English by nearly everyone, and I know of no one in this organisation who cannot speak English, though I know one or two who choose not to.
Over the many years I have been living and working here I have come to develop a deep and profound fondness for the the Welsh language, its people and its culture; indeed I refer to myself as Welsh rather than English (both coming a second place to being British, of course) and when challenged I often like to say "English by Birth, Welsh by the Grace of God" or "I got here as fast as I could, what more do you want?" - always this is a point of humour and never a derogatory thing.
The Welsh language is truly ancient, predating Latin and most other western languages by several centuries. It is the oldest known written language in the UK and possibly the oldest in Europe. It was violently suppressed during the "Dark Ages" by English Kings (such as Edward II, Longshanks) and that is amongst the reasons it is less widely spoken now than it might be; similarly with the tongue of "Kernow", under which language books apparently are published on Amazon/Kindle. I am told that the number of speakers of Kernow (the cornish tongue) now number in the dozens. Even Microsoft recognise the Welsh Language in windows and we have a conversion kit that translates (almost) all of Windows into Welsh as well as many applications and related features.
To allow the Welsh language to fade is to allow another slice of British history, culture and art to disappear and that, I believe, diminishes us all as a nation.
For that reason, even being a "saes", I have chosen to learn the Welsh language as best I can, and it's a delight to be able to converse in it in my day to day work.
Diolch yn fawr am ddarllen hon!
Im wondering if Amazon worry that the next demand will be Welsh as an option in all the ui dialogs, payment pages etc and are just nipping it in the bud to save the effort in the future.
Having suffered Welsh tv for most of my childhood, I have no love for it really, s4c`s tv output really was shit compared to the proper channel 4, the Welsh always seemed to replace the good English programs with shit Welsh ones (I used to suspect on purpose). Theres only so many eisteddfod`s, awful duel language chat shows and news broadcasts (where the presenter always speaks welsh, but the person being interviewed sometimes answers in english for some bizzare reason) and bloody choirs one can put up with.
Before s4c it was even worse, all the channels were Welsh. I seem to recall English kids programs being dubbed into Welsh on BBC1.
There was a survey done a while back that estimated that some welsh tv shows had no viewers whatsoever, theres a great use of taxpayers money eh?
The rest of your post would have had more value if you hadn't have written "s4c`s tv output really was shit compared to the proper channel 4, the Welsh always seemed to replace the good English programs with shit Welsh ones (I used to suspect on purpose)."
Back then, I wasn't too bothered because I could get English Ch4 also - but to think that S4C would deliberately replace the popular programmes (and hence the ones that would bring in the greatest ad revenue) is ridiculous. It *maybe* true that popular programmes were left out due to cost reasons etc, but to think that S4C would purposely attack their revenue just to piss off people like you is paranoid in the extreme,.
" but to think that S4C would purposely attack their revenue just to piss off people like you is paranoid in the extreme"
I was sort of joking, although the welsh stuff was quite heavily subsidised and I get the feeling that the people who push welsh programming put the language`s exposure higher than revenue(see the surveys that showed how low/non existent viewing figures are). I have so many memories of friends at school raving about some cool program or film they saw on channel 4 the previous night, but not me, it was either replaced with some utter shite welsh choir/farming/chat/`culture` thing, or broadcast at the most inconvienient time, sometimes weeks later, or sometimes never.
It rained.
On a separate note, perhaps one of the Yanks at Amazon ran a book through a English to Welsh translator and got back a stream of vowels that made less sense than Klingon, thought it had buggered up and gave it up as a bad effort. He then went onto translating it into a more useful language, like Esperanto or Latin.
I was brought up in Wales. Most of the locals were first-language speakers, and Welsh was compulsory in the same league as English - Welsh grammar exams, Welsh lit. exams. Primary school was completely in Welsh, and lots of my secondary school lessons were in Welsh too. In order to learn (anything) I had to be sent away to a Welsh learning school for a few terms.
It's a bit silly, really.
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