Woman speaking Welsh in Wales told to stop speaking 'foreign muck'

A woman was confronted after speaking Welsh to her daughter in a shop
Getty Images
Harriet Pavey11 September 2017

A woman was told to stop speaking "foreign muck" as she spoke to her daughter in Welsh – in Wales.

Elin Jones, 32, was talking to her one-year-old daughter in a shop when she was asked by another woman why she wasn’t speaking in English.

Ms Jones, who is a Plaid Cymru town councillor, was confronted by the stranger on Saturday. She had been explaining to her daughter about the food on the shelves in Welsh.

After tweeting about the experience, her post went viral, gathering more than 11,000 retweets.

Ms Jones, from Lampeter in Ceredigion, South West Wales, said she corrected the woman.

“I think I was pretty calm about the situation to be honest,” she told WalesOnline.

“I said to her ‘I think you are misunderstood – I am speaking Welsh to my children’.

“But she turned on her heels and walked away. She didn’t even try and justify what she had said.

“Wales and the UK is a multicultural country and I love that about it in general and we should be far more accepting.”

Ms Jones, who said she has been told to “go back to your own country” when speaking Welsh in the past, later tweeted a picture with her daughter Elena, who she is hoping to bring up as bilingual.

She told WalesOnline: “Our home is bilingual and the children learn it in school too. I’m a first-generation Welsh speaker as my grandparents are from the London area.

“I have always been in Welsh education and they are always really proud that I speak Welsh. I wanted to follow that through in my children too.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in