Thread - At the weekend I was in a brilliant Italian cafe in Edinburgh enjoying an Italian breakfast and reading the paper, when I could not help but overhear a very loud unfiltered conversation a bawhair away at the table right next to our own. (1)
It was between two British middle aged males, with broad London / south English voices. It was loud enough for me to understand one of the British men had moved to Scotland during the pandemic and the other was visiting him. (2)
The British man who had moved to this country was telling the other that the "nationalists" were "teaching Rabbie Burns dialect in the schools now" and "putting Gay-lick on the police cars and ambulances even in areas where <nobody speaks the language>, and it is pointless". (3)
He laughed that "Gaelic words are just English words with different letters added to make it look different - POILEAS - haha" and how "local dialect is useless in schools, it's basically slang" and it's "all a waste of tax payers money"... (4).
.... and "schools should be teaching science and technology and not wasting tax money on Rabbie Burns' dialect". (5)
It didn't stop there. These two Brits then went on to loudly discuss their opinion about Welsh people and their language and how they visited every summer and "the majority of Welsh don't speak Welsh" but they are "forcing children to learn it in schools"... (6)
and that it was "pointless" and Scotland shouldn't copy Wales. And then he said that when he had visited Wales during the covid pandemic "the Welsh had forced us to wear masks in pubs and shops just cause we were English". (7)
I then heard the visiting British man say that "we should cut the Scots and Welsh off at the knees and let them pay their own bills, no more subsidies, see how they do". (8)
Where does this sneering, bigoted contempt for non-monoglot, non-Anglophone British culture in these islands come from? Why is it so threatening to monoglot Anglophone Brits? #Scots #Scotland #Gaelic
PS I never engaged in any dialogue with these bigots, I just left ASAP.
But I wonder, would anybody have spoken to them and challenged their views? If so, what would you have said to them?
But I wonder, would anybody have spoken to them and challenged their views? If so, what would you have said to them?
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