Rejected petition Road signs, recorded phone messages, SMS messages should be in English first
All, if not the vast majority of the population of Wales speaks and understands the English language, whereas considerably fewer speak or understand the Welsh language. It makes no sense that the Welsh language takes precedence in many situations. Us non Welsh speakers, despite being born and raised in Wales are being made to feel like strangers in our own country!
More details
The UK Government tested an emergency alert at 3pm recently. It was first read in Welsh before in English. We had to wait for the English translation to be read. That minute or so could make all the difference in a life-threatening situation. English should be first in any correspondence from the Welsh Government.
Putting Welsh on road signs above English is a safety hazard as non Welsh speaking drivers have to spend more time looking at the road sign to find the language they can understand. Not only are most Welsh drivers unable to understand Welsh but visitors can't understand it either.
With regards to automated phone answering systems, non Welsh-speaking people have to spend longer on the phone call waiting for the language they understand to be read out. This not only runs up their phone bill/waste their phone allowance but could mean they have to hang up if they do not have long to dedicate to the call.
We call on the Welsh Government to pass new legislation which would enable this to happen.
Why was this petition rejected?
It did not collect enough signatures to be referred to the Petitions Committee.
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