A confession

Tweet In the light of Farage’s comments last week about feeling uncomfortable in a train hearing other languages being spoken around him, I have a confession to make.  I’m afraid that it’s not entirely unknown for me to speak Welsh on a train, even when travelling outside Wales.  I suppose it’s possible that if he’d thought about the matter for more than 30 seconds, Farage might be prepared in principle to make exceptions for the non-English native languages of these islands.  But somehow I doubt it – anything non-English seems to be ‘foreign’ to him – and anyway, I doubt that he’d know the difference between Welsh and a dozen other languages.  But as far as I know, I’ve never been on the same train as him, so I guess that I’ve not offended him directly.  Not yet, anyway.

It is, though, an incredible thing to get offended by.  Apart from anything else, how does he know whether those speaking in foreign languages are immigrants or tourists?  As he says, it’s far from uncommon on trains in London, in particular, to hear many different languages being spoken – but whether that’s a result of what he would perceive to be a failure of immigration policy or what others would see as a success of tourism policy is not a question which can be easily answered just on the basis of sight and sound.

I can understand why it is considered reasonable that people settling in a country should be expected to learn its language, but not why the use of that learned language should be made obligatory in all aspects of their lives including private conversations on trains.  (Although why it’s considered racist to suggest the same thing in relation to Welsh in the Welsh-speaking parts of Wales is something which has long eluded me.  And what Farage’s reaction would be to any demand that English migrants to the Dordogne or the Costas should be compelled to learn French or Spanish is an interesting question.)

A negative reaction to people who choose to use a language other than English to speak to each other – wherever they may be – has more to do with paranoia or xenophobia than rational thought.  But then, appealing to xenophobia is what he’s about.