MP wants Welsh text on ID cards

Get to the back of the queue...

I asked for Klingon before you...

Welsh

The ID card may as well be written it Welsh. It makes no bloody sense anyway!

What about Cornish, Scots Gaelic, Erse, Chinese, and Polish?

Subject says all.

Brilliant

So now we just need campaigns for the cards to have Cornish, Scots Gaelic, Irish and Ulster Scots too and they might just have to forget the whole thing. Or make them A3.

Not straightforward?

Of course it's straightforward: forget about identity cards.

French!

I'm sure I hadn't heard it was going to have French text up to now.

Paris, well I'm sure you could make your own joke...

Wy French?

The Welsh, living in GB, have a better case for their language - we probably have more Poles than French if you want to be friendly to minorities or foreigners.

Equal Validity?

Of course Welsh doesn't have equal validity, especially not outside Wales. I don't want that on any card of mine, ID or otherwise. What a waste of space. I'm not keen on the French, but at least more than 10 people speak that

ummm....wha?

"...using Welsh on identity cards would send a clear message that the language has equal validity with English. "

Rather funny that..surely that's not the case!? What a waste of extra ink! I suppose we should stick Gaelic as well, as well as all of the other UK national languages (if there are any others, that is) ?

pfft

More of this!

Before long we'll need to have a Gaelic version as well- and one in Cornish. By the time they've finished it'll be the size of a small paperback book. I'd also suggest Huttese or a similar language as Jedi is one of the larger religions in this country.

Sod the Frogs, just go for an English-only version. Welsh has an equal validity to English, fair enough. And I understand some welsh speakers don't speak english. But surely both of them could learn? I mean it IS the official language of the UK and the widest-spoken language in the world.

Saying that, I would - if they had the facility to do this- accept a choice of langauges being available when you get the card. English as a set one, French as another set one as its also pretty widely spoken.

Choice of third- maybe Spanish or something similar if you've got family there- or portugal/brazil/mexico/etc. Or Welsh if you're Welsh. Huttese if you're Jedi.

Why not Cornish or phonetic Geordie?

Wales isn't even a country (it's a Principality before anyone queries it), so why should it get any special treatment? I've lived there and it's mainly a depressing place. I hope they don't want the ID cards to be the size of credit cards, as there's only so much readable text you can fit in a small area (lets wait for the disability PC bunch to say that all text must be at least size 16 font for the visually impared). Also, if the wording it's going to truely represent the Welsh language, the card should be covered in phlegm!

Currently sitting back and waiting for my house to be fire bombed!

Does anyone speak Welsh.....

...who does not also speak English?

Although I have no proof of knowledge on the subject, I am willing to bet that everybody who speaks Welsh also speaks English, making Welsh one big waste of money.

Have they really thought this whole ID card thing through?

As if the IT aspects of the ID card plan weren't already a lot of badly thought out shite. They haven't thought any of it through at all, have they?

French is a language on the card? How strange. Maybe we're going to hire a lot of French police to help run the scheme.

I'd like to be the first to welcome our new garlic fixated overlords.

Would anyone notice?

With all those L's, most people would mistake it for a bar code anyway.

I'm from lancashire...

So I want mine written in lancashire speak!

Urdu?

I would put serious money on it that there are more British citizens speaking Urdu as their first language than Welsh - should we put that on as well?

As for French - why?

If it needs to be multilingual then it should be in Spanish not French. The French are always just desperate to persuade someone to speak it.

Either way I don't much care what goes on it - I have no intention of carrying one whatever language it's in.

Ach-y-fi

C^u nenie tie-c^i parolas Esperanton?

Re: "Wales is no more a country that Yorkshire."

True, everyone knows Yorkshire is a republic.

Easy solution...

Discard all human readable text. Just stick on a photo, a chip, and a nice large 2D barcode :)

The computers at places the card is needed should be able to translate it into whatever language the operator uses.

Or, if you must have human readable text, name & relevant numbers / dates.

Wherever the dates are placed on the card, most people should be able to work out the earliest of the three is the holder's DOB, the latest date the "Valid to" date, and the one in between the "Valid from" date.

Alternatively, use pictograms for labels - that'll make 'em readable by those with learning difficulties.

And if you want to increase popularity, use some of the space saved to allow the holder to specify an addition graphic from a range, e.g. a flag of the bit of the world they identify with most. After all, if credit card companies think giving the user a choice of 8 different card designs will encourage them to take up the offer of their brand's card, surely the government could use the same principle for ID cards...

Alternatively, make them round, shiny and black/white so they have street cred (like practically anything from Apple...)

Or even make the ID card number part of the cryptographic key for DRM / WGA, so you can't buy any digital music / M$ products without one...

@spam

a carrot on so many levels?

The only language we need...

...is "F*ck wacky Jacqui" in large red letters.

Not that it really matters, the microwave will render it inoperative immediately irrepsective of whatever crap they put on it.

@Sarah

"Yes. We should make many, many arcane demands for ID cards and insist we won't accept them unless they are made suitable for the Welsh, the colour-blind and the synaesthetic alike. Maybe they'll eventually scrap them on the basis that they can't afford that much card."

Aha, loathe as I am to nit-pick, your error there is that THEY will be paying for the card. Of course, WE will be paying for it. And axiomatic in Government is that the public's pockets are bottomless and can be picked with impunity. So yes, we'll get A2-sized cards with Welsh, Urdu, Kad'k and probably even Klingon on them.. but will be voluntarily compulsorily charged a privacy-enhancing £500 each for them. It's for your own good, Citizens!

(can we have a "down with the government" icon, please?)

Provincial pride?

Surely the choice of languages used on the card is nothing to do with what the individual prefers, but decided by the the requirements of those in authority that are going to need to access it? English and French, because the vast majority of European authorities will speak one or the other.

Why on earth would an identity card need to be a source of national pride and personal self-expression?

Hmmm...

How thin could they make a functioning, credit-card sized, e-ink-style display?

Since they're already talking about having biometrics on a chip on the card, they could probably code in any number of languages for the small amount of text that they'd need for the "Name:", "DOB:", etc. descriptor fields and make the language displayed user-selectable.

...Plus, since the display manufacturers would clearly have to ramp up production to meet the eager public's insatiable demand (Excuse me while I remove my tongue from my cheek...!) for these truly "smart" cards , it should bring their price down -- making e-book readers, sub-notebook-sized e-notebooks, e-journals, and e-sketchbooks mass-market commodity items!

Everybody wins!

...Well... unless you don't want national ID cards, of course. Then, you're just screwed.

Dead

Welsh - A dead language spoken only in Welsh schools, local government offices and the more remote regions of Patagonia. (Speaking AS a Welshman!)

ID Cards - An idea that needs to be dead real soon now.

How about this instead

Instead of this, how about the 20 people in Wales who can only speak Welsh actually get off their arses and learn the fucking national language.

The immediate advantage of this is that those people will suddenly be able to watch something other than S4C of an evening.

The longer-term advantage is that the Welsh National Assembly can save millions of pounds in completely wasted money every year translating every single thing into a language that has no more modern validity than Latin.

Instead of an ID card with foreign languages on it...

I would like chips for tea.

It's simple

The cards could be issued with any language on them. Let people request what they want at the time of issue/application.

But, if you are stopped by the police, customs, immigration, mothers against normal people activists, RSPCA, etc., your interview must be conducted in the language that the card is printed in. If this means that the card holder has to wait hours and hours while an interpreter is found, so be it.