What is the reason that Wales is still the poorest region in UK?

What does it matter what language you speak? It's about communicating, not how you communicate, although the more words in a language the more choice you have in how you communicate. Also, Welsh language road signs? Just call the towns and cities whatever the residents want them to be called/spelt. It doesn't need two names.

I just think things should be done for practical purposes rather than invoking nationalism.

Bit rich coming from an English nationalist... So if over let's say 50 years, a community in England became solely Punjabi speaking you'd like their road signs to be purely in Punjab?

What practical purpose would putting any road signs in Punjbi have?

Well you did say "Just call the towns and cities whatever the residents want them to be called/spelt" - so by your logic if the locals in a town wanted their signs in Punjabi then that'd be fine.

Also you'll find even if people do primarily speak English, they'll incorporate Welsh names and words and even the tone/pattern of Welsh into their daily speech. It's not as if we're forced to choose one or the other here in Wales, plenty of people use a hybrid daily. I spent 3 years living in England and I loved coming home and hearing people use words like cwtch.

One of my favourite words ever! Automatically reminds me of home

Well you did say "Just call the towns and cities whatever the residents want them to be called/spelt" - so by your logic if the locals in a town wanted their signs in Punjabi then that'd be fine.

Also you'll find even if people do primarily speak English, they'll incorporate Welsh names and words and even the tone/pattern of Welsh into their daily speech. It's not as if we're forced to choose one or the other here in Wales, plenty of people use a hybrid daily. I spent 3 years living in England and I loved coming home and hearing people use words like cwtch.

The residents of a town call their town whatever they wish, and that name be the one printed on all road signs, I didn't say residents of a town should change all the roadsigns into any random language because they want to. That would be retarded thinking to try and mask my point.

Men attain wealth to attract women in order to mate.
Sheep do not need wealth in order to wish to mate, merely a caressing touch and a show of tenderness.
Men in Wales prefer sheep to women.
Ergo, no need to attain wealth.

You can thank me later.

You're not. You need to be able to kick a ball around quite well too.

OK fine, so have the town be a Punjabi name which would potentially be something an English speaking person who lives there couldn't pronounce. All Wales has done is make the whole place accessible to all Welsh people, not just those who's primary language is English. Why force people who's first language is Welsh to read in English when they're more comfortable doing so in their first language? Both English and Welsh are official languages and so both should be used.?

Alright then, so perhaps we should leave Welsh to the dogs and let the global culture-sucking English language finish the job it started when the Saxons first got to this island.

While we're at it, the Icelanders can forget about Icelandic too. They all speak perfect English and they can only speak Icelandic to 300,000 people who all speak English, that's even less than Welsh.

The 2004 Welsh language survey found that no more than 27,720 people were fluent daily welsh users (I assume first language speakers would need to be both) so the number of people inconvenienced would be around 0.04% of UK population. Seems like a lot of money (though the welsh government refuses to disclose how much) to spend on 0.04%. For the record that's 0.9% of the population of wales.

Am actually in the midst of trying to compile a paper on this topic. Anyone else ever wonder why Wales is still the poorest region in UK?

This region was once the largest producer of coal, it is still one of the largest area for agriculture in the Kingdom, it is for the most part one of the best areas for tourism with some of the cleanest beaches in all of EU. Despite billions of pounds of EU money being invested, there is still relatively little to show. Even with the current Barnett Formula of allocation of finances, it still remains economically depressed.

During the boom times of the 90s and 00's much of UK had a housing boom with many homes going up as much as 250% even in areas that weren't exactly "rich" but somehow this boom largely bypassed Wales.

Birmingham, often thought as the area that is going through a decline due to the disappearance of heavy industries isn't really poor per say.

20 years ago, there were 2 Germanys, one was one of the richest countries in the world, the other was among the poorest countries in Europe, average wage of an East German was around a quarter of that of a West German, much of DDR was in industrial decline and for the most part there wasn't a working market economy. Today living standards in the former DDR is almost the same as someone from the East, very likely if you drive a new BMW 3 series, chances are it was assembled in a factory that is in Leipzig, a city of the former DDR, Leipzig has one of the best research universities in the world.

Wonder why Wales despite devolution has yet to show any real sign of improvement despite starting from a significantly better position.

Wrexham

'nuff said

The decline of the larger industries such as coal mining and whatnot probably played a big part.

And for all those denouncing the Welsh Language - you should be proud of it, and I think it's wonderful that the country has managed to bring back in a big way, a dying language. There are an increasing number of young people that speak it with some fluency and as the statistics show, around 12% of people speak it fluently. The compulsory education of young people doesn't take away from any other subjects - it simply enriches the curriculum. The Welsh curriculum was revamped in 2009 and it's fantastic that Welsh is an important and intergral part of it - with 'incidental' welsh being focussed on especially - ie using it integrally, little and often in classroom situations. This means pupils soak up the language as part of their speech, rather than it being forced so much. At least this is all true in Primary, I don't know about secondary.
It is a real advantage to speak Welsh. Welsh businesses cry out for Welsh speakers, and therefore educating young people in it for as long as possible is very important and should not be dismissed.

Most of us are very proud of the Welsh language, you always get one or two ignorant English-speakers who complain about 'how much money is spent on teaching the language in schools' yet fail to complain about the amount of money spent on compulsory religious education or physical education.

A difference of opinion doesn't make someone ignorant.

Also, I'd apply the same logic to RS and PE. Like Welsh, I think they should be dropped after age 14 unless the student wants to continue in those subjects. I just haven't brought it up because the discussion has been about Welsh.