Mother teaching Welsh to daughter in Wales told by stranger to stop speaking ‘foreign muck’

Elin Jones was teaching her daughter Elena how to say different food items in a shop when she was interrupted

Elin Jones was with her baby Ellen in a shop in Lampeter, Ceredigion in Wales (Twitter/Elin T Jones)

A mother who was teaching her baby Welsh words in a shop in Wales was furious when she was told to cut out that “foreign muck” and speak English.

Elin Jones was pointing out food on different shelves and explaining to her one-year-old daughter Elena how to say each item in the native tongue.

But she was shocked when a customer interrupted her and told her the language, which she apparently believed was from abroad, wasn’t welcome.

Ms Jones, 32, said she tried to educate the woman in the store in Lampeter, Ceredigion that she was speaking Welsh – but the woman “turned on her heels” and walked away.

Afterwards, she tweeted: “Just got asked by a lady in a shop why I don't speak English and not foreign muck to my baby. I was speaking Welsh. In Wales.”

She later told WalesOnline: “I think I was pretty calm about the situation to be honest.

“I said to her ‘I think you are misunderstood – I am speaking Welsh to my children’.

“But she turned on her heels and walked away. She didn’t even try and justify what she had said.”

She added: “Wales and the UK is a multicultural country and I love that about it in general and we should be far more accepting.”

Ms Jones said her parents made a point of teaching her Welsh as a child and she wanted to pass the language on to her own family.

“I have always been in Welsh education and they are always really proud that I speak Welsh,” she said. “I wanted to follow that through in my children too.”

Ms Jones' tweet on Saturday was shared more than 2,000 times and given more than 3,500 likes.

She said: “It’s gone a bit ridiculous to be honest. I put it on Twitter last night and I checked my account this morning and was a bit shocked!

“It’s in a good way though, we should be promoting tolerance towards all.”

Her shock came weeks after the BBC came under fire after current affairs programme Newsnight hosted a debate on the Welsh language, asking if it was “a help or hindrance to the nation?”.

Critics hit out that the broadcaster showed “a lack of research, lack of suitable guests” and there was a “pattern of belittling and disparaging Wales and the Welsh language by the BBC”.