People in Wales spotted a Welsh-language blunder on the armageddon-style emergency alert sent out by the UK government on Sunday afternoon. It was the first time the UK had tested one of the alerts.
Just before 3pm, everyone with a compatible smartphone received a test alert, which is intended to warn the public about life-threatening situations including flooding and wildfires. People saw a message flash up on their phone as a notification, accompanied by a siren sound and a vibration.
In the English, the message read: "This is a test if Emergency Alerts, a new UK government service that will warn you if there’s a life-threatening emergency nearby. In a real emergency, follow the instructions in the alert to keep yourself and others safe. Visit gov.uk/alerts for more information. This is a test. You do not need to take any action."
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People in Wales also received the test in Welsh. However, the message in Welsh included an error. While in Welsh it noted "in a real emergency, follow the instructions in the alert to keep yourself and others safe", the word for "safe" was translated to "yn Vogel" rather than "yn ddiogel".
As many Welsh speakers and learners may know, the word "Vogel" has no meaning in Welsh and more specifically the letter "v" is no longer included in the modern day Welsh alphabet. The correct translation would be "yn ddiogel", which means "safe". Some people took to social media to point out the error, with one Twitter user pointing out that the word "Vogel" actually means "bird" in German and Dutch.
A UK Government spokesman said: "A technical error caused one word in the Welsh language version of the emergency test alert to be misspelt. The fact that this occurred in a test alert will mean we can rectify it in future."
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