Welsh
In a slight departure from the norm, I’m going to write about a language – one that isn’t English. There are those who would tell you that Welsh as a language is dead and not relevant any more but I don’t think so. They have television, radio, books and newspapers in the language and from my visits there it still seems very much alive. The other reason I like Welsh so much is that I find the accent incredibly sexy when spoken by a pretty girl. There, I said it. Now you all know the real reason. I could wax lyrical for ages about why but some things in life simply cannot or need not to be explained. The fact that I seem to be in a distinct minority in my predelictions bothers me not one jot.
Anyway, on to business. Welsh is (according to the census of 2001) spoken by some 600,000 people, around 20 per cent of the population of the country. It is an Indo-European language, which means – like English, German etc. – it was most likely derived from central Asia. Modern Welsh, the form in which it is now spoken and written, descends from around the time of the Roman prescence in Britain, when the Celtic tribes spoke a form of language called Brythonic. The nearest languages to Welsh in terms of “family’ would be Cornish (a language spoken in Cornwall up to around the early 19th century but now sadly dead) and Breton (similar in many ways to Cornish and spoken today by some 250,000 people in northern France). Contrary to what many people think, Welsh is not the same as Scottish Gaelic or Irish. The languages do share around 20 per cent of words and phrases but Welsh itself is distinct.
The Welsh people will have you believe that the language is simplicity itself. As much as I love the fact they are proud of their language and want to spread the word, this statement is utter crap. It is phenomenally difficult to pronounce correctly. Take this example from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, written to illustrate how to pronounce Welsh. The passage is in English but written using Welsh language construction. It is repeated below in regular English but try to have a go with it and see how far you get first:
Gwd lwc. Ai hop ddat yw can ryd ddys and ddat yt meiks sens tw yw. Iff yw can ryd ddys, dden yw ar dwing ffaen and wil haf no problems at ol yn lyrnyng awr ffaen Welsh alffabet.
Good luck. I hope that you can read this, and that it makes sense to you. If you can read this, then you are doing fine and will have no problems at all in learning our fine Welsh alphabet.
Easy eh? Well, no – not really. For me (who speaks about three words of Welsh) I would be sad to see it go. I think that something which has lasted many hundreds of years should be preserved as part of our heritage. The big problem is that the onus for this rests on the youth of Wales. If they are anything like the youth of England, I am not confident it can survive in Wales as a viable and usable language.Disclaimer: I am not Welsh. None of my family is Welsh. I know several Welsh people. I do, however, have strong feelings about language being part of a people’s heritage.
If you want to know more about Welsh, the BBC has some excellent resources for either dipping into or learning Welsh proper. Take a look here.
Until next time: Hwyl am y tro (Bye for now).
And you thought Danish was difficult…..!!
I’m with you, if only on the Joni Mitchell principle (“You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”). Did you see the news about the last surviving speaker of one of the native Alaskan languages dying?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2247922,00.html
Monica: it is! At least the Welsh pronounce all their letters
Autolycus: I did, yes – again, a real pity. I do strongly believe that language is an integral part of culture. Just look at the hash they’ve made of trying to resurrect Cornish. I understand it’s part of their identity but it’s never going to work.