Thread: Grumpy Old Men

Good luck with that Mick! I've heard Welsh spoken by a native, and some Gaelic as well, and I am convinced that my tongue at least was never built for such shenanigans!

James.

I worked with a woman from Wales and I seriously thought she was joking the first time she wrote down some words in Welsh. Where are the vowels?! I did retain that "cwrw" (pronounced coo-roo?) was "beer".

Also thought this sign (Wales Millennium Centre) was pretty awesome when I caught it in Torchwood:

Originally Posted by welshwizard

It's ironic but Welsh is actually an English word which means foreigner. Despite being Welsh, my father didn't speak a word of it.

That it is! However if I was to use the word Cymraeg or Cymru I would not be understood by all here. So therefore I use the word Welsh. Your father was obviously the product of the after affects of the English atrocity known as the 'Welsh Not'. For those that don't know, this was a system of punishments put into place whenever a Welsh speaking child used his/her own language. English was the only acceptable form of language, according to the English government, as Welsh was a barbaric language, the use of which would always hold the person back from becoming anything of worth.
I'm a firm believer that people should speak the language of the country they're in. Welsh being the mother tongue of Wales, more effort should be made to speak it. The loss of a language is a loss of self worth for those who's birthright it should have been to speak it.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Good luck with that Mick! I've heard Welsh spoken by a native, and some Gaelic as well, and I am convinced that my tongue at least was never built for such shenanigans!

James.

It's not so hard once you get you head wrapped around some of the sounds. The 'LL' sound was my greatest hurdle, it sounds like a snake trying to spit . And then you gotta form your sentences the same as Yoda does, and halfway there you are. Try saying Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyryndrobwchllantysyli ogogogoch. It isn't that hard when you break it down (and can spit like a snake)


Mick

I'm a born and bred Taff from Cardiff so "Twll din pob sais" is what I say! Been living in England after coming her for work 30 years ago.

When I was growing up in Cardiff, there was hardly any Welsh to be heard for miles around and I never learned much, even though they tried to teach it to us in school

Since then, I've learned a few phrases but that's it. I can pronounce it though! I've even been through llanfairpg on Anglesey and can say it fine and remember carving it on a desk in school long ago!

Gareth

In a similar vein, I was driving past Evesham, not far from where I live in Cheltenham the other day and was amazed to see bilingual road signs, in English and Polish! A lot of market gardens there and the Poles come over to pick the crops.

Gareth

My own Welsh family are a mix and match. Some are fluent bi-lingual, some are English only with a smattering of Welsh phrases such as yourself (and me too).


Mick

A lot of people in family tree are Welsh (my surname is Humphrey, mom's maiden name is Ellis, great grandpa was Pruitt, all Welsh names as far as I know), but nobody speaks a word of it, or even know they're part Welsh!

Even when I lived in the Scottish Highlands, I never met a person who spoke Gaelic even though the environment is ripe for it. BBC Alba has programming in Gaelic, so I know it's spoken somewhere. Hopefully they'll follow the Welsh and Irish models and promote their language as much as they can. For those of us in the "New World" (the term itself is a little presumptive), native languages are kind of a sticky subject.

I'm a bit of a language nerd, but the language backgrounds that I know exist in my family tree, being Anglo/Welsh, German, and Swedish, I don't really have that much interest in. Instead I'm interested in French, Chinese, and Russian. I'd like to learn the classical languages, as well, like Latin, Ancient Greek, and Ancient Hebrew, but one only has so many lives.

And for the record, I don't care if I have to press 2 for Spanish. About a year ago I visited Gettysburg, in the museum were several Civil War era US Army recruitment posters written in German.

Many products here in Thailand are imported so they often come with instructions in English. They also have a sticker with instructions in Thai, usually stuck right on top of the English instructions. That is something that would really annoy me if I read instructions.

Originally Posted by ndw76

that would really annoy me if I read instructions.

this made me chuckle

Originally Posted by ChesterCopperpot

A lot of people in family tree are Welsh (my surname is Humphrey, mom's maiden name is Ellis, great grandpa was Pruitt, all Welsh names as far as I know), but nobody speaks a word of it, or even know they're part Welsh!

Even when I lived in the Scottish Highlands, I never met a person who spoke Gaelic even though the environment is ripe for it. BBC Alba has programming in Gaelic, so I know it's spoken somewhere. Hopefully they'll follow the Welsh and Irish models and promote their language as much as they can. For those of us in the "New World" (the term itself is a little presumptive), native languages are kind of a sticky subject.

I'm a bit of a language nerd, but the language backgrounds that I know exist in my family tree, being Anglo/Welsh, German, and Swedish, I don't really have that much interest in. Instead I'm interested in French, Chinese, and Russian. I'd like to learn the classical languages, as well, like Latin, Ancient Greek, and Ancient Hebrew, but one only has so many lives.

And for the record, I don't care if I have to press 2 for Spanish. About a year ago I visited Gettysburg, in the museum were several Civil War era US Army recruitment posters written in German.

They speak gaelic in the far far north and the islands (lewis etc). most of the gaelic speakers in ireland and scotland today are intellectual romantic nationalists who tend to have notions of some distant far in the past time of peace and prosperity where everyone was blissfully happy and we weren't slaughtering each other and also tends to completely discount picts, scots and britons, which is an incredible shame, because the celtic cultural and their interactions with other cultures of the time is fascinating. you know they had a legal system of sorts? You were responsible for the care of the elderly, the infirm and disabled, couldn't just leave a physically or mentally disabled child out to die like the romans and elements of ancient greece did. they had compensation for wrongs comitted etc etc. socially way more advanced than romans etc. they still liked to kick the turf out of each other. a lot of what we think of as celtic and therefore gaelic today is a bit of a mish mash of the cultures mentioned above.

The celts weren't a nation or a race as such, from what i've read there doesn't appear to be a "genetic marker" for them, they were just basically a western european society or culture. Forms of gaelic or spoken in northern france, western england and as we no the highlands, islands and the irish country side.