Welsh

(from 2013)

I was never much good at learning languages. I spent five years at school learning how to successfully fail all my French exams. An over-enthusiastic parent paid for me to have extra tuition from a retired French teacher. I still failed. I came out of the system being able to recite a few irregular French verbs, only to discover that few French nationals are keen to hear their irregular verbs recited by young Englishmen.

But later in life, when there was an actual reason to learn a bit, I did better. I was able to get by in Spanish, and for a marked contrast, in Urdu. And last year I joined Mrs Occasional on a course to learn simple Welsh.

The reason for trying Welsh conversation was linked to one of my “hats” – striving to bring a message to people living in Wales who do not necessarily want to hear it. I understand where they are coming from. When people call on me with something I don’t understand or consider I need, then an automatic response is negative. But in this part of the world, a bit of Welsh breaks the ice. People listen, people talk. That’s what I want.

The Welsh language has made a real comeback during the time I have lived in Wales. For many years the language was virtually suppressed. Children were not allowed to speak it in school, and the idea was fostered that educated people who wanted to get on, had to speak English. But now the latest census figures for the quite small area where I live show five thousand who declared they can both read, write, and speak Welsh fluently. If you were to go back just a couple of decades it would have been a different story. And yes – I go back a couple of decades – I can remember.

Actually, as far as languages go, it is a real stinker to learn as an adult. Mrs Occasional has gone on to a local college on the intermediate course, but language is her interest – she used to teach Spanish, French and Portuguese. She once said that she spent five years of her life in Spain and is fluent – and the rest of her life in Wales and is not.

Welsh nationalism has a big part to play in the resurgence of the language. Now I have no problem with people being proud of their family roots and their culture. It is when it causes dislike and division that I worry. I remember in North Wales calling on someone to share the message I believed important. But he sort of jumped up and down and went red in the face and called me all the English he knew – if I couldn’t speak the language of heaven (i.e. Welsh) then I had no business calling on him. I offered to speak to him in Urdu (the language that for reasons I won’t go into here I was conversant with at the time) but it was really the wrong thing to say and annoyed him even more. So I passed the address onto someone who ran Welsh language courses, so they could call and, as the saying goes, “call my bluff”.

There is of course a division between North Wales Welsh and South Wales Welsh. And there are variations in Pembrokeshire Welsh (an Irish influence) and no doubt Patagonian Welsh has evolved as well. Each side insists that their version is the pure language, and that others are the bastardized versions. For an English outsider it can be quite entertaining, but as I learned with my Urdu comment above, you have to be a bit careful what you say. Realistically, it is a bit like the differences between American English and British English. I have had misunderstandings with American correspondents in the past simply because we come from two nations divided by a single language. You end up trying to know both, and pitching your communication accordingly to the circumstances.

After the Welsh nationalists had a spate of burning holiday homes and daubing slogans and getting a Plaid Cwmru candidate elected to parliament, there was a concerted effort to demand more Welsh. From English being promoted as the language of the “educated” – now to get many decent jobs in the capital you have to speak some Welsh! And now all road signs in Wales are bi-lingual. We always know when we are “home” coming across one of the Severn Bridges to be greeted by bi-lingual signs. (For someone born and bred in England, I actually miss them when venturing out of Wales). But sometimes there are comic results – although how much you laugh may depend on where you are, who you are with at the time, and which side of the Severn Bridge you come from.

One famous mishap occurred in the Swansea area. The sign in English read “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” All well and good. Officials emailed the appropriate office in Swansea for a translation, which was received by return and the sign painters copied it faithfully: “Nid wyf yn swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwych unrhyw waith l’w gyfieihu.” The bi-lingual notice was duly erected. The event made the national news. It was pointed out by a genuine native speaker that the Welsh actually read: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

Another one that made the news was an intended bi-lingual warning sign for pedal cyclists to dismount at a road junction in Cardiff. The Welsh version gave a directive about bladder difficulties. The best guess was that someone had misread cystitis for cyclist in their dictionary.

Sign painters of course do not have to be linguists. Actually they do not even have to be literate. Which reminds me of another gaff when I once engaged someone to paint a sign for a religious building. They left the apostrophe out of the title. When told there was an apostrophe before the S they obligingly put it in before another unrelated S, making it even more illiterate. We eventually gave up and got a pot of paint and carefully made the adjustment ourselves.

Which brings me finally to the music album in Welsh called TIR. It came out a couple of years ago, but we only recently obtained a copy. It is a folk CD of traditional songs but done in a modern style by Cerys Matthews, who used to sing with the Welsh band, Catatonia. It is an eclectic mixture, which avoids the usual problem with modern folk of being over-produced.

There are a couple with tunes I love, but which I skip over. Cwm Rhondda is actually in English and is always sung by the crowds at Welsh Rugby games. Rugby is now of course the main religion of Wales – people go on pilgrimage to great outdoor cathedrals and sing songs of praise. Cwm Rhondda contains the name of the Deity, and is actually a good talking point when meeting genuine Welsh speakers. The English version of the hymn pointedly changes the words to omit the name. But I have my own theological difficulties with it, so I miss that one. And the other one is the Welsh National Anthem. It is a beautiful tune, but with my personal issues over nationalism it again doesn’t sit too well with me. And it brings back all sorts of memories for Mrs Occasional and makes her cry – so she has an added reason not to listen to it either.

But the rest of the songs are currently getting played to death. Perhaps my favourite is the old Welsh folk song Ar Lan Y Môr, now done in a Bob Dylan style, complete with asthmatic harmonica. (I have even been “inspired” to write my own English words for it and inflict them on others at folk clubs).

Mrs Occasional is well pleased with the CD, because singing in Welsh in local folk clubs requires decent material, and the accompanying booklet gives all the Welsh lyrics. For me, it sounds lovely, although I can’t really understand much. Still, I can bellow phonetically at key points in the harmony, which, even if I say so myself, sounds good to those listening – just as long as they can’t speak Welsh either.

So in the words of the poet - nid aur yw popeth melyn!

Or words to that effect...

Addenda anecdote from later

On the premise that if you can’t beat them you might as well join them, I have been joining Mrs Occasional in “spare” moments at college to learn one of the three current versions of Welsh. (And that’s just in Wales!)

They gave us all a shiny badge to wear reading “Shwmae!” The aim was to attract Welsh speakers. This is the local dialect for “Hi there!”

Armed with said badge I have spent the afternoon treating elderly patients’ feet in their homes. One lady had the TV on full blast, showing a program in Welsh.

“So you speak Welsh then?” I ventured cheerily.

She looked at me blankly. “No” she said.

“But you’ve got the Welsh language channel on TV – S4C - Sianel Pedwar Cymru....?”

“Oh that’s not for me, it’s for the budgerigar – he understands it!”