How Welsh is Wales?

[backontrack]

My own variant is being in a queue for the till and overhearing Welsh, but with the numbers in English "welsh words welsh words welsh words seven pounds thirty welsh words welsh words welsh words". More than once.
As if the speaker had trouble with Welsh numbers.

In his excellent book Tiny Stations, Dixe Wills writes about going on a Devonshire pub crawl. In one pub, their are two guys who speak in Welsh "but swear in English. Is that normal?" he asks.

 

[me123]

I do know that the Welsh word for "Jeremy Hunt" sounds a lot like the English word for "Jeremy Hunt".

 

[PHILIPE]

In his excellent book Tiny Stations, Dixe Wills writes about going on a Devonshire pub crawl. In one pub, their are two guys who speak in Welsh "but swear in English. Is that normal?" he asks.

Yes. Many sayings and phrases are often spoken n English

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Add an "o" to an English verb , and it becomes Welsh in SW Wales - e.g "stopo bws" - "rido bike" ....

 

[Dai Corner]

Yes. Many sayings and phrases are often spoken n English

Is that 'Wenglish'? I've heard of that 'language' but never understood exactly what it was.

 

[PHILIPE]

Add an "o" to an English verb , and it becomes Welsh in SW Wales - e.g "stopo bws" - "rido bike" ....

Regulrly happens in S4C Soap "Pobol y Cwm". Some of them that I've heard such as "headbutto" sound outrageous

 

[PHILIPE]

Is that 'Wenglish'? I've heard of that 'language' but never understood exactly what it was.

Wenglish is speaking with a mixture more commonly to be heard in the South Wales Valleys and non traditional Welsh speaking areas.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Speaking of South West wales - when I was brought up last century - the language was almost a patois , with many local terms and murdered verbs which were hardly related to "pure" Welsh.

Never studies O level Welsh (GCE precursor) - but was encouraged to do so , did about 3 hours revision and got a grade A. Standards must have been low that year.

"Joyo sesh" - i.e we had a good drink on it later ....

 

[WelshBluebird]

a friend at school who used to live in one of the South Wales valleys claimed not being able to speak fluent Welsh was an open invitation to mass bullying.

Not sure if that was meant as a joke or not. The vast majority of the South Wales valleys are not fluent welsh speaking so I have no idea how on earth you could get that opinion!

My own variant is being in a queue for the till and overhearing Welsh, but with the numbers in English "welsh words welsh words welsh words seven pounds thirty welsh words welsh words welsh words". More than once.
As if the speaker had trouble with Welsh numbers.

To be fair it is pretty common to hear someone speaking welsh with random English words dotted in the middle of a sentence. Not so much about having a problem with certain words, but more just how people speak. You certainly get it more often with "new" words (like like "email" etc) but also swear words and others.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

"E-mail" = E-bost (coruption of post)

"Tost" = Toast

A medieval language acclimatising itself to the modern world .....

 

[PHILIPE]

Not sure if that was meant as a joke or not. The vast majority of the South Wales valleys are not fluent welsh speaking so I have no idea how on earth you could get that opinion!



To be fair it is pretty common to hear someone speaking welsh with random English words dotted in the middle of a sentence. Not so much about having a problem with certain words, but more just how people speak. You certainly get it more often with "new" words (like like "email" etc) but also swear words and others.

Once when pausing in the middle of a sentence and asking what the Welsh word was (not too sure) somebody told me to just use the English word and carry on in order to keep the conversation flowing.

 

[Butts]

I have recently moved from Scotland to Wales albeit Newport but that still counts as Wales - just

If I was Welsh and couldn't speak the language I would quite frankly be ashamed and make every effort to learn the mother tongue. As I understand it a lot of Schools are bilingual today so the number of native speakers should increase.

What's the point in having all the signs / paperwork in both languages if hardly anyone understands Welsh - just about everything comes in duplicate which is a huge waste of money.

Wales unlike Scotland does not have it's own Legal and Education Systems or Banks that issue different notes from those in England. Mind you it has been a Colony of England for 300 or 400 more years than Scotland. Hence it has lost more of it's identity along the way.

This nonsense about the huge difference between England and Scotland must be put to bed straight away. The Borders either side are quite similar. Good Lord Carlisle and Berwick used to both be part of Scotland. Reivers anyone !!

Arguably I would say there is more enmity between the Highlands and the rest of Scotland - a lot of them remember who was on the "British" side at Culloden

 

[47802]

Not sure if that was meant as a joke or not. The vast majority of the South Wales valleys are not fluent welsh speaking so I have no idea how on earth you could get that opinion!



.

Yes I don't know where idea has come from either, I was working in the Welsh Valleys a few weeks ago, The guy who I was working with was from Ebbw Vale didn't speak much Welsh and said most people he knew didn't either.

I also worked with a young Women from Cardiff a few years ago and she and her friends didn't bother with Welsh, and said when she was at school. when it came to Welsh Exams most students just wrote their name on the paper and then left the exam as soon as they were allowed.

 

[Liam]

This nonsense about the huge difference between England and Scotland must be put to bed straight away. The Borders either side are quite similar. Good Lord Carlisle and Berwick used to both be part of Scotland. Reivers anyone !!

I disagree. To me, Carlisle just looks English - drive in along Scotland Road and it's all brick. Even in places like Newcastle and Manchester where much of the city centre is made of stone, there's a lot of brick about too. There are very few brick buildings in Scotland, particularly in the older town centres, we never really used brick here until the second half of the 20th century. Gretna is probably the exception, but places like Dumfries, Annan, Gala, Hawick are all predominantly sandstone (red or yellow/grey, or even whitewashed! )

I suppose because of it's history, Berwick (North of the Tweed, at least) looks Scottish, very similar in look to other East Coast towns such as St Andrews or Arbroath.

 

[Bevan Price]

I'm just waiting for someone to tell a tale of going into a shop/pub in Wales and everyone speaking English before they arrive and then switching to Welsh when they get through the door... (some sort of variant of this tale/myth seems to told whenever Welsh is mentioned!!)

Actually true - it happened to someone I used to work with. Unfortunately the people in the shop got it wrong, as he was also Welsh and understood what they were saying about him. He said they blushed somewhat when he spoke to them in Welsh....

 

[Dai Corner]

I have recently moved from Scotland to Wales albeit Newport but that still counts as Wales - just

If I was Welsh and couldn't speak the language I would quite frankly be ashamed and make every effort to learn the mother tongue. As I understand it a lot of Schools are bilingual today so the number of native speakers should increase.

What's the point in having all the signs / paperwork in both languages if hardly anyone understands Welsh - just about everything comes in duplicate which is a huge waste of money.

Wales unlike Scotland does not have it's own Legal and Education Systems or Banks that issue different notes from those in England. Mind you it has been a Colony of England for 300 or 400 more years than Scotland. Hence it has lost more of it's identity along the way.

This nonsense about the huge difference between England and Scotland must be put to bed straight away. The Borders either side are quite similar. Good Lord Carlisle and Berwick used to both be part of Scotland. Reivers anyone !!

Arguably I would say there is more enmity between the Highlands and the rest of Scotland - a lot of them remember who was on the "British" side at Culloden

I'm English and moved to Newport about 15 years ago. I (tongue not entirely in cheek) refer to this part of the country as 'that part of England currently occupied by the Welsh' . Traditional Monmouthshire (basically, east of the Rhymney and including Newport) was in England (or at best somewhat ambiguous) until the 1974 changes. Wind up anyone over 43 who considers themselves Welsh and was born in Monmouthshire by reminding them of this

Schools are either English or Welsh speaking but all children have to study Welsh until age 16. They do so with varying degrees of enthusiasm. I agree that all official paperwork being duplicated is a waste of money and think it should be an option, like large print for the partially sighted etc.

 

[Greenback]

There really isn; much of a link at all between speaking Welsh and being Welsh. I can understand the view form those outside the country, but there is no shame to be felt in not being a fluent Welsh speaker here.

I feel more like a victim, to be honest. The reason my families didn't speak Welsh wa sentirely due to the fforts that wer emade to stamp the language out in the 19th century. When I was in school in the 1970's and 1980's, the headmaster made it perfectly clear hat he considered Welsh a waste of time, and very litle wa soffered in the way of learning Welsh.

The language zealots try to impose a sense of shame on some of us, but I just ignore all zealots as mucha s I can!

 

[Dai Corner]

Greenback's mention of the 19th century reminds me that many of those in the Valleys can trace their origins back to immigrants coming to dig coal and work in associated industries in that era. They adopted some of the Welsh culture and brought aspects of their own but on the whole didn't adopt the language.

Would people say south east Wales is different to north, mid and west Wales?

 

[bramling]

Greenback's mention of the 19th century reminds me that many of those in the Valleys can trace their origins back to immigrants coming to dig coal and work in associated industries in that era. They adopted some of the Welsh culture and brought aspects of their own but on the whole didn't adopt the language.

Would people say south east Wales is different to north, mid and west Wales?

Based on relatively modest experience, I've thusfar found the Newport area extremely unfriendly, bordering on neurotic, compared with the rest of Wales. North Wales seems generally relaxed and friendly, and in my experience this applies right the way from east to west, perhaps with the exception of Anglesey for some reason.