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by Bubbles » Mon, 28 Nov 2005 7:44 pm
Blinking heck, is Vauc now going to get on my case for being Welsh, or the fact that Welsh looks very difficult (and is) when written.
Duw, Duw, I don't know. .... ... (Duw is God).....
Seriously though, when I was at school it was compulsory to do Welsh up to and including GCSE. And bloody difficult it was. Even though I have a Welsh speaking father and his family too, I found it so tough. I can understand what my family, who are from up in the Neath valleys, say when they talk to me, but as for holding a proper conversation in that most difficult of languages, whew, hard.
It's quite sad really, but as I also had to do French, I know more of that, conversationally, than my own tongue.
There's a drive on here to get more of us to speak it, and so there should be. But it's difficult, the further east you go in Wales, i.e. towards Cardiff (where I am) and Newport, ...towards England in fact, the less of us who speak it. I guess that's because lots of folk in this area come from other areas, esp Bristol, Oxford and London. Still, I must perservere as it's a very ancient language and beautiful to here, esp if the speaker has that wonderful deep roll to the words.
My daughter's name is Rhiannon, and I always knew if I ever had a girlchild that would be her name, and so it was. At that time, (80's) no one, but no one called their daughters Rhiannon, but hell bells, what happened, bloody Fleetwood Mac brought out a song by that name and now the name is quite usual. Still, I always call her by her full name, in honour of her namesake in the Mabinogion, a classic Welsh folk book of over a 1000 years old. So, no Rhi for her.
However, it's strange about Welsh folk, many say, 'I'm Welsh' and so do I, but for me it's always 'I'm British' too, as it's important to me to be able to call on my heritage in a wider sense, and although I'm not calling to arms here or being overly Brit, I am truly proud to be one. Yes, we make mistakes, yes we have problems, and yes we are eccentrics, but we love it really.
Cue...the national anthem......tra la la.
Seriously, not a nutter, just someone who loves lots of places (esp Singapore) but has taken till now to realise it's not a bad thing to be proud of your roots.
Ta ra
Bubbs.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas.
