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llyfrenfys · 9 months

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I'd like to preface this with that this is a screenshot of a post I saw a few days ago in the #welsh tag and that the OP has since deleted this post, but the sentiment is something I'd like to address since I see a lot of parallels with this kind of thinking in other contexts, such as in LGBTQIA+ rights conversations.

So, the most obvious elephant in the room is the idea that Welsh is super widely spoken in Wales now and that it isn't in as much danger as other Celtic languages. This idea is wishful thinking at best and erases the very real danger that Welsh is in and that it could be lost just as easily as Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Cornish (which is related to Welsh) actually did die out and has had to be revived. To make a metaphor out of this, we classify languages on a scale of non-threatened to endangered in a similar way to how we classify species.

Here are the statuses of Welsh and Irish as of 2010 (above) and the statuses of Lions and Tigers (below).

On paper tigers are more 'in danger' than lions. But that does not mean that lions are suddenly not in danger at all. The little bracket above CR, EN and VU labels all of these classifications as threatened. It isn't (and definitely shouldn't) be a competition of 'who is most in danger' because you do not want the thing you care about (whether it be a species or a language) to be in danger.

To come back to the original screenshot "they* [Welsh speakers] have always had the means and the ways because the English didn't beat or slaughter them for speaking it"- on the most basic of levels, this is just incorrect. The Welsh Not was a wooden token hung around schoolchildren's necks if they spoke Welsh in school. If someone else spoke Welsh the Not would be hung around their neck. At the end of the school day, whoever was wearing the Not would be beaten and caned by their teachers. I needn't go into much detail but there have been concerted efforts to beat Welsh out of schoolchildren. With the lions vs tigers metaphor, making the claim Welsh speakers have never been beaten for speaking Welsh because they always had the means and ways, while Irish speakers were beaten and never had the means or ways is like claiming poachers have never shot lions, only tigers. Bottom line is, lions and tigers are both victim to poaching and both species have suffered as a result. Similarly, Welsh and Irish have both suffered language loss and both need conservation efforts in order to survive.

(*sidenote- the consistent use of 'them' and 'they' in the original post is definitely indicative of a 'us vs them' sentiment which is a deeply unhelpful attitude to have when it comes to endangered languages and the Celtic languages in particular)

I see parallels with LGBTQIA+ rights in this situation. When equal marriage came in for gay and lesbian couples in the UK in 2014, many allies began to act like gay rights had now been achieved and that gay issues had been done, they're solved. Except, they really weren't (and aren't). Progress has been made in Wales and undeniably Welsh is doing the best out of the living Celtic languages. But that doesn't mean Welsh has been saved or that full equality for Welsh speakers has been achieved. It very much hasn't. The sentiment of the post in the screenshot is not conducive to helping Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Putting down Welsh speakers and erasing Welsh-language history will not save Irish or Scottish Gaelic. Pretending Welsh has had it easy in some kind of lap of luxury is a deeply harmful and bogus claim.

I'll address the tags under the cut as this post is getting long.

To address the tags, personal feelings ≠ an accurate reading of a situation. Nor is it praxis, for that matter. Why is pride in Welsh different/less good than pride in Irish? Is it the assumed proximity to England? If so, that's a terrible claim to make. Not only that, but Scotland is also next to England- does that make pride in Scottish Gaelic the same as pride in Welsh according to this metric? It's a ludicrous thing to say and deeply insensitive to the needs of Scottish Gaelic and Welsh speakers, who cannot help any current or former proximity to England.

Additionally, proximity to England ≠ worse. I know it's a popular internet joke to hate on England because of English attempts to eradicate the Celtic languages, but when the joke becomes praxis, it does not help. England ≠ a place devoid of Celtic languages either. Many English counties near the Welsh border actually have communities of Welsh speakers, such as Oswestry (Croesoswallt) in Shropshire. Cornwall is also home to many speakers of revived Cornish. It does a disservice to Celtic speakers in England to insinuate that proximity to England taints or corrupts them somehow. This is how ethnonationalism starts and we ain't about that.

And "#it feels a little.... blehhhhh you were seen as sophisticated and english enough and you assimilated however the Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled". So, this is arguably one of the worst things to say about a Celtic language- or any threatened language in general. First of all, the 'you were seen as' - 'you' is very telling. The switch from 'them', 'they' to 'you' indicates that this sentiment is aimed at Welsh speakers directly. This was likely a subconscious thing that OP wasn't thinking about when they wrote this. But it does indicate unhealthy feelings of jealousy and bitterness unfairly directed at Welsh speakers, who are also struggling. This righteous anger at the decline of Irish and Scottish Gaelic would be better directed at efforts to help promote those languages- some useful things to get involved with are LearnGaelic, similar to DysguCymraeg but for Scottish Gaelic or supporting channels such as Irish channel TG4 by watching their programmes.

The idea that Welsh speakers were or are 'sophisticated and english enough' is insulting and carries with it a lot of baggage of how any of these assumptions came about. Welsh speakers were definitely not seen as sophisticated. Where Welsh was 'tolerated', it was treated as a curiosity, a relic of a bygone age. Classic museification which all Celtic languages and cultures suffer from as well. Welsh was not tolerated in any legal sense since 1535- with English becoming the only valid administrative language and the language of Welsh courts after England annexed Wales into its Kingdom. Monolingual Welsh speakers suddenly had no access to any legal representation, unless they learned English. This is no voluntary assimilation- it is an act of survival for many speakers of minoritised languages to 'assimilate' into the dominant culture, or else risk losing access to legal security and other kinds of infrastructure. You need only ask any non-native English speaker living in an Anglophone country what that process is like. Welsh people did not see English incursion as an opportunity to become 'sophisticated and english enough', they had to assimilate in order to survive.

The "Irish and the Scots? #brutish animals that need to be culled" is also painfully misrepresenting a very complex social and political process that unfolded over the span of hundreds of years. The phrasing itself of 'brutish animals that need to be culled' speaks to righteous anger at the damage done to these languages and cultures, but it reinforces negative stereotypes about the Irish and Scots themselves. It also is more complicated than a simple English hatred of anything non-Anglo, since the English conception of particularly the Irish changed a lot over the centuries. It was (and still is) rarely consistent with itself. See: the enemy is both strong and weak. The very earliest Celticists were by and large, Anglos or French.

Ernest Renan (1823-1892) for example, was an early French Celticist who published La Poésie des races celtiques (Poetry of the Celtic Races- English translation) in which he says:

"... we must search for the explanation of the chief features of the Celtic character. It has all the failings, and all the good qualities, of the solitary man; at once proud and timid, strong in feeling and feeble in action, at home free and unreserved, to the outside world awkward and embarrassed. It distrusts the foreigner, because it sees in him a being more refined than itself, who abuses its simplicity. Indifferent to the admiration of others, it asks only one thing, that it should be left to itself. It is before all else a domestic race, fitted for family life and fireside joys. In no other race has the bond of blood been stronger, or has it created more duties, or attached man to his fellow with so much breadth and depth"

Yeah. This guy (unsurprisingly) was a white supremacist. Note that this sentiment is being applied to all people considered Celtic by Renan- Irish, Welsh, Breton, Scottish, Cornish, Manx etc. None unscathed by the celtophobia of the day. In this period, Celticity was romanticised (yet disparaged at the same time). It is less 'brutish animals' and more 'archaic, time-frozen peoples' in this period. Of course, 'brutish animals' attitudes towards Celticity did still exist, but it is disingenuous to act as if it was this attitude alone which drove English celtophobia. Like many things, it is always more complicated and never clear cut as it might seem.

I'll bring this to a close shortly, but returning to OP's suggestion that the Welsh assimilated and the Scots and Irish did not, is also incorrect in that some Scots did have to assimilate to survive as well. The Statutes of Iona (1609) required Scottish Gaelic speaking Highland chiefs to send their sons away to be educated in Scots and/or English in Protestant schools. Many did as the statutes required, which led to further language loss in the Highlands of Scottish Gaelic. These are acts of survival- and not ones always taken willingly.

This has been a long post but it's one which I felt I wanted to address. There's no need for infighting between speakers of Celtic languages over who has it worse. There isn't any answer to that question, nor is it a good use of time or energy. All in all, the Celtic languages have suffered greatly over the years and its only just now that some of them are turning a corner. If you care about these languages, put your energy into something good. Only through active work will these languages be saved for generations to come.

#long post #lukes originals #cymraeg #gaelige #gaidhlig #Irish #Welsh #Scottish Gaelic #politik #not dictionary related #Celticist #Celtic Studies #This took a lot of energy to write so if you found this post useful please consider reblogging

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crynwr-drwg · 1 year

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I don't remember if I ever shared this before, but I found it again (in my camera roll)

It translates to "No Music On A Dead Planet" and it was outside the castle in Cardiff by Bute parc (a while ago it was, at least)

#cymru #wales #cymraeg #welsh #picture #photo #pic #graffiti #mural #art #crynwrdrwg #usw #university of south wales #climate change #music

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queerwelsh · 1 year

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Pride in Wales! Balchder yng Nghymru!

Here’s a list of the Pride events happening in Wales this year, in 2023. (click the links for more information)

Dyma rhestr o ddigwyddiadau Balchder yng Nghymru blwyddyn yma, yn 2023.

22 April/Ebrill - Aberystwyth Pride / Balchder yn Aberystwyth

29 April/Ebrill - Swansea Pride / Balchder Abertawe

30 April/Ebrill - Mini Pride and Swansea Anti-Capitalist Pride (1pm Singleton Park) / Balchder Bach a Balchder Gwrthgyfalafol Abertawe (1yp Parc Singleton)

14 May/Mai - Colwyn Bay Pride / Balchder Bae Colwyn

17 June/Mehefin - Hay Pride

17 June/Mehefin - The Big Queer Picnic

17-18 June/Mehefin - Cardiff Pride / Balchder Caerdydd (Pride Cymru)

19 June/Mehefin - Cowbridge Pride / Balchder y Bontfaen

24 June/Mehefin - Caerphilly Pride / Balchder Caerffili

24 June/Mehefin - Abergavenny Pride

24 June/Mefefin - Balchder Gogledd Cymru / North Wales Pride Caernarfon

29 June/Mehefin - 2 July/Gorffennaf - Balchder Neath Port Talbot Pride

8 July/Gorffennaf - Llandeilo Pride / Balchder Llandeilo

15 July/Gorffennaf - Llanelli Pride / Balchder Llaneilli

29 July/Gorffennaf - Llandovery Pride / Balchder Llanymddyfri

12 August/Awst - Barry Pride / Balchder y Barri

12 August/Awst - Balchder Glitter Pride Cardiff

26 August/Awst - Merthyr Tydfil Pride / Balchder Merthyr Tudful

2 September/Medi - Pride in the Port Newport / Balchder Casnewydd

9-10 September/Medi - RCT Pride

15-17 September/Medi - Trans Pride Cardiff

16 September/Medi - Carmarthen Pride/Balchder Caerfyrddin

#pride #wales #cymru #lgbt #lgbt pride #lgbtq #lgbtqia #queer wales #cymraeg #lgbtqia pride #links #resource list #will add more details on some when there are more details on them

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karmagotme · 6 months

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It's been announced that DuoLingo will stop updating Welsh courses. They've always championed endangered languages in the past but articles say they want to focus more on popular languages like Spanish and French. The following is a link to a petition to get the First Minister of Wales to work with the DuoLingo CEO and get them to save the course.

As someone who is learning Welsh, it's devastating news. Yes, there is still Say Something in Welsh and other methods, but DuoLingo is also extremely helpfull, especially for anyone who may not be able to afford all of the later courses in SSIW.

So please, signage would be most appreciated.

EDIT: Please don't think you have to live in Wales to sign this! I signed and I live in Australia. Share this with your language-learning friends around the world!

#DuoLingo #Welsh #Petition to save Welsh course in DuoLingo #I thought DuoLingo was supposed to champion dying languages #cymraeg #Dysgu #dysgu Cymraeg

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totalspiffage · 11 months

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Mis Balchder Hapus! / Happy Pride Month!

Here's a wonderful little Welsh lesson covering key lgbt vocabulary by bfdavies on TikTok.

#welsh #cymraeg #pride month #ldhtc #lgbtq #language

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howlsofannwn · 7 months

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Welsh Folklore

Black cats, often considered banes and the companions of dark entities elsewhere, are welcomed in Wales as felicitous granters of bright fortune and good health.

"Cath ddu, mi glywais dd'wedyd,/ A fedr swyno hefyd,/ A chadw'r teulu lle mae'n byw/O afael pob rhyw glefyd."

"A black cat, I've heard it said,/ Can charm all ill away,/ And keep the house wherein she dwells/ From fever's deadly sway."

- Welsh folk-lore: a collection of the folk-tales and legends of North Wales by Elias Owen, 1896

#black cats #autumn #fall feels #halloween #samhain #folklore #cottagecore #dark aesthetic #wales #north wales #goblincore #cats #welsh #cymru #cymraeg #cymru am byth #alban elfed #cath ddu

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brigwife · 4 months

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gadewch hi mewn

#mari lwyd #cymraeg #welsh

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creatrixcymraes · 7 months

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some cute lil celestial signs ✨🌙

yn Gymraeg hefyd wrth gwrs 🥰

#artists on tumblr #my artwork #art #creatrix cymraes #myart #sign art #come in #go away #cymraeg #dysgu cymraeg #welsh

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elen-benfelen · 2 months

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welsh remus guide pt.1

As a casual marauders fan (if such a thing exists lmao), I’ve noticed a growing love/interest towards Remus being Welsh and exploring what this means regarding accent, mannerisms and language. Seeing Welsh being butchered by the use of google translate, whilst understandable that people would turn to it, is actually physically painful at times. And so!! I’ve decided to start collecting some language tips and bits of info to help anyone who wants to Welshify their Remus. The source? My upbringing as a first language Welsh speaker in South-West Wales.

The most popular head canons I’ve seen, some based on scraps of info from canon, is that Remus is either South Walian (specifically South-East Wales - aka the Cardiff area) or North Walian. I’ve only lived in North Wales for just under a month so I have a rough idea of NW slang but I’m no expert. I have lived in Cardiff for about 3 years so I have a stronger grasp on broad South Walian slang.

This is to say - I will try and give words and bits of info I think would be useful to know but my ask box is always open to more specific questions. I’m also a nerd towards the Welsh language so this is going to be an unnecessarily deep dive into it.

First Lesson

Gogs - North Walians

Hwntws - South Walians

Gogs (short for Gogledd meaning North) and Hwntws have an age old rivalry. Our accents are very different and even our Welsh can have a huge variety of slang and accents.

Examples:

Milk - Llaeth (Hwntw) Llefrith (Gog)

Now - Nawr (H) Rwan (G)

Whilst plenty of Welsh folks have very English sounding accents, if someone has a distinctly Welsh accent you can usually tell pretty quickly where they’re from. Accents within the Welsh language itself tend to be rather strong and distinctive for most people. It is extremely common for someone to ask you where you’re from once they find out you speak Welsh. Probably cause Wales isn’t that big and only like 20% ish of us speak Welsh??? Idk. It just is a thing. So like:

“O, da chi’n siarad Cymraeg?” (Oh, you speak Welsh?)

“Ydw! Wyt ti o’r Gogledd?” (I do! Are you from the North?)

“Yndw, dwi o Gaernarfon. Ble yda chi’n byw?” (I do, I’m from Caernarfon. Where do you live?)

“Fi o Rhydaman.” (I’m from Ammanford.)

Hopefully that dialogue feels human and not like two robots talking but you get the gist of it lmao. So, for those of you who want to make another of the characters, such as Lily, Welsh as well, it wouldn’t be out of place for them to try and establish where the other is from when first meeting. But also be aware that their slang and language would be different if they’re not from the same area (as with any language or country).

Conclusion: You cannot slap the blanket label of Welsh on Remus and then have him speak any old welsh and use any slang and such. So either choose somewhere specific or throw a dart and stick with where it lands.

Note: I am not the collective consciousness of every Welsh person. My experience is not universal - especially when it comes to North Walian things. This is just meant to serve as a general guide. Hope this helps and good luck with your writing!

pt.2

#welsh #marauders #welsh remus #remus lupin #lily evans #sirius black #remus x sirius #james potter #harry potter #cymraeg #wales #welsh language #welsh remus lupin #marauders era #the marauders #wolfstar #i have so many thoughts on this topic so buckle up lads

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llyfrenfys · 4 months

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PLEASE TELL US ABOUT Y DDRAIG TRAWS!

Certainly! I'm more than happy to oblige.

First though I'm gonna need to tldr: the history of Y Ddraig Goch before we get onto the (accidentally) canonically trans part.

A brief history of Y Ddraig Goch:

(The modern Welsh flag)

Y Ddraig Goch first appears in the tales of the Mabinogi (Charlotte Guest version) in the tale of Lludd and Llefelys where it is fighting a white dragon. The fight is also described/expanded upon in the c. 829 AD text Historia Brittonum (attributed to Nennius) - where the red dragon represents Wales and the white dragon represents the Anglo-Saxons. In the story the red dragon triumphs over the white. Of course, Geoffrey of Monmouth also covers the story c. 1136 in Historia Regnum Brittaniae in which he introduces the concept of the red dragon heralding the arrival of King Arthur.

Geoffrey of Monmouth claims Arthur used a banner featuring a golden dragon. But we also know the accuracy of Monmouth can be questionable at times. Owain Glyndŵr did use a banner with a golden dragon called Y Ddraig Aur - raised in 1401 at Caernarfon - Glyndŵr chose this banner as a nod to the supposed banner of Arthur and his father.

Later on the Tudor monarchs (being a Welsh family) adopted a red dragon on a white and green background in their heraldry. Eventually Y Ddraig Goch on a white and green background became the official badge of Wales in 1800. The design became the official flag of Wales in 1959.

Y Ddraig Traws:

Now for the thing you're all here for -

So, as outlined, the history of the dragon as a national symbol of Wales goes back a long way. If we're just talking post-1959, there's some interesting implications for Y Ddraig Goch's depiction.

This is what the Welsh flag (and Y Ddraig Goch) looked like in 1959 when it was officially adopted as the flag of Wales. It looks broadly the same as the first flag and has some common features - such as not having a penis (or, as in the correct heraldic terminology - a pizzle). Meanwhile, in the arms of the Tudors (specifically Henry VII)

(Tudor dragon with pizzle) vs (dragon on the flag of Cardiff - pizzleless)

the penis is almost always included. So much to the point that the present royal family still includes the penis. While pretty much 0 depictions of the dragon in Wales include a penis. So you could interpret this as the dragon is seen as male only by the British royal family and as female everywhere else (which kinda implies that at some point the Tudor dragon had an mtf transition in Wales and she keeps getting misgendered by the royal family every time she is depicted in (mostly) England).

So much to the point that in 1995 this pound coin was made by the Royal Mint featuring the pizzle on the dragon with all four feet touching the ground as opposed to standing up (passant rather than rampant).

But in Wales you'd be hard pressed to see a pizzled dragon anywhere. Ergo, we can only conclude Y Ddraig Goch is trans and she transitioned in Wales and keeps getting misgendered in England.

[note: This is mostly tongue in cheek - but I do think it's fun to extrapolate that the Welsh dragon is trans because of the differences in depiction between Wales and England. Like many things Welsh, it is misrepresented by England and the idea of the Welsh dragon being misgendered only in England is, I think, a good metaphor for a whole lot of English treatment of Wales.]

Unrelatedly, there is a gay Welsh flag held at the National Museum of Wales which has a very wonky dragon which I find very endearing.

(cleaned up version I made)

So much so I made it an emoji in my Welsh bilingual LGBTQIA+ Discord (requirements for joining are - be 16+, either speak or are learning Welsh and identify as LGBTQIA+ in some way. Dm for link!).

(triaist ti 'you tried' emoji)

~ Completely unrelatedly ~ never forget the time someone was trying to homophobic to me by suggesting that I was disrespecting all the soldiers who died 'for the Welsh flag' by making it rainbow colours and not red - arguing that any change of colour of the dragon was disrespectful. Reader, my bus pass at the time for Mid Wales Travel had a purple dragon on it.

#cymraeg #welsh #cymblr #cwiar #trawsryweddol #traws #trans #trans dragon #y ddraig goch #welsh dragon #welsh history #dragons #wyverns #last tag because technically Owain's golden dragon is technically a wyvern

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