Brecon Beacons are no more

[bushwacker]

The National Park formerly called the Brecon Beacons no longer exists. The area where it used to be is now called Bannau Breycheiniog.
It is a response to global warming, presumably it is to stop all those tourists who managed to find it previously from shitting in the lay byes.
The plan is if you cant find it on a map, you wont want to go there.

 

[E. By Gum]

I don't want to go anyway.
What is it with the Welsh, trying to make everything unpronounceable?

 

[MaC]

It's not that it's unpronounceable, it's that it's written so bloody twistedly. Like Scots' Gaelic.
We manage to pronounce French, Italian and even Swedish just fine, but they're written in such a way that familiarity carries us over the unusual.

Own goal in the case of Welsh, Gaelic, etc., because it's totally non encouraging for non speakers to even try to use the words....and thus slowly languages die.

 

[Greg]

It's not that it's unpronounceable, it's that it's written so bloody twistedly. Like Scots' Gaelic.
We manage to pronounce French, Italian and even Swedish just fine, but they're written in such a way that familiarity carries us over the unusual.

Own goal in the case of Welsh, Gaelic, etc., because it's totally non encouraging for non speakers to even try to use the words....and thus slowly languages die.

Surprised to read this from you.

As always, entertaining to watch English people pop off about something happening in Wales/Scotland/ROI they don't like

 

[MaC]

I'm Scottish. I speak English, Lallans, a little schoolgirl French (and the Scottish bits that remain) and an even littler amount of Scottish Gaelic.

When you read a Gaelic name and there's a 'translation' of how to pronounce it, and that's commonplace, then it's time to have a think about how something is presented.

I visited Latvia years ago, but recently enough in their history that the Russian settlement and subsequent kicking out was still fresh.
They made an enormous point of pointing out to every European visitor that they'd totally gotten rid of Cyrillic and were using the script of every other western European language.....and we all, from Danes and Swedes to Germans, Portugese, Italians, Scots and Irish could and did read their language, understood their signs, happily used the words in conversation.

Gaelic (of both airts) and Welsh though not to the same extent, both had little written language until it was formalised by those who thought that the best way was an academic one.
Reality is that most folks haven't a damned clue about that; again witness the way that an easily understood pronunciation is given as a translation on most sites where a word is described; and instead of encouraging use, it discourages.

I think those languages are already under pressure simply by virtue of their number of speakers. Scots Gaelic no longer has any real presence in much of it's former range. Irish got a huge boost when the Irish state set up and it was a requirement of education......much like Latin used to be here to access any University. I think my generation must be among the last where Latin was an actual requirement for Uni though, and priesthood and scholars aside no one speaks Latin anymore, yet it used to dominate the world the way that English does now.

Join in or die off really.

M

 

[MaC]

Classic examples....

Mhairi, pronounce Vari, not Mihairy

Saoirse, pronounce Shursha, not Sair arse

 

[Stew]

I don't want to go anyway.
What is it with the Welsh, trying to make everything unpronounceable?

You are a real misery at times.

 

[E. By Gum]

You are a real misery at times.

Thank you 😁

 

[E. By Gum]

 

[Greg]

I'm Scottish. I speak English, Lallans, a little schoolgirl French (and the Scottish bits that remain) and an even littler amount of Scottish Gaelic.

When you read a Gaelic name and there's a 'translation' of how to pronounce it, and that's commonplace, then it's time to have a think about how something is presented.

I visited Latvia years ago, but recently enough in their history that the Russian settlement and subsequent kicking out was still fresh.
They made an enormous point of pointing out to every European visitor that they'd totally gotten rid of Cyrillic and were using the script of every other western European language.....and we all, from Danes and Swedes to Germans, Portugese, Italians, Scots and Irish could and did read their language, understood their signs, happily used the words in conversation.

Gaelic (of both airts) and Welsh though not to the same extent, both had little written language until it was formalised by those who thought that the best way was an academic one.
Reality is that most folks haven't a damned clue about that; again witness the way that an easily understood pronunciation is given as a translation on most sites where a word is described; and instead of encouraging use, it discourages.

I think those languages are already under pressure simply by virtue of their number of speakers. Scots Gaelic no longer has any real presence in much of it's former range. Irish got a huge boost when the Irish state set up and it was a requirement of education......much like Latin used to be here to access any University. I think my generation must be among the last where Latin was an actual requirement for Uni though, and priesthood and scholars aside no one speaks Latin anymore, yet it used to dominate the world the way that English does now.

Join in or die off really.

M

I don't see the problem. Loads of words in English are not phonetic. Not being familiar with the rules for vowel sounds, and the various dipthongs in Welsh will, of course, mean reading it is challenging but that is not a problem with Welsh or any similar language (and there are lots of them!)

 

[Jaggededge]

It will always be the Brecon beacons.

 

[Beachlover]

Saoirse, pronounce Shursha, not Sair arse

Every day is a schoolday.

 

[MaC]

I don't see the problem. Loads of words in English are not phonetic. Not being familiar with the rules for vowel sounds, and the various dipthongs in Welsh will, of course, mean reading it is challenging but that is not a problem with Welsh or any similar language (and there are lots of them!)

Y'see, that's the attitude that's killing the language, because it's not spreading out into a wider population.
The question, and the answer, ought to be, how do we encourage people to speak it.

We are a literate nation, the two names I mentioned above are tiny wee examples of why things are as divided as they are.

It's commonplace now to do a 'this is how to say this' of Gaelic, of Erse, of Welsh, even Scots !

 

[Greg]

Y'see, that's the attitude that's killing the language, because it's not spreading out into a wider population.
The question, and the answer, ought to be, how do we encourage people to speak it.

We are a literate nation, the two names I mentioned above are tiny wee examples of why things are as divided as they are.

It's commonplace now to do a 'this is how to say this' of Gaelic, of Erse, of Welsh, even Scots !

The number of Welsh speakers has been increasing for the last decade.

People are not interested in learning Welsh because there is very little material benefit from doing so unless you happen to live in Wales. There are polygots who actively seek to learn uncommon languages, of course, but most people learn a language to improve their prospects in some way, because they have an interest in the culture or because the resources are available.

English is a very difficult language to learn and people get by just fine because there is incentive to learn it.

 

[MaC]

Welsh is the 'only' Celtic language that's not considered under threat, but it's still offputting for most to pronounce.

Yr Wyddfa and Eryri....Snowdonia....even the BBC had a 'this is how to pronounce it'

er with-va

What's in a name? The Welsh name for Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, means grave and is pronounced like "er with-va"

How do you pronounce Bannau Brycheiniog?

The park in southern Wales is to be known as Bannau Brycheiniog – pronounced Ban-eye Bruck-ein-iog – national park or informally The Bannau.


I'm Scottish, and our older tongues use the z/ g sound that has disappeared from English. I was born in Cadzow....that's pronounced Cadjeow...the strange g in the middle is a je, sort of, and the Welsh Dd and Ll sounds are of the same vein, so I am familiar with them, and I still look at Welsh and think, uhuh.....
Gaelic ? well that's a whole other ballgame.
Cornish and Manx.....yeah :sigh:

English is so widely spoken world wide that you could virtually guarantee someone anywhere will know enough to help out.
Latin used to be like that.....

It's probably why a huge number of Britons don't speak anything else. There's no real need.
Which is rather a shame, but I'd bet that more speak French, Spanish, Italian, or Urdu than speak Gaelic as a second language.

M

 

[Greg]

For sure they do. Makes sense. If you want to learn French or Spanish particularly the resources are vast - Spanish is a global language also.

Urdu is an odd one for you to include, given it's written in calligraphy - these things are not a barrier for people who want to learn, but a lot of people just don't want or have any need to learn Welsh.

 

[Jaggededge]

Went to Wales last year and I was surprised at how many people were speaking welsh day to day. Adults and children.

 

[MaC]

They do; the Moot used to meet in Bridgend, and the locals there spoke Welsh and English mixed.
My Uncle lived in Wrexham and he learned Welsh so that he could talk properly with the engineers he was responsible for. He said that being Scottish it was apparently easier than the English found it because (as I mentioned above) we share some of the sounds anyway.
He said that speaking it was fine, he learned from native speakers, learning to read it was not.

M

 

[Greg]

Went to Wales last year and I was surprised at how many people were speaking welsh day to day. Adults and children.

In west wales where I went to university it was day to day for lots of people, with English words peppered in where the Welsh doesn’t exist.

 

[MaC]

For sure they do. Makes sense. If you want to learn French or Spanish particularly the resources are vast - Spanish is a global language also.

Urdu is an odd one for you to include, given it's written in calligraphy - these things are not a barrier for people who want to learn, but a lot of people just don't want or have any need to learn Welsh.

The sad thing about Urdu is that there's still a divide between males and females as to who can read it. Speak it ? yes, it's common and the numbers are growing as their population does, even in the face of schooling in English, but to read it ?
I think that changes as the generations do though.
It's part of that whole culture clash that many immigrants faced. Lots of online resources available now however.

We often take our near universal literacy for granted. Scotland was the first nation to declare that there should be a school in every parish, and that every child ought to be taught to read and write regardless of their financial situation, and then kept that pressure on. From 1560 onwards this became national policy. Some continental cities had tried it but for an entire country to push for this was unique for it's time. What we accept in the 'west' (how do we include New Zealand, Australia, etc.,) as normal, is still not so for much of the world.

Son's girlfriend is Italian. Her grandmothers were illiterate. This was common for their generation.
I was horrified when she told me; she was horrified when she realised that her Granny couldn't read.

Unlike the Scottish reformation, there was no push from the church or society to educate women, especially in rural areas. Even my gggggg grandmothers were literate. I have no idea beyond that but knowing the kind of people their children were I suspect it was true further back, despite the 'universal' church.

 

[BorderReiver]

Classic examples....

Mhairi, pronounce Vari, not Mihairy

Saoirse, pronounce Shursha, not Sair arse

Epenthesis doesn't help either, as in Alba -Alapa, when listening to speech.

 

[MaC]

Funnily enough, the BBC has a report today.....

Welsh language: strongholds decline in speakers - census

Carmarthenshire saw a drop in Welsh speakers, while numbers in parts of Cardiff increased.

www.bbc.co.uk

The census saw a decline in Welsh speakers in communities which are traditionally strongholds of the language.

 

[Greg]

Funnily enough, the BBC has a report today.....

Welsh language: strongholds decline in speakers - census

Carmarthenshire saw a drop in Welsh speakers, while numbers in parts of Cardiff increased.

www.bbc.co.uk

The census saw a decline in Welsh speakers in communities which are traditionally strongholds of the language.

Shame they don't dig into population numbers. I know West Wales became a popular destination for people looking to escape to the country during the pandemic, there has also been a long coming tax on second homes. Conversely the pandemic did lead to people leaving cities.

 

[noddy]

This is complete speculation and likely pretty bigoted, but, rather than the daily instrument, speaking Welsh is more of an aesthetic affectation among working-class families in the post-industrial areas. Welsh-speaking schools on the other hand did (?do) mainly cater for a middle-class demographic of youths who will eventually head to university and later admin the BBC in Wales, go into politics, manage public concerns like health, transport, water, forestry, tourism etc - all of which require Welsh. Their families, in general, have a greater liking of learning. The schools are also a kind of social club for a particular caste of cultural/nationalist establishment - much like you might have seen at Aber, Greg. But, that all represents only a limited pool of opportunity and the more ambitious among that group are more likely to become lawyers and head to London.

My mum wanted to move from the Rhondda to Pembrokeshire in the early 2000s. Couldn't meet any of the requirements (family or employment history/residency/language) in place at the time. She still sours at the thought of it.

 

[Greg]

I was in Lampeter, Aber is a metropolis in comparison