The best British county

[lynx]

It's pish, my Gran speaks Welsh and she absolutely adores the Queen and the Royal family.

I realise this is only anecdotal evidence but it's better than a sweeping generalisation


Edit: thinking about it, she is the only Welsh speaking person I know.

At first I thought you meant she's the only Welsh-speaking person you know.

Of course, when I realised you would never make such a gramatical error I wondered how come you only know one Welsh person who could speak.

Eventually I realised that they can actually speak, but that you are unaware of it since they don't speak to you.

[JPaul]

It's pish, my Gran speaks Welsh and she absolutely adores the Queen and the Royal family.

I realise this is only anecdotal evidence but it's better than a sweeping generalisation


Edit: thinking about it, she is the only Welsh speaking person I know.

At first I thought you meant she's the only Welsh-speaking person you know.

Of course, when I realised you would never make such a gramatical error I wondered how come you only know one Welsh person who could speak.

Eventually I realised that they can actually speak, but that you are unaware of it since they don't speak to you.

Pithy put down.

[lynx]

At least his Gran speaks to him, whoever she is.

It would have been even better if his Nan spoke to him too.

[Biggles]

If I might throw my tuppence in

"Celtic" is a convenient short hand for the Western peoples of Europe - the Galcians, Bretons, Cornish, Irish, Scots and Welsh. Recent DNA studies have suggested a common ancestory that is remarkably old for this area and these people.

The La Tene iron age culture of central Europe encapsulates a very particular artistic and cultural style which is certainly picked up in "Celtic" work of the same period. However, this does not mean that these Western areas were colonised by the La Tene culture people. The evidence is to the contrary and it is now generally considered that the builders of the stone megaliths and burial tombs like Maeshowe and Newgrange went on uninterupted to become the "Celtic" peoples of the Western fringes who traded and interacted with mainland Europe. Irish mythology talks about the Dana coming from Galacia to Ireland and it seems probable that the peoples that settled these areas after the ice age were from very old European stock. Europe was subject to many ravages and movements of people. The Western fringes became the last outpost of La Tene art and culture and many would argue defined it, making it their own.

The term Celts was coined by the ancient Greeks and is unlikely to be a term these people used themselves. The Romans called the Caledonians Picts but records suggest they called themselves the Cruithne or the Prydyn (where Briton comes from)

Least that is my view

This makes for very interesting reading. However, I wouls like to ask you further about this. Where does the language fit in here though? Welsh, as is several other languages, is of Indo-European origin. So this points towards a migration, during a stretch of time somewhere in prehistoria, of a certain people from Central Europe. It must have happened, and if so, I don't understand why it's so hard to believe that it was the Celts that came here?

It is certainly true that all the Western fringe languages have a close connection with each other and it is reasonably certain that they are largely Indo-European although elements of Pictish suggest pre-Indo-European origins. However, whilst we know what the Western Fringes spoke (still do speak), the language of the "Celts" as in La Tene culture is much less certain. It may be that their language was another Indo-European variation as there is little indication in place names to suggest that it was similar to our languages.

Essentially what I am saying is that what was a fairly broad Pan-European culture which stretched from the Shetlands to Bulgaria and even into Anatolia was one of common art, metal working, and perhaps religion and social structure but may not have necessarily been totally of one language or ethnic group. Therefore, we, as the remaining representatives of Celtic culture are now all there is of the "Celts". Successive invasions and population movements changed things in the rest of Europe but the Western fringes continued with an artistic and cultural style which evolved and developed, rather than declined, into the high art form of music, mythology and art which is synonomous with our peoples today. (Apologies to people who hate our music, art etc., )

Ideas can be exchanged without the necessity for large scale population movements. For example, as a youth in the early 70s I was a bit hippyish but I had never seen a live Californian. The concept of "Celt" could therefore be a cultural rather than an ethnic or language one. As I said, the DNA evidence suggests that we got here early and stayed here but were not by any means a backwater. The Western Fringes display many things which are unique, from the stone megaliths to the Druids. The Romans considered Britain to be the source of Druidry and that Gauls came to Britain to learn the secrets of the priesthood.

Consequently perhaps we arguing at cross puposes. I am not saying we are not Celts. I am suggesting that the term Celt itself is perhaps misleading and that there is no requirement for wholesale population movement to explain what happened. We are a distinctive language and ethnic group with a Celtic culture (the only one left) and we can trace our sources back to the La Tene culture and beyond. Many of the themes on the stones of Newgrange crop up in art of our continuing Celtic period also.

This is a current hot topic in ancient history and the academics are lined up on both sides of the equation. I think the evidence stacks up towards cultural exchange rather than population change but if I am wrong I can live with it


PS sorry for straying from the Drawing Room into the Lounge

I'll get me coat

[JPaul]

.... but if I am wrong I can live with it

Given the post which preceded it, I think that is my absolute fave phrase for an age.

[manker]

It's pish, my Gran speaks Welsh and she absolutely adores the Queen and the Royal family.

I realise this is only anecdotal evidence but it's better than a sweeping generalisation


Edit: thinking about it, she is the only Welsh speaking person I know.

At first I thought you meant she's the only Welsh-speaking person you know.

Of course, when I realised you would never make such a gramatical error I wondered how come you only know one Welsh person who could speak.

Eventually I realised that they can actually speak, but that you are unaware of it since they don't speak to you.

Extrapolation clearly isn't a strong point of yours.

It's a grammatical error either way as the adjectives that precede 'person' in the term 'Welsh speaking person' should be separated either by a comma, if they are distinct, or a hyphen if they are meant to be read as one.

Given that it's brutally obvious to the trained eye that a grammatical error has definitely been made, one needs to extrapolate which punctuation mark had been omitted; either only one Welsh person has ever spoken to me, or Gran is the only person I know who can speak the Welsh language.

See

[GepperRankins]

At first I thought you meant she's the only Welsh-speaking person you know.

Of course, when I realised you would never make such a gramatical error I wondered how come you only know one Welsh person who could speak.

Eventually I realised that they can actually speak, but that you are unaware of it since they don't speak to you.

Extrapolation clearly isn't a strong point of yours.

It's a grammatical error either way as the adjectives that precede 'person' in the term 'Welsh speaking person' should be separated either by a comma, if they are distinct, or a hyphen if they are meant to be read as one.

Given that it's brutally obvious to the trained eye that a grammatical error has definitely been made, one needs to extrapolate which punctuation mark had been omitted; either only one Welsh person has ever spoken to me, or Gran is the only person I know who can speak the Welsh language.

See

*definately

[Chewie]

Extrapolation clearly isn't a strong point of yours.

It's a grammatical error either way as the adjectives that precede 'person' in the term 'Welsh speaking person' should be separated either by a comma, if they are distinct, or a hyphen if they are meant to be read as one.

Given that it's brutally obvious to the trained eye that a grammatical error has definitely been made, one needs to extrapolate which punctuation mark had been omitted; either only one Welsh person has ever spoken to me, or Gran is the only person I know who can speak the Welsh language.

See

*definately

Ahem.

[lynx]

At first I thought you meant she's the only Welsh-speaking person you know.

Of course, when I realised you would never make such a gramatical error I wondered how come you only know one Welsh person who could speak.

Eventually I realised that they can actually speak, but that you are unaware of it since they don't speak to you.

Extrapolation clearly isn't a strong point of yours.

It's a grammatical error either way as the adjectives that precede 'person' in the term 'Welsh speaking person' should be separated either by a comma, if they are distinct, or a hyphen if they are meant to be read as one.

Given that it's brutally obvious to the trained eye that a grammatical error has definitely been made, one needs to extrapolate which punctuation mark had been omitted; either only one Welsh person has ever spoken to me, or Gran is the only person I know who can speak the Welsh language.

See

So I was right then. And I bet you bribed her with babycham.

[meirionwyllt]

Here is something else to amaze you; Welsh people take words from other languages and make them easier to pronounce too! Can you imagine my surprise when I found this out.

The word 'ambulance' in Welsh is 'ambiwlans' - now I'm not sure if an English person or a Welsh person first bastardised the term from the Latin 'ambulare', but it's clear that they both did so to make the word fit in better with the phonetics of the native tongue.

You want to know something else that's absolutely amazing? Every language bastardises terms from other languages and uses them on a regular basis!

We are talking about different things here...

I have no qualms about a language 'borrowing' a word from another language and putting a more phonetically agreeable version in its own dictionary to fill in any logic gaps therein. As you say, that happens in all languages, and has happened in every language ever. For example, if English people wanted to use the phrase Pen y Cwm in theit dictionary, and spell it Pennycome, then fine, go ahead, because I know that the Oxford dictionary (which happens to be a very good one) would give an accurate account of the word's origin.

My 'beef' is with English people crossing the border and expecting here to be an extension of England. Take for example place names. I can carry on calling England 'Lloegr', or calling Scotland 'Yr Alban', but I would never dream of forcing those names on the places. It happens so much in Welsh towns (not so much in villages simply because they are too small), and half the time the English versions of the names don't even make sense, and bear no relevance to the locality or its surroundings. And whether or not you think I'm being over the top, that is cultural genocide by the linguistically philistine English towards Welsh people.

I know that some may think that I'm generalising and brandishing a lot of people, but when you've seen evidence of immense disrespect for our language/culture every day of your life, you begin to lose faith and start thinking that ALL the English have the same contempt for our identity. I try not to have this opinion all the time, but sometimes it's impossible not to. How many English people have heard of the Tryweryn outrage? Or even Clywedog? Not many I bet. The English media keep things like that away from the people.