The best British county

[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.

If she's the only Welsh speaker you know ,how do you know sh'e speaking Welsh and not just Gibberish,unless you speak Welsh,thus making it 2 people you know that speak Welsh.

Good point, very good point.

Answer that Wenglish boy.

[manker]

If she's the only Welsh speaker you know ,how do you know sh'e speaking Welsh and not just Gibberish,unless you speak Welsh,thus making it 2 people you know that speak Welsh.

Good point, very good point.

Answer that Wenglish boy.

Welsh = gibberish. I thought everyone knew that.

[Carcinus]

Good point, very good point.

Answer that Wenglish boy.

Welsh = gibberish. I thought everyone knew that.

It's not gibberish, it's just sans vowels.

[meirionwyllt]

Welsh = gibberish. I thought everyone knew that.

It's not gibberish, it's just sans vowels.

May I just pick you up on the fact that there are in fact two more vowels in our alphabet than there are in yours. And yes, we do use them all.

[meirionwyllt]

I think you will find, certainly for Ireland, that remaining part of the UK is a subject dear to the hearts of a great many of it's citizens. For another part of it's population leaving it is just as great an issue. Indeed I would suggest that it is by far the most important issue, in political terms. Let's face it, thats what their elections, for both Westminster and Stormont, are based upon.

With regard to my own position, I am currently not really that fussed with regard to further independence. Devolution suits me for now. I think that is the case for the majority of Scots. However I am totally against the monarchy, or indeed anything else which is not elected.

I suspect our findings differ because I am a Scot, living and working in Scotland and visiting Ireland as part of my work. You on the other hand are a Welsh chap. I couldn't possibly comment on what percentage of the Welsh speaking population seek independance. Maybe that's the culturally important point here, Welsh speakers have been brought up a certain way. Englishmen born in Wales, like manker, haven't

Very true - couldn't agree more. Perhaps I would be slightly happier with devolution the way it is if we had law making powers similar to yourselves. But the recently passed Goverment of Wales Bill has started the ball rolling on that one.

[meirionwyllt]

'Pennycome' is Welsh for 'head of the valley'.

Although I realise that you may not have been personally responsible for this translation, I think you mean 'Pen y Cwm'. It never ceases to amaze me the way that the English, upon hearing a word in another language, think of English words that sound similar, then use those as a spelling for the original word, completely ignoring the simple fact that phonetics can vary immensely between two languages.

No wonder the Enlish have corrupted so many of our place names into simpler, more pronounceable versions. It reminds me of a mother having to mash up a banana into a kind of slush to make it easier on the baby's teeth.

[meirionwyllt]

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?

[Barbarossa]

We do not have fact to support my claim or yours, we only have evidence

Genious.

[manker]

'Pennycome' is Welsh for 'head of the valley'.

Although I realise that you may not have been personally responsible for this translation, I think you mean 'Pen y Cwm'. It never ceases to amaze me the way that the English, upon hearing a word in another language, think of English words that sound similar, then use those as a spelling for the original word, completely ignoring the simple fact that phonetics can vary immensely between two languages.

No wonder the Enlish have corrupted so many of our place names into simpler, more pronounceable versions. It reminds me of a mother having to mash up a banana into a kind of slush to make it easier on the baby's teeth.

You get amazed very easily.

I was recalling a thread that was written 2 years ago and giving a gist of it - I really couldn't be arsed to google a full explanation of the etymological metamorphic process which gets us from 'Pen y Cwm' to 'Penny Come'.

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!

[Mr JP Fugley]

I think you will find, certainly for Ireland, that remaining part of the UK is a subject dear to the hearts of a great many of it's citizens. For another part of it's population leaving it is just as great an issue. Indeed I would suggest that it is by far the most important issue, in political terms. Let's face it, thats what their elections, for both Westminster and Stormont, are based upon.

With regard to my own position, I am currently not really that fussed with regard to further independence. Devolution suits me for now. I think that is the case for the majority of Scots. However I am totally against the monarchy, or indeed anything else which is not elected.

I suspect our findings differ because I am a Scot, living and working in Scotland and visiting Ireland as part of my work. You on the other hand are a Welsh chap. I couldn't possibly comment on what percentage of the Welsh speaking population seek independance. Maybe that's the culturally important point here, Welsh speakers have been brought up a certain way. Englishmen born in Wales, like manker, haven't

Very true - couldn't agree more. Perhaps I would be slightly happier with devolution the way it is if we had law making powers similar to yourselves. But the recently passed Goverment of Wales Bill has started the ball rolling on that one.

It makes no sense to me why the Irish and Welsh assemblies were not given the same powers, at the same time as, the Scottish Executive. The main issues devolved to the Scotttish Executive are Law & Order, Health and Education. In essence any laws made at Westminster, in relation to devolved issues, have no effect in Scotland (save that the SE may adopt them via a Sewell motion).

I suppose the fact that we always had a seperate legal jurisdiction from England and Wales may have something to do with it. Or it could be because of the England and Wales Cricket Board.