I just watched Death To Welsh Culture Its Meat And Tradition, and I’m still slightly mesmerised by Dave Datblygu' personage. It also made me reflect on my own relationship to the Welsh language.
For nearly three years, I have been living and working in Wales. And yet, my knowledge of Welsh is limited to a few random words: Cymru, croeso, shamae, bore da, dim problem, cariad, diolch, araf, ysgol, gwlad gwlad, and that's about it.
For someone whose adult identity was largely built around learning English as a second language, this utter lack of progress is rather depressing. I know how fulfilling, enlightening and rewarding speaking a foreign language can be, so why can't I get to grips with that of the country I now live in?
Well, the truth is I haven't actively tried yet, being too focused on perfecting my English and proving to myself that you don't need to be a native speaker to work in communications. Another reason is that, although I love the idea of speaking Welsh, I don't quite know what Welsh is. And a lot of people around me don't seem to know either.
I see Welsh every day, on road signs, on billboards, on bilingual leaflets, but I don't read it. My eyes just run past the long words and their tricky consonants I am unable to pronounce, eager to find refuge in their English translation.
I studied Russian for a couple of years, back in the days. Our professor, Mr Minaeff, was a small man wearing thick, yellow-tinted soviet style glasses. I remember scribbling notes in English on my notebook once, instead of listening to the Russian tape about a man who forgot his shapka in the airplane, and Mr Minaeff shouting at me "Miss Hulot, this is not the time to write your memoirs on a confetti". I always wondered why he called it a confetti.
Anyway, my point is that however complicated Russian grammar is, learning the Cyrillic alphabet is very straightforward. Once you've made the effort to learn the shapes, you can easily read Russian even without understanding it. I find Welsh harder, because although the letters are more or less the same than those I would use in French, English or Spanish, they can sound very different- sometimes even from one Welsh word to another.
This impermeability is a massive brake. If I can't read what I see, in my head or out loud, how I am supposed to develop a taste for it, or remember anything? It'll just slide by. Now, I know, I could just sit down for a few hours and make the effort to learn every possible pronunciation for each letter watching youtube videos. But that's not very exciting, is it, and almost no one around me would be able to correct me if I'm wrong.
In my experience, learning a country's language is diving into its culture. Immersing yourself in it through songs, books, films and tv shows, with subtitles then without. Travelling to the country, meeting its people, listening to them speak and pretend you understand until you do. And the holy grail of holy grails, making jokes and puns.
When the country itself is struggling with its own language identity, though, things are a little more complicated. Living in Cardiff, I can't just dive into Welsh culture and let it immerse me. I've got to dig for it.
Simon Brooks recently wrote a piece for the Welsh Agenda, calling for Welsh language policy to address the needs of real communities rather than amorphous ideas about right-holders. He argues that by trying to make Welsh accessible to all the citizens of Wales, the current language policy downplays the interests of those who actually do speak the language. He talks about a new form of semi-fluent speakers with the right to speak Welsh, but not the inclination.
This echoes the problem I am faced with, as an immigrant: learning Welsh from semi-fluent speakers is impossible, I would need contact with fully-fluent communities.
Last Thursday, I was at the Robin Hood in Pontcanna for the weekly pub quiz run by quizmaster Madge - an elderly and absolutely dazzling lady, the queen of green eyeliner. Everyone had been speaking English the whole evening, until someone addressed our table in Welsh. Suddenly, about half the people sitting around me magically swapped to Welsh and a new, lively conservation filled the room. I could not understand a thing, of course, but I could feel the warmth. It sounded beautiful.
So there are some Welsh speakers around me, I just never normally hear them. I wish moments of immersions like this happened more often, because the effervescence they create is precisely what makes me want to learn Welsh.
In the meantime, there is no point blaming myself for not trying harder, as I have no interest in learning Welsh on DuoLingo. Welsh is a difficult language, not so much because of its puzzling orthograph, but because its identity is still in construction. And although I can barely speak it, I have already learned a lot more than I can quantify in number of words: I’ve acquired a taste for its culture.
Until I can be surrounded by more fully-fluent speakers or move to North Wales, I shall keep digging out books on Welsh history and watching series like Un Bore Mercher, Craith or Y Gwyll in the Welsh version. With perhaps even more interest, I will keep an eye out for the creations of collectives like Anywhere But Here, which shine a beautiful and honest light on the people, culture and stories of Wales.