The Dragon With Two Tongues

[Gordon]

Mae'n ddrwg geni, ddim.

Never mind!!

O Pategonia!

Then you'd be bi-lingual in Spanish/Welsh and English would be anathema!!

...... - in a cafe in Mold (?Y Wrdigg?) I asked for "Yn wys a di saesnigs, os gwaleth yn dda"!

Yes, take RT's advice on that one fhg!! Yr Wyddgrug - a very literal translation would be Goose - Heath but there is no official translation. No idea where Mold came from. I went to grammar school in Mold where I was force-fed Welsh instead of French as a "foreign" language at O level. Few universities accepted Welsh as a foreign language back then and so my UCCA choice was very limited and that is something I will never forget. Why force me to drop a useful 3rd language when I could aready speak and write Welsh!? I never understood the logic.

I believe that there is evidence that if you teach children more than one language before a certain age they acquire a competence in them all.

[Pianorak]

Catalan is spoken by over 90% of the population of Catalunya. . .

Are there as many variations of Catalan as there are in Welsh? One of the problems in Wales is the sheer diversity of Cymraeg. To give just one example: Mae'n ddrwg geni (Gog/North Walian) v mae'n ddrwg 'da fi or mae'n flin 'da fi (Hwntw/South/Walian). There are countless regional and dialectal variations in many common words (north/south - east/west - even neighbouring villages). As to the written Welsh - best not go there.

Haven't yet listened to the programme.

[umslopogaas]

Apologies, this has nothing to do with Welsh, but Gordon's mention of language requirements for university sparked horrible memories of Latin. I went to a public (ie private) school and studied Latin and French to O level. These were the only options available to those of us studying science subjects. Being a bright lad I was encouraged to apply to Cambridge, which required two languages at O level. I scraped through French, but failed Latin. I was good at passing exams in subjects where I could see their relevance, but I was studying sciences and I hated Latin, I could see no point in it. I resat and failed again, then had some special tuition and scraped a pass on the third go. So I got my place.

Actually, nearly fifty years later I can see some point in Latin. It helps to understand English words if you know their Latin origins. And it also helps with remembering the Latin names of plants and animals: as a plant pathologist, I had to know a lot those.

And of course, it helps me to translate the Latin jokes in the Asterix comics (sometimes, I fear I fail more often than I succeed).

[french frank]

Post-school I reflected that very little that one learned had much relevance or use in later life - considering the amount of time spent on the subjects, be it history, geography, maths, French, unless you were going on to study it further (and even then ... ).

Latin is one of the subjects which has a use and relevance in many careers - and arguably understanding the rules of grammar is as good a discipline as understanding the rules of algebra or geometry. If not better.

Getting back to the bit in the programme about monolingualism, the speaker said that it was not unusual in many African cultures to speak at least four languages - but this didn't imply fluency in all of them. I imagine it would be a bit like holiday French, German, Spanish and Italian: enough to get by on in common situations.

[Richard Tarleton]

Are there as many variations of Catalan as there are in Welsh? One of the problems in Wales is the sheer diversity of Cymraeg. To give just one example: Mae'n ddrwg geni (Gog/North Walian) v mae'n ddrwg 'da fi or mae'n flin 'da fi (Hwntw/South/Walian). .

Good question - I'm no expert but versions of Catalan are spoken in the Balearics and further south in the Valencia area. Basically (as I understand it) the Romance languages established themselves in the Iberian peninsula in 3 parallel prongs - Catalan in the east, Castilian in the centre and Gallego and Portuguese in the west. I believe the different versions of Catalan are mutually intelligible, likewise Gallego and Portuguese. I understand that Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic are not intelligible to eachother? - at least North and South Walians can just about understand eachother. Though when the Eisteddford was in St David's a few years back, some linguistic pedants from the north were critical of what they regarded as incorrect Welsh in the south, and one went as far to collect bilingual tourist leaflets and mark them in red biro before sending them to the bodies that had produced them

[Pianorak]

. . . some linguistic pedants from the north were critical of what they regarded as incorrect Welsh in the south. . .

Thanks, Richard. Sounds familiar. Gwyn A. Williams in his When Was Wales? (publ. 1985) is instructive on that and other issues besetting Wales. Admittedly the situation today is less bleak.

[Gordon]

Actually, nearly fifty years later I can see some point in Latin. It helps to understand English words if you know their Latin origins. And it also helps with remembering the Latin names of plants and animals: as a plant pathologist, I had to know a lot those.

And of course, it helps me to translate the Latin jokes in the Asterix comics (sometimes, I fear I fail more often than I succeed).

Asterix!!

Now late in life I have an interest in etymology and also have that same sneaking regard for Latin. I take FFs point about the rigours of the grammar, however I still consider the logic of maths and science more tangible and practical nowadays than Latin [except for botanists] or German. My daughter tells me that Russian is a bit complicated too! The rules of Welsh mutations and its gender are tricky and no one who speaks it in everyday life takes heed of them. As RT says, Welsh as she is spoken is a movable feast!!

I have a reasonable ear for language - my elder daughter is the family's linguist and she is a professional translator, Scandinavian and French to English. Being a grammar school we also had the option of latin as a "foreign" language. I did O levels in '61 and the language choice in the school was French, Spanish, Latin and German. I knew someone in my year who did the Latin and there were only 3 in the class!! He went to Oxford!! No chance the rest of us Welsh folk even if we had been good enough for Oxbridge. I got my own back when my younger daughter went to Oxford - without the Latin - so there!!

To my shame both daughters ask why I did not teach them Welsh from birth and I have no reason to give other than the result of personal experience and the sheer practicality of learning other languages. Now of course I regret it and now I feel a strong tie to the place and the language. I keep it going by reading Welsh novels, some of which are very good, listening to Radio Cymru [somewhat Hwntw biassed] via internet and by corresponding with old school friends and family by email.

[umslopogaas]

Gordon, that is a dilemma (one that I dont face, because I have barely a word of any other language than English - well, OK, I have a few words of French and I once had a bit of Niugini Pisin, but I was never much good and have forgotten most of the little I knew). If you have to devote the very considerable effort required to learn a second language, it seems only too logical to devote it to one that will be generally useful, like French (France, much of West Africa, some of the Pacific) or Spanish (Spain and most of Latin America) or Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil ... OK, and possibly Goa and Macao). But Welsh? Well, I wish I spoke it as much as I wish I spoke any language other than English, but if I could be bothered to learn another one in the dwindling time left to me, I think it would have to be one more widely applicable. Probably French, I'm not particularly taken with West Africa, but Polynesia and the Francophone Caribbean are nice and so is France.

And if I had some French, I could read Asterix in the original!

[handsomefortune]

this was a good r4 prog i thought

as is imo the new mini series about the country we know as 'spain'.