Cycling UK Forum

I live in Wales as an English bloke gone a bit native, and I have found it pays to remain a bit chilled on the language debate. People have their own perspectives based on their upbringing and life experiences, and I want them to be able to use the language of their choice as much as practical, and have their children educated in that language. Whatever makes people happy is good.

But I must remind anyone who is in any doubt about it that you are not any less Welsh just because you were raised in an English speaking community and don't speak the old language. If you venture up the former coal mining valleys and interact with the locals (which I recommend) you will tend to find English speaking people as Welsh as anyone, with their own rich culture and heritage. Just as valid as Welsh speaking culture.

Wales is part of the UK and most people (by a large degree) in Wales speak only English. The schools should perhaps have a language policy that follows those facts.

With the possible exception of Crymych every Welsh language secondary school has an English language school nearby as an alternative*. On the other hand in the English speaking areas finding a Welsh language secondary school isnt anywhere near so easy.
In this area only the towns have English speaking Primary schools, there isnt the population density for choice outside of towns. So even if the majority of Wales speak English, the majority of my local school pupils will have already been educated in Welsh.

To answer a point from somebody else.
All Welsh pupils (in state education should) study Welsh. In Welsh-medium schools that is by learning through the medium of Welsh and sitting a GCSE Welsh similar to the level of an English student's English GCSE. In English-medium schools it is a couple of hours a week leading to a GCSE rather like my French one.

*If there wasnt an English medium school nearby how could we use Welsh medium as a form of social class selection in education?

pwa wrote:I live in Wales as an English bloke gone a bit native, and I have found it pays to remain a bit chilled on the language debate. People have their own perspectives based on their upbringing and life experiences, and I want them to be able to use the language of their choice as much as practical, and have their children educated in that language. Whatever makes people happy is good.

But I must remind anyone who is in any doubt about it that you are not any less Welsh just because you were raised in an English speaking community and don't speak the old language. If you venture up the former coal mining valleys and interact with the locals (which I recommend) you will tend to find English speaking people as Welsh as anyone, with their own rich culture and heritage. Just as valid as Welsh speaking culture.

That reads OK in English, it just doesnt translate into Welsh at all.
Honestly the vocabulary would make it pretty funny.

I can accept that concept just as I can accept the multilingual multicultural culture of Bradford and Leicester. After how many generations and at what percentage of the population do they get the right to reduce their English speaking to the level of Welsh spoken in English speaking Wales?

meic wrote:

pwa wrote:I live in Wales as an English bloke gone a bit native, and I have found it pays to remain a bit chilled on the language debate. People have their own perspectives based on their upbringing and life experiences, and I want them to be able to use the language of their choice as much as practical, and have their children educated in that language. Whatever makes people happy is good.

But I must remind anyone who is in any doubt about it that you are not any less Welsh just because you were raised in an English speaking community and don't speak the old language. If you venture up the former coal mining valleys and interact with the locals (which I recommend) you will tend to find English speaking people as Welsh as anyone, with their own rich culture and heritage. Just as valid as Welsh speaking culture.

That reads OK in English, it just doesnt translate into Welsh at all.
Honestly the vocabulary would make it pretty funny.

I can accept that concept just as I can accept the multilingual multicultural culture of Bradford and Leicester. After how many generations and at what percentage of the population do they get the right to reduce their English speaking to the level of Welsh spoken in English speaking Wales?

There is nothing more Welsh than the diversity experienced as you cross the land. A West Wales village in which Welsh is commonly spoken is truly Welsh, and so is Tonypandy with its Welsh accented English. Both should be celebrated for their different varieties of Welsh culture.

Looking at today's news of flooding in Carmarthenshire, have you got any SPD wellies Meic?

A bit of a sore point that.
I have been complaining about the council not emptying the drains (now grass growing from them) for four months now. I worry about this because I am the low point of a 100m hill and the water can only leave through my garden past my garage door.
Yesterday the road turned into a river, flowing over the top of all the blocked drains and ran into my garage. Armed with previous complaints and warnings that this would happen I got them to come out and they emptied the drain outside my house.
Today the river ran down the road over the top of all the blocked drains and one third of it went gurgling very nicely down the perfectly functioning drain outside my house and the other two thirds ran into my garage.
I will not bother pushing them now as they have much more serious issues to deal with at this instant.
When things have died down I will go on the warpath for some maintenance of the WHOLE drainage system.

The back of my garden has flood planes incorporated into it and they are working just as they should.
The stream is now a river with my woodpile looking like a boat sailing in it.
All of this is up in the hills 120m above the town of Carmarthen.

Other newer houses (built ignoring local knowledge of where floods) are not so lucky, needing Wellies indoors.
I reckon this is the best water level we have had since I have lived here.
Global warming, what's that?

Thankfully it is not in your house.

I know you should not have to, but have you ever tried lifting the grids and clearing them yourself? I've done it in the past and it is quite a therapeutic and satisfying job. The main problem is usually finding a suitable lever to raise a heavy grid on a rusty hinge. They usually have a silt trap to allow a certain amount of debris build up without loss of function, and that determines how often they need doing.

I was chatting to a man in Nantymoel last night and he was in a very similar position to yourself, with the street turned into a shallow river. He was okay for the moment but it is a bit of stress you can do without.
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6278453 ... 6?hl=en-GB
This street. The google van lost nerve and wouldn't go all the way up.

pwa wrote:I live in Wales as an English bloke gone a bit native, and I have found it pays to remain a bit chilled on the language debate. People have their own perspectives based on their upbringing and life experiences, and I want them to be able to use the language of their choice as much as practical, and have their children educated in that language. Whatever makes people happy is good.

But I must remind anyone who is in any doubt about it that you are not any less Welsh just because you were raised in an English speaking community and don't speak the old language. If you venture up the former coal mining valleys and interact with the locals (which I recommend) you will tend to find English speaking people as Welsh as anyone, with their own rich culture and heritage. Just as valid as Welsh speaking culture.

Agreed - language is certainly an amplifier and preservative of various cultural artefacts but by no means the only culture-enabler. Still, I'd like to see all educational establishments everywhere do a lot more teaching of diverse languages than is currently done.

Although I'm long out of practice, I felt that learning basic latin & greek at school (as well as some French & German) was a real mind-opener to alternative ways of looking at things. And once you have the realisation that such alternative perspectives are available, you can more easily get more - not just via language but via different traditions of knowledge and their special terminology. It's also mind-opening to understand higher math, chemistry and (if you can find any) history that's told by people of different nations, particularly those nations mentioned in one's own Imperialist history, with all it's claims to being somehow superior.

Even club cycling is a cultural eye-opener.

But I digress.

When we move permanently to Wales, I'll be doing my utmost to pinch as much Welsh culture as I can, to make my own. It's one major reason for moving there - that local cultural pursuits are still extant, whereas in England (the part I live in at least) most of the local culture has died away in the face of the mass-media assault. There's still the allotments and some crafty types but they are a shadow of their former selves.

In Wales, such local pursuits seem more prevalent and more vigorous; and conducted to higher standards. My list includes singing, rowing in the sea (and fishing in it) and, of course, cycling & woodworking. There are some fine woodworking traditions in Wales, not least the various chair-making modes and carving styles. Who knows what else will turn up? I have a yen to attempt stain glass and there's a centre of expertise that does courses in Llandysul.

Perhaps I can do swapsies? There isn't much archery in West Wales; and not so much club cycling neither........

Cugel, a culture thief

The main problem is usually finding a suitable lever to raise a heavy grid on a rusty hinge.

The main problem in my case is that it is one of the major A roads out of Carmarthen.
The traffic is not sympathetic to my predicament.

Cugel is right again, as I noted at the start, for English-speaking people Wales is as familiar or as strange as one wants

Are you taking orders for intricate wooden love-spoons, or will your focus be on coracle manufacture?

Cyril Haearn wrote:Cugel is right again, as I noted at the start, for English-speaking people Wales is as familiar or as strange as one wants

Are you taking orders for intricate wooden love-spoons, or will your focus be on coracle manufacture?

I strive for the authentic, as this is a fashion and also part of some weird German philosophy I enjoy albeit by a German philosopher often found persona non grata for not telling-off Hitler. This would require any coracle I make to be clad in a cured cow hide. The ladywife will not stand for curing cowhide in the kitchen, or anywhere else!

Love spoons are just too twee for mee. I like proper furniture that lasts at least three centuries and always has utility. I may attempt the full Welsh comb-back stick chair, although I'll have to make another steamer and shaving horse as I gave the last ones away after my last bout of green woodworking.

Cugel, perhaps also considering a canoe (no cow needed).

Which philosopher do you mean?
..
"The German is a dangerous fellow, he whips a poem from his pocket and tries to start a conversation about philosophy"
- Heinrich Heine

(The Welshperson too? One hopes so )

Cyril Haearn wrote:Which philosopher do you mean?
..
"The German is a dangerous fellow, he whips a poem from his pocket and tries to start a conversation about philosophy"
- Heinrich Heine

(The Welshperson too? One hopes so )

Heidegger.

The Chermans do philosophy by writing reams of obscure & slightly mad prose. The Welsh seem to do philosophy by performing obscure & slightly mad acts.

Some who are a bit Welsh and also a bit Cherman type cryptic and orthogonal remarks into an interweb forum full of obscure and slightly mad olepharts.

Cugel

The Seven Wonders of Wales

Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham Steeple
Sonowdons mountain without its people
Overton yew trees, St Winfrides Well
Llangollen bridge and Gresford bells

Why are they all in the north?
I guess the River "Seven" is the eighth Wonder

Don't tell me you want to move all them to Cardiff too.