@mikeellwood
Helo 
(excuse me for answering almost a month later 
)
Iāve been thinking on how to explain you thisā¦ I think Iāve got it now 
OK, we should start knowing that Catalan has been exposed to Spanish for centuries so, naturally, there have been (many) linguistic interferences. But, now more than ever, Catalan is suffering a Spanish dominance specially in big cities. That being so, itās influencing a lot in normal and spoken Catalan. I believe there are currently two types of Spanish āloansā: those that also existed before the standardization (which have mostly been replaced with the ācorrectā Catalan terms and most people, except some old people, donāt use them anymore) and those that have now entered in the common language spoken at home or in the streets. (to be continued )
Only if those tourists arenāt interested in seeing some of the most stunningly beautiful scenery in the universeā¦
Welsh was certainly the language of the street there when I was young, but not so much now- certainly still the language of the pubs and natives, thankfully! One of those places Iām not sure a tourist would hear much Welsh, but someone who knew the area would speak it up to mostly, as it were. My impression anyway!
So it is still a source of good Welsh, but it has changed - so everyone be sure not to tell anyone about that beautiful scenery and what a wonderful place it is to live unless they are prepared to learn Welsh!
That is the problem isnāt it - the Quarter bach area of Carmarthenshire, which includes upper brynaman has still got the highest percentage of Welsh Speakers in Carmarthenshire (68%), (closely followed by Pontyberem 67%), but it has seen a huge decline over the last twenty years to fall to this level. Two thirds of those with no knowledge of Welsh in this area (600 people) were born outside of Wales and for whatever reason have decided not to learn the language or maybe feel they canāt, while there are about 350 people born in Wales living there as well who donāt speak the language. This is a trend across the whole of Carmarthenshire and in some areas, vastly more people have moved in and chosen not to learn the language, the % of Welsh speakers has fallen to very low levels in a very short space of time. Welsh speakers are also leaving to work elsewhere, Cardiff etc etc, but the main issue is people moving to these areas from where-ever and changing the community language to English. These are the hard facts and in Upper Brynaman 85% of the people born in Wales who live there can speak Welshā¦
[quote=āaran, post:38, topic:4804ā]
Are you doing the accelerated listening exercises? [/quote]
Where exactly can I find these? Diolch!
Every fifth lesson of Level 1 (and hopefully soon every fifth lesson of level 2 as well). That is, in the new courses rather than the old.
I was so very sorry to read this! I was used to being addressed naturally in Cymraeg, for example, at Stradey Park. I hadnāt realised that Carmarthen had changed. I was glad to read that Caernarfon is still as I remember!!
To @Paubofill I believe the Spanish Government tries to block any EU Laws giving rights to āminorityā languages like Cymraeg because they do not want Catalonia to gain independence.
About Basque, I understood this to be a very, very ancient language, perhaps older than old British. If so, it is well worth preserving. Anyone with any knowledge of this?
You will all realise that I only just noticed ths thread!
I was in the northern Basque country just a couple of weeks ago, and it reminded me very strongly of Wales - partly because all signage etc. was in Euskera first, with French or Spanish (depending on where we were) afterwards. I didnāt manage to hear very much of it, but what I did hear sounded gorgeous. Iād love to learn some, if we ever get SSiB.
Remember he did say āin some areasā. Is important to know these things are happening, but also important to realise the extent to which Welsh is still spoken throughout the whole of Wales, throughout Carmarthenshire, throughout further south, around Swansea and āevenā in it!
I donāt know if this is true for Spain, but it is true for France. In the four Spanish Basque provinces, Basque is taught in schools, similar to Welsh, some mixed, some Basque, some Basque as a foreign language. The Basque provinces have the status of an autonomous region in Spain. Basque is not supressed now as it was under Franco. I have some distant relations there who are very proud Basque speakers, including teenagers. The situation is very different in France, I remember having a conversation with a Basque language bookshop owner in the French Basque province of Soule - in MaulĆ©on - some years ago who was lamenting the fact that the French government was disregarding its obligations under the EU conventions, to the extent that only 10% of people stil spoke Basque there.
Zazpiak Bat!
Very high on my personal āto doā listā¦ 
Youād love it. It even looks like Wales ā¦ but with sunshine.
I second that. Bilbao & Donostia / San Sebastian are particularly impressive.
If you go, @aran think about the Bilbao-Portsmouth ferry but do get a cabin
We did that coming back from our honeymoon - high time we managed to go backā¦
That surprises me not! The French have always been very protective of their language. I do not blame them for that, but am sorry it extends to being unkind to Basque! Is it true this is the last relic of Phoenician?
I suspect what I heard about Spain was more to do with political rights. I think they donāt want anyone like the Scots giving the Catalans the idea they could run their own affairs!! No country likes to lose bits, even if the bits have been gained by past wars or alliances or just plain theft!!!
The most recent theory regarding the origins of the Basques: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34175224
If true, more related to Estonians and Lithuanians than Phoenicians.
My instant reaction was to think of the distances involved and the difficulty of land travel. However, the article is talking about DNA, i.e. people not words. It seems the Basques are quite genuinely, the earliest Europeans, that the language is presumably of similar vintage and that we should all be taking every possible step to preserve both. We, as a species, need SSiBasque!! If this was a tree frog in the jungle, there would be a preservation campaign. For a whole people and their languageā¦.nothing!!!
@aran???
@Hendraig, you may be interested to know there is a young man I am aware of doing both SSiW and learning Basque. He was active on the HTLAL forum and has recently become active on the language-learners.org forum. Iām not sure whether he is a member of this forum. I donāt know what materials he uses for Basque, but if an SSiB course materialised one day, Iām sure heād give it a try.
I am currently (kind of) learning Basque by myself with ikasten.net. Unfortunately, at the moment Iām not making too much of a progress since I donāt have a lot of time to spend studying.
I am also currently studying Basque (whenever I have time, which isnāt as often as Iād like) with ikasten.net, which deepens a lot in the languages but is, unfortunately, a bit dry andā¦ boring. If SSiB ever becomes reality Iād surely give it a try too!
On Duolingo there are also many volunteers willing to create a Basque course but they havenāt let them start it yetā¦