Nothing like dredging up a comment from 4 years ago to reply to, eh?
It just so happens that we have been working here at S4C to revise our language guidelines, and I have been having some very interesting conversations with linguists about this…
When someone suggested that we should advise people to use “Standard Spoken Welsh” I asked for a reference source to direct them to. And they couldn’t. Because no such thing exists.
The Dysgu Cymraeg teach two different forms of “standardised” Welsh (North and South), but they are only standardised in the sense of “this is what we are all going to teach, so that we all teach the same thing”. It doesn’t mean that the Welsh they teach is any better/worse or more/less authentic than the Welsh taught in the north/south versions of SSiW.
The best advice I think that I received when I was learning was the learn to speak the way that people around me speak, so that I could quickly join in with the local community. But also to be aware that other forms exist and that they are just as valid as the way I speak.
And with my Language Planning hat on, speaking Welsh (whatever form that takes for you) with as many people as you can is the best thing anyone can do to help the language thrive and prosper.
The concept of “standardising” a spoken language brings with it all sorts of hidden problems. I would much rather we accept the fact that one doesn’t exist for us in Welsh, and instead concentrate on the fact that that our language has a wealth of variation that enriches all our lives!
Sometimes these problems aren’t even very well hidden. Bewilderingly enough, the standardisation of “classroom Welsh” has led to false self-assessments of “I don’t speak proper Welsh” on the sides of both the learners and the first language speakers.
And then comes this wonderful liberating moment where you realise that you have the freedom to choose from the variations you hear and decide for yourself which words you’re going to use. The language becomes your own!
…and, although Dysgu Cymraeg do indeed have two streams at the start, the last bit (Uwch 2 and 3) only have one version, with a lot of attention being paid to how different people would say the same thing. And anyway, is there anyone, anywhere, who speaks pure (insert name of accent here)? Learn a way of saying things, learn to understand the others, and that’s probably enough (unless you’re writing a novel about people from different areas meeting and failing to understand each other!)
I was lucky enough to get to sit in on the undergraduate “Tafodieitheg” (dialectology) course when I was doing my Masters at Cardiff Uni, and it was fascinating! But it served to confirm to me that the subject was huge, and that Aran has been right all along - “Don’t worry about it” is absolutely the best tactic…
We have been talking in this entire thread about ‘os’ and ‘pe’ … but did we mention anywhere ‘ai’ (whether) … I sometimes still make mistakes in its use … any further resources? diolch ymlaen llaw
