Actually, not sure that doesn’t make it sound worse…
I’m not saying it is worse that I am not calling for the beheading of Jim Davidson, of course.
Look, I don’t want Jim Davidson to be beheaded at all, by anyone, ok?
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Hi David.
I’m so sorry you received this kind of attack from anyone, especially (but not only) as you are making the effort to learn Welsh to fit into your community.
I’ll apologise also that we (as in official SSiW) have not answered before - I’ve had a manic few days, and Aran has been away in Scotland for a week. However, as you see from all the other responses you’ve received, your experience is, thankfully, rare, and by learning Welsh, you are slowly finding yourself to be a bigger and bigger part of an exceptionally friendly community.
Unfortunately, as in any other walk of life, there are idiots out there. More importantly, and more commonly, there are perfectly ratinonal, friendly beings out there who allow themselves to be tipped into idiocy by circumstances. As far as I am aware, welsh speaker-dom have very few of the first type (ie out and out racists), but more of the second type.
I am packing for bootcamp this morning, so I’m afraid that this is as long a post as I can manage, but I hope you understand (you seem to from the way you are dealing with this!) that people who want to be a full part of our communities are fully welcome by nearly all Welsh speakers, and you have just been unfortunate to be at the receiving end of a particularly nasty incident.
Just to touch on the S4C aspect - I suspect that S4C will be very careful with any treatment of in-migration / anglicisation of communities, not least because PyC is a BBC production, and stepping even a tiny bit out of line with accepted norms is a dangerous thing at the Beeb. In a way, a bit of a daring story line, with a Welshman’s bigotted attitude being turned on it’s head by an Englishman with your attitude might be a good thing for S4C to be showing. We’ll wait and see!
Thank you for sharing your concerns here, though, rather than internalising the hurt, and turning against our beautiful language and country (hey, I never said I wasn’t biased!) because of one less-than-beautiful person.
Keep enjoying!
Iestyn
Iestyn, bless you and thanks.
I really didn’t expect an “official” SSiW response, but thank you so much for it.
Our learning regime has taken a bit of a dip, I’ll admit, but we’re going to get back to it next week. Certainly not going to let one (hopefully solitary) voice of vitriol spoil the prospect of actually being able to hold a real, grown-up conversation with some of our new friends and neighbours in their own language (however long that takes!)
As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye makes everybody blind.
Hwyl a diolch yn fawr, eto.
Start as soon as you can. Once you’re about ready to start lesson 7, you’ll know enough to start talking to people. No, really. You might not be able to hold a full conversation, and you may need to ask them to slow down a little, but you’ll definitely see the benefits. And who knows, maybe that source of vitriol will at least think again when he sees that, unlike so many English people who move into Welsh speaking areas, you’re actually making an effort to fit in. Or maybe he won’t, in which case he doesn’t deserve your time or energy anyway.
I’d like to echo Iestyn here - I’m dreadfully sorry that you’ve had this experience, David. I’ve faced that kind of attack myself once (in 15 years) and I know how upsetting it can be.
It’s very important, though, that you don’t give that thug the pleasure of letting him drive you away from doing exactly the right thing you are doing to fit in to your new community - your efforts will mean a huge amount to lots of your new neighbours, and as you push on through to genuine conversational ability, you’ll hear more and more from them about how impressed they are with what you’re doing.
Don’t let yourself get knocked off track by an idiot, and do please come on here when you have the natural ups and downs of acquiring a new language…
Hopefully this won’t be seen as insensitive, and I apologize in advance if it does. I wanted to say that, for someone from the US, this post has been an eye opener. I regularly watch Pobol y Cwm for learning purposes and I didn’t think twice when I saw the aforementioned scene. There was an earlier episode in which a character changes her decision to purchase a farm because of outside interest, and I remember being a bit taken aback, but mostly because a considerable amount of money (I think) was involved.
Clearly I have a lot to learn.
This is a huge issue and perhaps this Forum is not the most appropriate place to discuss it. On 4 October Cymdeithas yr Iaith Cymraeg are holding a rally in Pwllheli on the same subject of protecting/promoting Cymraeg communities…Thirty years ago, I well remember seeing - it was on the roundabout where Cowbridge Road (Cardiff) becomes the A.48 - an advertising hoarding for a brand of butter ‘Country Cottage’. ‘Wouldn’t you love to come home to…’ it read. Underneath, in black paint was daubed ‘Burn’em Down!’.
At the time it was thought to be so amusing that postcards were produced and it featured in a book of ‘funny’ grafitti images.
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