Funnily, Suomi is what affectionately comes first into my mind: a result of living in Rovaniemi in the early seventies. When I think of native Laplanders, I always think, Sami, as well.
Suomi/Finland is a place that should be on every tourist map: beautiful country and really great people. Really wish I’d learnt more of the language.
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It is a lovely language. Its close relative Estonian is also very beautiful, I think.
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I thought it was me that did that Tatjana fach!! Because I’m an unreformed ancient nationalist!! (But always strictly non-violent!!)
I am so pleased you got your own country back! Oh, and, I’m so curious, why did you want to learn Cymraeg?
That there are links with the, Hungarian language, I find fascinating.
Yes…though they are very distant links, of course. Another lovely language, though.
it belongs to the same language group.
Once upon an time on my forum profile it was, among all the others written something like this too:
The deceision I’ll learn Welsh came from two major reasons: 1st was because my online friend said to me it’s too hard to learn, even harder then French and he doubted I’ll manage to do something, and the second reason was simple vow to Welsh rugby squad (although they don’t know that) that I’ll learn to speak Welsh if they’d win Grand Slam. They won it so promise is a promise! I’LL DO IT NOW!
In the mean time I started to like how this language sounds and the fect that quite a lot of (especially young) people don’t care for the language touched me enough to care for this beautiful language even more.
Now you know the story. However I don’t manage to fulfill this vow too good though.
No, dont’ worry. I’m master of driving people away no matter how eager I am this not to happen. Well, my comments here were not meant to be even a bit “nationalistic” but only tried to put my view on the subject. I admit I am too passionate about something I feel is right though but this doesn’t mean people have to agree with me.
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Oh dear, we are going far off subject, but how did you come to be a rugby fan, never mind a fan of our team??? When was this?? Have you ever been to a game? When I used to go, it was Five Nations and all players were amateurs. The World Cup 1991 was my swan song as an attendee!! I know Georgia are great players, but Slovenia??
I’m continuing this “far off topic” discussion here Me (or let some questions be answered) and letting those who are still willing to talk about whether we can say no to Wales (and Welsh) or not to continue the debate.
Diolch yn fawr i gofyn @henddraig.
I always write or type Wrecsam as opposed to Wrexham. I think that should change as well!
And such an easy change to make (compared to some possible name or spelling changes).
I like to think a majority of British folks know where Espana is and where Deutchland is, in fact I know someone who says he’s going to Deutschland when he travels there, maybe it’s a way of saying I’m going there and I can speak a bit of the language, or maybe not when folks are off to Paris but pronounced Paree. Anyway, I wonder how many non Welsh British people know where Cymru is?
It’s certainly time it raised it’s profile. An official change of name is a long way off, and then Radio Wales will change its name to Radio Cymru but oops there’s already one called that.
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And then we’d all have to start saying “Dwi’n mynd i England er mwyn ymweld â ffrindiau yn Gloucester.”
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I have long thought it weird that people in a country should call themselves, “foreigners” if that is indeed the true derivation - or could it be a mutation of Galles? Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what other places call Wales, but it does get to the heart of a kind of longstanding inferiority complex the people should allow themselves to be called this. Although we may call Spain, "Spain’, you can rest assured, that’s not what the Spanish call it! It is interesting that Cumbria has maintained its Celtic name yet Wales has not. The famous Phil Bennett rugby pep-talk when he said “the English have taken our water, our coal and our steel…” didn’t mention they had also taken the name.
Surely it is time to regain some self-respect, throw off the shackles of victimhood and say with a strong and steady voice, “You call us what you like, but this land is Cymru”.
Nic
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Just maybe Plaid Cymru gives them a clue?? Or do most English folk not take much notice of anything but Labour and Tories?
Oh YES!!! That is a brilliant reaction!! N’in yma o hyd!!!
Yes indeed - a very good point robbruce. Somehow I DON’T think applying the same principles the other way round will be quite so popular, do you? 
How bonkers this all is - what, so we’re not allowed (for example) to call Hungary ‘Hungary’, as that is in some way an insult to the Hungarians, because they call it ‘Magyarország’, so we should as well? ‘I’m going to Magyarország for my holidays’. (Oh yeah?)
And then of course the other way round as well - how DARE the Hungarians call our country ‘Anglia’ - the name is England! So instead of saying ‘élnek Angliában’ for ‘they live in England’, the Hungarians must henceforth be required to say ‘élnek Englandban’.
And then further afield - we mustn’t say ‘China’ any more (disrespectful) - we must refer to it as Zhōngguó, and we must get the tones right as well, of course. Good luck with that.
And don’t get me started on ‘Vietnam’ and ‘Vietnamese’ - pardon me, but I for one am taking a holiday in Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam so that I can brush up my tiếng Việt.
The day I hear someone on Heno say ‘Dan ni’n bwriadu mynd i Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam am ddeufis’ is the day I will start saying ‘I’m planning on having a short holiday in Gogledd-orllewin Cymru.’
Can I just warn people that if this is going to get political we have rules about being nice. No one has come near to breaking them yet, thank heavens, but please bear this in mind. 
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Wasn’t really meaning to be political., but to be on the safe side, I have deleted my post.
That’s why I stopped to post here. The line inbetween policy and pure discussion tends to be very thin …
OK Gareth, we get the point. The bee in my bonnet was about us having to say ‘Wales’, like people in Zimbabwe having to say they were from Rhodesia back when, because our country is a colony! If we simply say “Cymru, that’s ‘Wales’ in English” maybe that is the answer? In France, I think I’d say, “Payes se Galles, which we call Cymru!”