1975 we had just bought our first car after living in Wales for about a year. We were travelling on a new stretch of road near Neath and I saw a sign that said 1 milltir to the next layby. I remember saying to my husband that it must be something like Italian for any lorry drivers going that way!!! What a numpty!! It was sometime later that the realisation came to me! Before that I had not really taken much notice of the Welsh on any signs. And our house was called Tawelfan! But it didnât register in my monoglot brain!
It sounds strange but I just found out that the original Milltir was the Welsh mile, equivalent 9000 paces or about 4.8 modern miles. Also there was a unique Welsh system of measurement units.
Seeing the âCroeso i Gymruâ roadsigns whenever we crossed the border on our frequent family trips from Brum to Wales when I was a kid, and proudly informing everyone in the car that âCrowsow Eye Jimrooâ is Welsh for âWelcome to Walesâ.
I was probably too young to remember as I grew up in non-Welsh speaking Wales. It may just have been Mr Urdd, there were lots of pictures of him at Primary school.
Or do you mean âin Welshâ, which was probably a supermarket sign, itâs difficult to remember when I was first âin Welshâ where I naturally read the Welsh first, such as "Caws / Cheeseâ, Or it would have been some sign in Caernarfon.
Sorry for rather a vague answer
When I was very young, going on holiday to Pen Llšn, I always remember the signposts to âLlwybr Cyhoeddusâ. I soon learned that this was not the name of a destination, but actually meant âPublic (Foot)pathâ. My late Dad (bendith arno), despite not generally speaking Welsh, had been evacuated on a Welsh-speaking farm during the Second World War, and retained a good ârapportâ with the Welsh language, even if he did not speak it. I suspect he may have retained a lot more ability than he ever admitted to. At least he and Mum taught me to respect the language and my Welsh roots - and to say âLLâ
But my Llwybr to Y Gymraeg has been rather long, winding and Preifat over the years - though I am happy to say it is all nicely Cyhoeddus these days. Thanks to SSiW and to my patient companions at Y Saith Seren, Wrecsam and Halcyon Quest, Prestatyn and others too numerous to mention, my llwybr has brought me to the happy point of being able to say out loud that I am now a Welsh Speaker - and now leads forward to a life lived predominantly in Welsh as I am about to move to a lovely spot only 3 miles from Caernarfon
How could I also forget our primary school teacher!
He couldnât speak Welsh, he told us as much - but still persisted in trying to teach us the basic colours when I was 8 or 9.
The line that sticks with me to this dayâŚ
âRed is COKE (He actually used to say it was just the word COKE, not COCH, but COKE. And this is easy to remember because what colour is a can of COKE? Red, thatâs rightâ
His other slightly less convincing one wasâŚ
âBlue is GLAS. This is easy to remember because glass is blueâ
âŚand this Ladies and Gents is why I left school with no Welsh skills
Ha ha, Nicky. When I suggested this topic I was worried that it might be a bit of a dry subject, but fair play to you. Youâve really brought it alive.
At a push, I can sort of see the blue glass thing, but only because we had some really old windows, which had an unintentional tint.
However, Iâm struggling with the red Coke. Iâm going to need to visualise some of that weird cherry Coke for that to work.
I remember a (rare) fascinating programme on S4C a good few years ago now, where they went to visit (mainly) Liverpudlians who had been evacuated to N Wales in their small years and acquired native fluency in the language by the time they went home. These people had never used Welsh since (not at home anyway!), but their fluency was unimpaired by the intervening years. When speaking English, they sounded like Scousers, but then could switch to perfect gog-Welsh!
That explains the dictionary then. The description of the dictionary (of which Iâm pleased to say that I have a copy, with the modern front cover) says:
Native Welsh speakers will also find the Modern Welsh Dictionary a useful resource in clarifying questions of vocabulary, grammar and usage.
The word âPeryglâ (Danger) on a road sign somewhere near Corwen.
The second word I saw and learned, sadly, was âCofiwchâ in the âCofiwch Drewerenâ graffiti. I was nine, and it was then that I learned, despite what Iâd been taught, that we were a different country.