In this corner of the world there are quite a mix of nationalities and it can be a fun pastime trying to guess what language people are speaking.
One of the wonderful advantages of now being able to speak Welsh to Eirwen ( a million thanks to SSiW ) is that I am now involved ‘‘in the game’’ as well as being a spectator of the game.
I can see people within earshot of us trying to guess where between Latvia and Kyrgistan Eirwen and I may come from.
Fortunately, Aran has not yet taught us to swear in Welsh as it is very tempting to do so on occasion, thinking that no-one around will understand. However, it would be just my luck that if I did so there would be someone Welsh nearby to swear back at me.
Then people really don’t know how languages sound as Latvian and Estonian is prety different from Cymraeg … I’d have a desire to swear to in this occassion …
Don’t feel guilty. No one does why should you. However for Slovene we use “slovenski jezik” as “Slovene language” or “slovensko” when we want to say that we speak Slovene.
“Govorim slovensko.” (I speak Slovene)
“Obvladam slovenski jezik.” (I can speak Slovene language)
Slovene in both cases is written witl lower case as adjectives ending with “ski” “ški”, “sko”, “ško”, etc are written this way for the difference of in English all languages are written with capitals as far as I know.
However if you search in Google for Slovene language you’ll have also search for “Slovenščina” (not Slovenčina) if “slovenski” or “slovensko” won’t be there to find.
If I argued for languages (and all other names like cities, persons etc) to be used in their original form in “Say no to Wales” topic then it’s time to fulfil my commitment to that I think. It still happens I tend to use Welsh instead of Cymraeg but I see it already at the right time to correct things.
I bet it doesn’t sound like Latvian or so. It might be I would sound a bit like that though. Slavic accent might be present in my speach at no doubt.
I didn’t find the courage to record my speach yn Gymraeg though. I find it too lousy to do so at the moment.
I had the great pleasure of surprising some Cymraeg speakers whilst at work recently. I was showing a group from Carmarthen round and as they were about to leave I said ‘Dw i’n gobeithio dach chi wedi licio vor heddiw?’. I had a fabulous reaction. They were thrilled and asking me all about why I was learning Cymraeg , and I was talking about SSiW and how fabulous it was and that I have only been learning since beginning of March! A lady in the group said she couldnt speak Cymraeg and had lived in Carmarthen all her life…perhaps she will start on here?! It made my day!
I think I would be very tempted when you cross the border into England to dress eskimo style and rub noses after you speak. That should really confuse your English onlookers
Well, I was slightly egged on by someone who shall remain nameless (but he wears a crwban on his hat… ) to speak to the lady selling us a panad at gorsaf rheilffordd Rhydychen in a mixture of Welsh and English recently …
Do you use the alphabet we use or the one I can’t spell : ‘sirilic’? Because if your language is not usually represented in the Latin alphabet, it makes it harder to explain! Let’s face it, our language (Cymraeg) is written in the Latin alphabet and was before anyone wrote English, but now the English usage of letters is so dominant that we have to explain how to say an awful lot that is written in Cymraeg!! Lianne Wood was trying to teach a TV person how to say ‘Cymru’ the other day!!
The same alphabet, don’t worry. We only use additional letters like č (like ch in cherry), ž (like in word mesures) and š (like sh in word she).
Our alphabet has all in total 25 characters and x,y,q,w are not in it but still used when we write foreign names etc down.
For example word express would be written as “ekspres” and not with x (and with one s not two of them).
What bothers me when come to pronaunciation how to explain this to foreign person as we in Slovenia describe it way differently as you do. for example word “ekspres” would be simply introduced as ekspres (read as you write).
It still happens I tend to use Welsh instead of Cymraeg but I see it already at the right time to correct things.
