Calan Gaeaf

The First day of a season or month is known as Calan in Welsh. Calan Mai is Mayday, Dydd Calan New Years Day, and Calan Gaeaf the first day of winter, and the begining of the Celtic New Yyear. Celts believed that at this time the souls of their ancestors could return to earth and created masks that would keep evil spirits away, and carved fierce faces from turnips to the same effect.

The Christian church adapted this pagan festival to become All Saints Day and All Souls Day, but most well known today is of course Halloween, the name coming from 'All Hallows Even'. Some traditions from its pagan origins are still observed (such as the carving of turnips and pumpkins). In Welsh Halloween is Nos Galan Gaeaf, and a tradition in a similar vein to trick or treating was known as 'gast neu geiniog', though many of the old traditions have been lost to more commercialy driven ones. Calan Gaeaf/Halloween remains though, a 'tradition' derived from our Celtic origins!

Ymddiheuriadau - um-thee-hay-rrree-ad-eye (apologies)

I must apologise for missing some of the comments on this blog, as for some reason they are sent to an obscure e-mail address I rarely check! There must be a way of changing this, and I'll try to do this a.s.a.p. as I appreciate any response, comments etc.

Anyway, one of the problems people can encounter when learning Welsh is a Welsh speakers eagerness to turn the conversation back to English as soon as they sense you're a learner, and perhaps you're struggling to communicate something. Thank goodness many Cymry Cymraeg (Welsh speaking Welsh people) are happy for learners to practice on/with them, and resist the urge to help in this way.

This is not just a problem for dysgwyr Cymraeg, as highlighted in this post (part of this is in English) on Morfablog (Morfablog, by the way was one of the first blogs in the Welsh language, and is written by Nic Dafis, a learner turned tutor). Perhaps not suprisingly, practicing your Finish skills in Finland can be quite a challenge!

Diwedd yr Haf....

Today the clocks back (I think... spring forward, fall back is the only way I remember) which means the end of summer (diwedd yr haf), or at least 'British summertime'. Below is a small piece which shouldn't be too hard for those half way through Mynediad to understand (where there is a mutation I've highlighted it in italics :


Mae hi'n amser 'newid y clociau' unwaith eto. Yng Nghilgwri, mae hi wedi bod penwythnos digon tymhorol, efo glaw a gwynt, ond dydy hi ddim wedi bod yn rhy oer.
Mae'r ysgolion wrth cwrs wedi cau am (g)wyliau yr hanner tymor, ac mi fydd rhai bobol yn dianc am wythnos yn yr heulwen efallai, neu yn mynd i fwynhau yr hydref rhywle yng Nghymru. A dweud y gwir, dwi'n eitha hoffi'r hydref, er dwi ddim yn edrych ymlaen at ddyddiau byrion y gaeaf sydd ar y gorwel.



unwaith - once
digon - enough
newid - change
tymhorol - seasonal
a dweud y gwir - to tell the truth
eitha - rather
byrion - short(plural) byr = short (singular)
gorwel - horizon

Death of a language....

I heard a piece on Radio 4 this morning about the predicted death of 50% of the worlds languages over the next century, and have just read the related article on their website. Welsh interestingly is quoted as a success story, though in one response on the website, a correspondant from Cardiff suggests preserving 'dead' languages is through teaching them as a secondary language in schools, as with Welsh he goes on to say! ...not quite sure he understands the concept of Welsh medium education. Others clearly welcome the demise of minority languages as a positive thing and look forward to a world where we can travel without the inconvenience of encountering different tongues.

Clearly the most endangered languages are in remote areas where tribes have little autonomy and whos language is seen as a hinderance to progress, or to finding employment/education in rapidly changing cultures. This takes us back to Welsh in a way, a language that was seen as a hinderance by some and not passed on by parents, where they felt it would stop them getting on. This attitude to a smaller extent continues I'm sure. I remember a friend (a first language Welsh speaker) from Holyhead but living here being asked to say something in Welsh once, his mumbled reply was something like "Why, do you want to talk about combine harvesters?". This always struck me as strange, as if he was embarassed by his culture (past?) and associated Welsh as an agricultural language.

Thankfully though attitudes are changing, and Welsh has seen a small yet significant revival, on paper at least. Welsh is seen to be of value by many these days, and there is a confidence in Wales that no one could have dreamt of before 1998.

Gwthio'r ffin.... pushing the border....

(apologies for the grammar, this is a quick translation of a posting on my Welsh blog Clecs Cilgwri)

Last year I rememmber one of the night class asking whether the Wirral had ever been a part of Wales. It's a good question, and one I hadn't really considered before then. It depends I suppose on how you define 'Wales' ("When Was Wales" asked Gwyn A Williams in the title of his book), and of course on the history of the torturously twisting border of today, a border confirmed under the Acts of Union between 1536 and 1543.

Anyway, I was reminded of the discussion once again by a picture which appeared in the October edition of the magazine 'Barn'(opinion), one that represents in paint (i think) Owain Glyndŵr's vision of extending his countrys border to include the 'marcher' counties, from the banks of the Mersey in the North to the Severn Estuary in the South, including places like Worcester, and the Wirral. Certainly neither the 'Welsh' nor the Welsh language where confined to the lands to the west of the border (like today!), but the Wirral had been colonised by Vikings from Ireland in the tenth century, and Saxons of course had arrived before that. So at the time of Glyndŵr, it's unlikely that many of the scattered population of Wirral would have felt 'Welsh'. But if Glyndŵr had won his 'argument' who knows, Wirral could have been a part of Wales, and us Wirralians genuine Welsh!?