(no subject)

[muladhara]

I finished my nephew's cardigan (progress shots are available on my tumblr - muladhara). It's spent the last two days blocking in the kitchen and is now finally dry! \o/

I am so pleased with it, and it's the first piece of clothing I've ever made.

Now for the next one!

(Well, after I have finished knitting this burp cloth. After a visit from my brother and nephew on Friday, mum and I came to realise that we are woefully unprepared for a child in this house. So I went out and bought some rusk-type baby biscuits, some soft plastic spoons*, and I'm knitting the burp cloth. I'm also going to make some toys, a blanket, and a box to put them all in).

*I didn't buy soft baby food because it turns out that my sister in law puts some in the baby's bag for emergencies.

Talking of babies, me and mum watched some of the kids' TV on S4C at dinner time. Because we didn't watch the tennis. Anyway.

A) It's nice to know Welsh voice actors sound as terrible as English speaking ones (Large Ham, anyone?)
B) The Welsh are totally into princes, princesses, kings, and queens, right? Oh, and castles. Words learnt today: brenhin, brenhines, brenhinol** (king/queen/royal)
C) Kids' TV is irritating to adults no matter what language it's in.

**Feel free to correct spellings. I don't have my Welsh/English dictionary handy, I didn't ask my mum, and I can't be bothered to check google translate because fuck that shit.

We came to the conclusion that we may show my nephew some of it when he's older. I'd like him to be at least a bit familiar with Welsh (although he will grow up bilingually speaking English/Afrikaans, which is pretty damned cool anyway).

~*~

I was going to say some other stuff, but I've since forgotten it, and now I need to be asleep anyway. So I should go and do that.

Comments

[beccatoria]

Oooh Welsh! I'm sort of running in here all over the place, cus I SPEAK THAT YAY and I always get super excited when other people talk about it. But also, I feel I ought to level with you, S4C children's programming is..um, even awfuller than English-language kids TV to be honest with you, or at least, it's more...trippy.

It sounds like your Mum speaks Welsh? Does your nephew live in Wales, cus if so, and if his parents wanted him to speak yet another language, they could always put him in Welsh-medium education?

At which point I'll stop propagandising at you! ;) Point is, yay babies and yay languages!

:DDDD

[muladhara]

I love Welsh :D and I love that there are other people in the world who love it, too. And I think it's awesome that you speak it (is it your second or first language?)

I hate to disillusion(?) you but no, my mum doesn't speak Welsh. However, she does come from near Newport, and has an interest in the language; I ask her for spellings when I'm not sure because she pretty much always gets it right. I'm the only Welsh speaker in our family, but I'm not very good at it because I've never had anyone to speak it to or practice it on. I spent two years living in North Wales and tried my best to learn while I was there but again, no-one to speak it with.

(I love languages, hence the icon, and know bits of a lot of other languages, but make concerted efforts to learn certain ones - currently French (learnt at school), Japanese (big Japan geek), Welsh, and at the moment German (friends who speak it), though I'm looking at Dutch or Afrikaans simply because of my sister in law (speaks Afrikaans, but it's based on Dutch, sooooo...) )

And no, my nephew lives 10 minutes up the road from me (I'm in West Yorks). BUT if we lived in Wales, I would make a strong case for him going to a bilingual/Welsh-educational school.

Oh you can propagandise all you like! I love having someone to enthuse about Welsh to/with!

(P.S. I may have to investigate the tripiness of Welsh kids' TV. I love shit like that).

Re: :DDDD

[beccatoria]

Awesome! :D Well I'm always happy to practice it with you if you want. I would warn you that I've learned I can be bad at speaking Welsh with learners because I tend to unthinkingly use a lot of informal slang and stuff, but I imagine that'd be less of an issue when it's written and I have time to think before running my mouth. ;)

I'm so jealous that you're good with languages - I'd love to be. Being bilingual everyone always assumes I am, and sure, I'm probably better than I would be if I were a monoglot, but I really have no natural talent for it. To answer your question, Welsh is my second language, but I was fortunate to learn it as a very young child, when language acquisition is still easy and instinctive. I don't really remember the process of learning it at all. In practical terms what this means is I'm more comfortable in English, my vocabulary is larger, I feel more at ease expressing myself. But I'm completely fluent in Welsh; my understanding of the grammar, etc., is just something I know - as we do with our first languages - not something I have to think about, etc. Actually as of a few months ago I've had a job where three days a week I'm in a totally Welsh-language environment, which has been interesting. I still have the frustration of high-level vocab eluding me, "Wait, what was the Welsh word for "interdependent" again?! Oh screw it, I'll just say "depends on each other"!" - that kind of thing, but I was amazed how quickly everything came back after nearly a decade of only getting to speak it sporadically.

(Of course this is not even touching on the mutations. OMFG THE MUTATIONS. WHY, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME, LANGUAGE?! Basically, I instinctively follow common mutation patterns without thinking but much the same way as native English speakers get tripped up by who/whom and such things, the rarer rules have me pointing, laughing and using a spellchecker.)

Can I ask where you were living in North Wales? I've not spent that much time up there, but it is gorgeous.

And alas, I am sad you are not physically nearer to me, but I actually live in Cardiff, which is like a half hour bus ride away from Newport, so if you're ever down visiting your Mum, and you feel like it, I could hop on the bus and we could totally meet up for lunch or something!

On a sort-of-related topic, while I know it wouldn't be practical just because of the number of fluent teachers you'd need to get it going, I think it'd be awesome if every kid had the opportunity to be sent to school in a language other than the one they speak at home. I mean, I know that not every kid is the same, and for some, probably that would be stressful, or difficult for the parents. But I also think that it's way less of an issue than most people assume. I'm aware that there are economic and cultural issues that can also affect the situation? But I went to a school where 70% of us had no Welsh-speaking parent at home and our school was one of the better ones in the city in terms of academic achievement so clearly it wasn't stunting us all. And there are all sorts of studies saying it's good for kids to grow up bilingual.

And I just can't get over why anyone, if offered the choice, wouldn't take it? Because it's like a whole other language for free. Like at 4 and 5 kids will just learn it on this magical, easy, instinctive level, forever more.

Of course if the government did suddenly open up French schools or Mandarin schools or whatever, people would probably panic and then accuse them of wasting money. But I totally think they should.