Assume everyone in Wales speaks Welsh

To be fair, I have found that in the few places that I have lived around Britain, I never been far from some form of Celtic or Romano-Celtic heritage.

Here is a taster that I just found -

https://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/art531472-the-celts-ten-places-to-experience-celtic-history-and-culture-in-the-uk

Thanks, so much for posting that section, Ali. I’ve just noticed it. That is so encouraging. I will try to take it onboard.

This morning, I filled up with fuel in Peniel Green, Swansea and noticed that the lady serving had an accent. I started the conversation with “Bore Da; Good Morning”, only because I felt that I might have come across a little bit pressurising, so gave her the opportunity to speak in either language. She answered “Hi/Shwmae” but then changed to English. In fairness to her, I suppose I had confused the issue and she was busy and I could see that she was a little flustered as it was only 7AM and she opened to a queue. So perhaps I could have said “shwd wyt ti” and given her the option to take things at her own pace.

There we are. Hopefully I learnt from the experience.

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I must admit that I was totally lost with the geography until today I stumbled across this piece with a map.
NOW I can picture it…

Despite the positive spin the article gives on the decline of the language I found this map really depressing. As an English speaking Welshman (okay, now kind of a Welsh speaking Welshman) I hope we can all be part of the reversal of the trend no matter how small our contribution.

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If you’re still in the game with plenty of time left, then you can change the outcome if the belief, skill and confidence is there to do it. A lot of good things have happened in my lifetime and I really believe the tide is changing.

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I found it saddening yet challenging at the same time. Don’t be disheartened! I remember the Welsh (and Irish) Nationalist movements and how they pushed hard for the language(es). I don’t know if anyone remembers Dafydd Iwan’s early days of Carlo and ‘paint-politicing’ as the (so-called) Gast Mawr?
The language can still bring heart to the people who speak it and hear it. As others have said in the forum, speak Welsh first unapologetically.

What you are doing (what we at SSiW and other Cymraeg programmes are involved in) is part of a restoration and rescue mission.
No part is too small; every body is a sum of its parts, and somewhere else it is written that the tongue is most powerful…

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