Obviously not aimed at anyone in the SSiW community, but could provide some handy ‘ammunition’ when encountering those it is aimed at!
https://nation.cymru/2017/top-10-most-common-anti-welsh-language-arguments-and-why-theyre-stupid/
5 Likes
“Then you’re an idiot, sorry. There’s nothing the Welsh language can do to cure your condition.”
Welsh is a made-up language
No, it isn’t, you buffoon. It’s descended from the British language that was spoken by the population of what we now call Wales, England and the lowlands of Scotland since the Bronze Age.
Probably the highlands of Scotland also. (cf. recent thread on Pictish).
Thank you @mikeellwood that shows the arguments are making sense to you. Do find the programs about Orkney with evidence of culture and development moving from Gogledd to De!
Are they still available? I did see an interesting programme about The Fair Isles.
Not on iplayer. “Britain’s Ancient Capital? Neil Oliver, Secrets of Orkney” May be on youtube or something.Try The Ness of Brodgar website. Try:-
Click on ‘doughnut’ choose The Ness on TV’
@mikeellwood I think ‘dougnut’ is wrong description, three horizontal lines, sort of ‘choose here’ sign. Videos of Neil Oliver’s programs currently working OK!
Apparently it’s a hamburger rather than a doughnut!
2 Likes
I knew food came into it somehow! Diolch yn fawr!
1 Like
I find it sad really that this level of discussion - essentially about the right of people to speak Welsh - is still going on. I think if anyone ever were to try and get me in a discussion about it, I might be rather rude.
3 Likes
Louis, we’ve gone out on a limb with discussion on whether the culture of Prydain, here when the Romans landed down south, originated on Orkney and travelled south, eventually reaching Stonehenge! I thought ‘preaching to the converted’ applied to “What we now call Welsh is descended from the original British langauge”, a theory I think @mikeellwood agrees with me about! (I may be wrong about that!). But I didn’t think anyone was unaware that ‘Welsh’ is a lot older than ‘English’.
1 Like
The whole thing appears to be just a bunch of stating the obvious in order to refute the already-refuted opinions of a handful of loud-mouths. Do we have to keep doing this? Is it necessary in order to keep the vast proportion of non-Welsh-speaking Welsh people on our side (and they are, according to every conceivable measure), or do we just to it in order to feel better about ourselves?
Has the time come to move on, or do we have to stay in a state of perpetual defensiveness?
5 Likes
Time to move on, I’d say
3 Likes
Sorry, I was referring to the points raised in the article in Siaron’s link, did we get our wires crossed?
1 Like
No, Mike and I had diverted into prehistory and I hadn’t even really noticed the original subject! Mike and I are keen on knowing as much as we can about our ancient ancestors!
1 Like
Yes, especially from a linguistic point of view, in so far as we can know (which might be very little).
I do agree with that, at least, I agree that that seems to be the consensus among the experts, so far as I have read (which isn’t all that deeply or widely, to be honest), and it seems likely that Pictish too was a Brittonic language, i.e. also descended from, or a part of (perhaps a dialect of), the original British language. In lieu of any documentary evidence (pretty hard or impossible to find), it just seems to be the most likely possibility, to me.
Sorry if this is too far off-topic.
I have a book somewhere, can’t remember the name, where it mentioned an old celtic capital Ledes - modern day Leeds.
Well, iI am arguing for Orkney!
For Orkney what? You mean as Celtic Capital? BTW, that Neil Oliver Programme about Orkney doesn’t seem to be (really) on Youtube. It appears to be, but when you try to play it, it sends you off to a website where you have to register…I don’t trust it at all, and there is more than one version of that “upload”, leading to different, but similar websites. There does seem to be some other interesting stuff on Youtube about Orkney though, which I haven’t got around to trying yet.
It seemed to work for me from the Ness of Brodgar’s own web site. I’ll check it now!
OK Try this
https://www.nessofbrodgar.co.uk/about/the-ness-on-tv/
and I meant Orkney as the place from which our culture and language spread, Orcadians had an incentive to settle as the cold necessitates warm, cosy, solidly built homes with indoor (literally indoorway!) facilities! Lack of wood encourages use of stone and stone enciourages long-term use, circular arguments going round and round to the same way of life!
Right, @mikeellwood just tested the link above and it works lovely. Each episode is about an hour long, though!
p.s. Surely it wouldn’t be able to tell I am in Scotland and let me in but not you?
p.p.s. I couldn’t send the proper link before because I was on my ipad and I am too cack-handed to copy from there!
