So, this million speakers thing - what are we going to do about it?

Or maybe not … I’ve just had a quick look online for CD printing and it starts at 55p per CD. Um, no thanks.

If I’m going to hand them out as a freebie I’ll just stick to scrawling on them with a sharpie. :smile:

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Start a new game show, call it Welsh or Else!

No, Gruntius, nid wyf i Ian. And, no, I didn’t know about the sessions at YSS because I’ve only just moved back to Syr Ddinnbych after being yn Llundain for may years, where incidentally I learned Cornish in evening classes (dwi’n cymraeg, though). Diolch for telling me about them.
I want to reach a higher level of proficiency before I go to the Saith Seren chats, and if you or anyone else can tell me the best evening classes in town, I’d be in your debt. The staff at Y Llyfregel Wrecsam didn’t know of any!

Some information for the Wrecsam area here …

https://newyddion.wrecsam.gov.uk/eisiau-dysgu-cymraeg-mae-mwy-o-wybodaeth-ar-gael-yma/

I hope that helps.

Also, don’t worry about your level of proficiency in YSS, come along whenever you like.

ETA, the English page also, sorry …

https://news.wrexham.gov.uk/want-to-learn-welsh-find-out-more-here/

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I’m guessing that SSiW are aware of the Cymraeg Grant scheme. “Funding available for a new and innovative projects to increase the use of the Welsh language”.

I haven’t advertised the link on here, but you can search for it on the web if interested.

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Maybe they don’t need to be complete freebies? If someone is genuinely keen to give learning Welsh a go, then charging say £1 shouldn’t be too much of a barrier.

Paying for it, even a nominal amount, may make it more likely the CD will find it’s way to the CD player, rather than the bin!

Perhaps you give away the free paper info pack, with links to the website and app, then just add on that you can have a whole CD for £1 donation.

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Yes, I agree with your thoughts regarding valuing stuff that has cost you something. Pretty much in everything that you come across and covering effort as well as finance.

Having said that, unless I’ve missed something, the funding will almost definitely be in terms of grants for the successful providers to set up their proposed projects, plus a couple of pounds for the government to spend on administrating the scheme :wink:

Edit.
Ah, sorry, Warren. You were referring to Gruntius’s, post.

@Deborah-SSi @AnneEvans edrychwch! Mae’r cerdyn busnes wedi cyrraedd :smile:

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Hollol ffantastig! :star: :star2:

Hi Anthony. Good to see the cards have arrives and they look great. Do we have a confirmed date and time now?
Am looking forward to helping out.

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Hello everyone,

I hope to be one of the milion and hope that it doesn’t take me till 2050 to get the hang of it!

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Welcome to the Forum @KitschLorraine! I’m sure you will be chatting in Welsh much sooner than that!

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Sorry I haven’t updated you.

Yes 1st November. Time will be 9 I think. I will confirm time this month.

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Thanks. In the diary now.

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At a slight tangent, but not totally irrelevant, I think:
I am currently reading John McWhorter’s intriguing “Language Interrupted - signs of non-native acquisition in standard language grammars”, in which he theorises about how one can detect (among other things) that a language may have changed (i.e. grammatically simplified) in the past through massive adult language acquisition, for instance as probably has happened with English when large numbers of Scandinavian speakers arrived in Britain and started interacting with Old English speakers.
If the target of doubling the number of Welsh speakers is reached, and if a large number of the new speakers are adults, then there is a great opportunity to test this theory (and to produce a solid PhD thesis :wink:)
If I understand McWhorter correctly, things that may happen to Welsh will affect those things that are hard for adults to pick up. I am guessing: disappearance of male/female noun distinctions;disappearance of mutations, at least in part; reduction of the number of noun plural forms; simplification of verb forms. Any others?

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If the bulk are English speakers then I imagine “…arnaf i” constructs would be replaced by “gen i/gyda fi”. Mae annwyd arna’ i —> mae gen i annwyd.

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Very good point Anthony. Would you generalise that to a reduction of the number of prepositions, e.g. increased use of ‘i’ corresponding to English ‘to’ ?

Ohhh good question. I’d say arddodiaid are the thing I’ve found hardest to learn, and I imagine there are some I’ll be guessing at for a while. So, following that train of logic, I’d imagine yes, there would be a gradual shift towards “i” replacing others.

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In my limited experience/understanding, I would say that with Welsh being so different to English, that new speakers would tend to stick to the patterns that they are taught, as it would be too difficult to Anglicise their new language. I suppose it could happen though, if there was an over-emphasis on just saying anything, rather than learning the Welsh constructions.

There might however be a tendency for new speakers to copy any new patterns that they hear from native speakers, especially youngsters, who might be developing an anglicised Welsh.

Just a quick thought on Northern & Scottish English, which seems to be older (purer and slower to change) than Southern English, and also has some Scandinavian influences -

I am not really aware of any Scandinavian constructions that have survived, although there are plenty of Scandinavian loan words and pronunciations. Having said that, the Scandinavian (except Icelandic) and English languages seem to be fairly similar, so it might be hard to tell.

I could be wrong though, and am happy to learn. So I’ll be watching this spot.

That is exactly right, and McWhorter contends that a lot of simplification takes place as a result, so that more complicated patterns are lost. In English, he cites the loss of grammatical gender and verb endings, in Mandarin the reduction of the tonal system to just four, and the reduction of negation markers to just one.

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