Fy mhroblem efo siarad Ocsitaneg oedd beth ddidodd Iestyn [quote=“Iestyn, post:35, topic:5938”]
the danger of getting sucked in to “I can read so I have learnt” that so many learners get stuck at, and never move on to speaking properly
[/quote] O’n i ‘di dysgu o lyfrau, ac oedd yr Ocsitaneg yn iaith ysgrifenedig i fi: pob tro y wnes i drio siarad oedd fel y tro cyntaf, achos bo’ fi ddim medru siarad y tro cynt. Ar ôl ychydig, er hynny, wnes i ffeindio allan pa mor agos oedd Ocsitaneg a Chatalaneg – mae rhai tafodieithoedd o’r Ocsitaneg yn wahanol iawn i’w gilydd, ac os wyt ti’n siarad tafodiaith Languedoc, mae Catalaneg yn fwy hawdd i ddeall na thafodiaith Gascon – a ges i’r cyfle i ddysgu siarad (a dw i’n meddwl siarad, nid dim ond darllen) Catalaneg. Mae Catalaneg yn iaith leiafrifol hefyd, ond mae’r cyfanswm o siaradwyr yn y miliynau. Os mae Cernyweg yn cael dadebru, mae Ocsitaneg ar cynnal bywyd; ac os mae Cymraeg angen ennill pwysau, mae Catalaneg dim ond angen gwneud yn siwr fod o ddim cael curfa gan ei gymydog. (Dw i’n gwybod, dw i’n gwneud o yn rhy syml: os nad oedd ganddi’r Saesneg fel cymydog, fyddai’r Cymraeg ddim angen ennill pwysau. Mae’r cyfanswm o siaradwyr Cymraeg yn eitha cymaint â siaradwyr Islandeg: os oedden nhw i gyd yn byw ar ynys i mewn y Môr Iwerydd, ni fyddai unrhyw broblem…)
A felly, achos o’n i’n medru siarad Catalaneg ac Ocsitaneg, des i yn gyfarwydd â rhai o’r materion sy’n effeithio ar siaradwyr ieithoedd lleiafrifol…
My problem with speaking Occitan was what Iestyn said here: [quote=“Iestyn, post:35, topic:5938”]
the danger of getting sucked in to “I can read so I have learnt” that so many learners get stuck at, and never move on to speaking properly
[/quote] I had learnt from books, and Occitan was a written language for me: every time I tried to speak it was like the first time, because I hadn’t been able to speak the time before. After a while, however, I found out how close Occitan and Catalan are – some Occitan dialects are very different from each other, and if you speak the Languedoc dialect, Catalan is easier to understand than the Gascon dialect – and I got the opportunity to learn to speak (and I mean speak, not just read) Catalan. Catalan is also a minority language, but the total number of Catalan speakers is in the millions. If Cornish is being resuscitated, Occitan is on life support; and if Welsh needs to put on a bit of weight, Catalan just needs to make sure it doesn’t get beaten up by its neighbour. (I know, I’m over-simplifying: if it weren’t for having English as a neighbour, Welsh wouldn’t need to put on weight. The number of Welsh speakers is about the same as the number of Icelandic speakers: if they all lived on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean there wouldn’t be any problem…)
And so, because I was able to speak Catalan and Occitan, I became aware of some of the issues affecting speakers of minority languages…