June 15, 2005

The Story of Welsh
posted by jb 19 years ago
  • Anhrefn, one of the best arguments for the continuing vitality of Welsh culture. MP3s here - Cornel is a fave. The title of the album means 'Sheep Skateboards and wellies' IIRC.
  • Thanks for this link, jb. My grandmother's people were Welsh, from around Carmarthen, and she spoke with a lilt and called a cooking pot a "suspin" all her life, even though she was born in this country.
  • The first people to live in Europe spoke a language now called Indo-European. From this beginning the majority of European languages, including Welsh, evolved. I stopped reading right there. Nobody knows what "the first people to live in Europe" spoke, but it sure as hell wasn't Indo-European (or Proto-Indo-European, which is what they mean). The I-E languages are relative latecomers to Europe; Basque is the only remnant of what were doubtless many languages displaced by the newcomers. Welsh is a pretty neat language, but Welsh enthusiasts tend to be a little cliquish. Which is natural, I guess.
  • It is intriguing how small, isolated enclaves of language and culture can thrive through several generations, such as the Welsh in Patagonia.
  • a(n)href'n is Welsh?
  • When i was young i could sing the first bit of the Welsh National Anthem. Sadly, all lost now....
  • Another little known facet of Welsh history Wolof - monks there invented the hyperlink back in the 13th century but its implementation in a vellum medium was less than ideal. I always thought Anhrefn was supposed to be 'anarchy', though the Beeb seems to want to make it 'disorder'. Typical political bias!
  • Sort of reminds me of "Van Heflin".
  • take two... I thought this was the Story of Welsh.
  • Wendell's deleted comment used to live just up there.
  • I am informed I ballsed up the link to the Anhrefn mp3s so here it hopefully is again.
  • I often find it difficult to conceive of a common root for Goidelic and Brittonic, but I guess I'm wrapped up in the written forms, which came much later and have probably had other linguistic structures imposed upon them. I do find the Brittonic languages quite beautiful to listen to, but it's irksome that I can't understand more than maybe 2 percent.
  • If you're going to move him back a hundred years and into a different country, the identification gets a bit tenuous, doesn't it?
  • This author wants bold Robin to be a historic figure. But Robin and his merry men weren't and aren't remembered for their historicity (or lack thereof). The real Robin exists in a forest that is timeless and more real than any actual woods long since felled - somewhere in the world of Story, Legend, Myth, and Fairy Tale. Who really cares, at this late date, whether or no Robin Hood actually existed? Only pedants. All folk who delight in tales of the heroic, of a common man standing up to unjustice authority, etc aren't to be so easily fooled. Robin lives! This fool Lawhead thinks he died.
  • either = standing up to unjust authority, or =standing up to injustice I evidently couldn't make up my mind, and thus created a Carrollian portmanteau thingy here
  • Hear hear! In other, slightly related but perhaps not, news: Myths of British ancestry: Basques not Celts
  • We were talking about something like that over here.
  • Aye, we were. I figure we can keep this one bouncing back and forth indefinitely between the two threads at the rate we're going.