Pornograffi, yn cymraeg

I'm not a fan of porn - I'm far too leftwing and ex-Catholic for that kind of nonsense.

But I do worry that minority languages will fade if they aren't used in all walks of life - Welsh was saved, then throttled, by the Chapels. It's surviving very well because shaven-headed lads in checked shirts can behave as badly as they like on Friday nights in yr hen iaith.

So I'm pleased to announce that you can now peruse some very clichéd 'teacher-getting-her-kit-off' photographs which feature a basic Welsh lesson. Full marks for linguistic skills, no marks for liberal values.

I haven't followed his link, of course, but the initial reference is here on Babylon Wales, with a safe-for-work picture.

Interestingly, the Academi dictionary says there's no Welsh word for erotica, and the Welsh for 'pornography' is pornograffi, which implies that sexual imagery is a late, English import. Either the Welsh are sexless, or they're so well-adjusted and sexually satisfied that such material is superfluous

A musical interlude.

Mmm... Welsh shoegaze. I like.


Very relaxing New Year. Not looking forward to returning to marking.

How to be effortlessly cool

First, it helps to be a Welsh rock star.
Then, use a magic cape and helmet to transport yourself to Welsh Argentina for a madcap quest for your eccentric Welsh-Argentinian pop star relative.
Make sure to be attacked by penguins.

Easy. Read all about it here.

John Cale - Y Cymro

Who linked the high art world of experimental modernist music to art happenings with Warhol and the smacked-up confrontation of The Velvet Underground? A nice viola-playing Welsh-speaker, that's who: and now he's Wales's representative at the Venice Biennale (an important art thing).

Poor Mark Steel

I like him, and his politics. But now he's on Radio 4 mispronouncing Merthyr Tydfil and making his opening monologue one about how funny Welsh words are and anti-Englishness. That'll do a lot for national relations - are the Welsh the last people it's OK to mock for their language and accents?

Ah - his liberal instincts have kicked back and he's reminding people of the radical past of the Welsh language and talking to a Welsh-speaker while gently mocking her.

And after his initial (compulsory for metropolitan types?) mockery - he's produced a funny and informative account of radical Merthyr, site of the first raising of the Red Flag: ending with the credits yn cymraeg.

Another day, another book

This time, it's Fflur Dafydd's Twenty Thousand Saints - partly a translation, partly a rewriting of her Welsh-language novel Atyniad. I bought it partly because I bumped into her at a conference or somewhere, while she was doing her PhD on R. S. Thomas (this book, like his Images of Bardsey) is set on Ynys Enlli, the Isle of 20,000 Saints), and partly because Welsh writing is going through another of its frequent golden ages - hip young things ripping up and remaking Cymru Cymraeg and English Wales in ever more fascinating ways, unbound by Celtic Twilightism or dour socialist realism and aided by forward-looking Eisteddfod judges.

Obamania… yn Cymraeg

Ie - gallwn ni! (Or 'Yes, We Can', in Welsh).