Lately in learning Welsh . . .
Why bother? What’s the point of learning Welsh when you live outside Wales?
The number of people who live outside Wales and who are becoming fluent Welsh speakers is growing. Interest in the Welsh language outside Wales is growing. The number of people who aren’t even Welsh or part of the Welsh diaspora, and who are yet determined to learn the Welsh language, is growing. This trend makes sense in a global era and is a healthy sign for the future survival of Cymraeg – so why do some people still mock or oppose it?
I’ve been wondering. Welsh is the language of the country I was born and brought up in; of the people I feel I belong to. I identify as Welsh – isn’t that enough of a reason? Apparently not, for those who see the language as valueless or as their own jealously guarded ‘possession.’ For both the Dic Sion Dafydd and the Welsh-speaking elitist alike, it’s absurd . . .
“I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: 1. This is worthless nonsense. 2. This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view. 3. This is true, but quite unimportant. 4. I always said so.”J.B.S Haldane.
Some have seen my efforts to learn Welsh as an unproductive waste of time, a failure to let go of the past, a romantic fancy, a ridiculous ex-patriot indulgence, an admirable but comical sort of stubbornness at best, or at worst, fascism. What claim do I have to this language in reality, when I was raised speaking English almost exclusively, and left Wales over fifteen years ago? And what claim would someone who’s not even Welsh by birth or by blood have?
And, moreover, just to pour on the negative pessimism in an example of the kind of opposition we’re occasionally up against here, what practical use is it anyway, when I presently have no means or intention of returning to my homeland, and when Welsh isn’t commonly spoken in the area of Wales I came from, let alone in New Zealand where I presently live?
And finally, even if I can maintain the motivation and discipline required to learn a new language in the face of all the nay-saying, doubts, and distractions (I don’t always manage to do this, and frequently have extended patches of slacking-off), when am I ever going to get to actually use this language?
These are all valid questions . . . so I’ve come up with six answers . . .
Six Reasons for Learning Welsh Outside Wales.
1.) Learning Welsh Outside Wales Still Helps the Language and Culture, PLUS, the Conservation of Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Enriches Humanity as a Whole.
Recently, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, the Welsh Language Society, reported a slow but steady decline in the number of fluent Welsh speakers from heartland areas of Wales – those areas traditionally seen as strongholds of the Welsh language. This looks like bad news for the ongoing recovery of Welsh after the English attempt at linguicide.
“A Senegalese poet said 'In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.' We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage.” Yo Yo Ma at the White House Conference on Culture and Diplomacy, 2000.
In the global era, the fate of the Welsh Language belongs within a wider context. The UN estimates that more than half of the languages spoken today have fewer than 10,000 speakers, and that a quarter have fewer than 1,000 speakers. Unless there are some efforts made to maintain them, over the next hundred years, most of these languages will become extinct.
In recent times alone, more than 2000 languages have already become extinct around the world. I don’t want Welsh to join them, so as far as I see it, I’m doing my small bit. It’s a little like recycling – you could argue that one person’s efforts alone will make no significant difference whatsoever. And yet if everyone thought like that, what then?
“The three principles of linguistic revival and survival:
(1) If your language is endangered - Do not allow it to die!
(2) If your language died - Stop, revive, survive!
(3) If you revive your language - Embrace the hybridity of the emergent language!”
2.) Justice – the Moral and Ethical Reasons.
The deliberate attempt to exterminate the Welsh language, in combination with migration and anglicisation in the modern and post-war era, resulted in the numbers of fluent Welsh speakers thinning out dramatically over several geneartions. I’m a part of that process of loss and decline, regardless of where I’m located on the planet. If I’m a part of that process of loss and decline, why shouldn’t I be included in the process of renewal and restoration?
I belong to a large number of Welsh men and women who have missed out, on the whole, to anglicisation. I belong to the last generation before learning Welsh was made compulsory in all Welsh schools. My great-grandmother, when she was school-aged, couldn’t speak English and could only speak Welsh. She was ‘corrected’ by being sent home from school, missing out on an education until she could speak the language of the industrialists and ‘colonisers.’ Should I just accept that social injustice – the deliberate, state-sanctioned attempt to destroy my nation’s culture?
Well, shouldn’t I rather just accept that Imperialism and colonialism are facts of history? Shouldn’t I just get over it and move on? Not if there’s something I can do in the present to make some reparation towards those injustices. Boo hoo? Nah - screw you. I’m not crying over what’s been stolen, OR ignoring the fact of what happened. I’m acknowledging the truth of what was wrongfully taken, and making an effort to take it back. There’s nothing wrong with that, and in my opinion, there’s a lot that’s right about it.
3.) Those Working to Support the Language and Culture from Outside Wales Can Make a Big Difference.
Wales, as an emerging European nation in its own right, already has a lot to thank ‘outsiders,’ exiles and ex-patriots for. The Cymmrodorion Society in London, for example, played a large part in helping to found many of Wales’ national institutions.
It has been estimated that the Welsh language was the largest ‘ethnic’ language in England until the recent advent of Hindi and Polish-speakers. Even today, the Welsh Language Board believes there to be some 150,000 Welsh-speakers in England – and that alone is quite a big pool of potential to draw from, even if most of those speakers are scattered, isolated, and disinterested, or are about to die off, marry off, or otherwise become assimilated.
According to the indigenous languages website Sorosoro, taking into account the different levels of proficiency, the total number of Welsh speakers scattered around the whole world could possibly reach over 700,000.
As Sion Jobbins remarked recently in Cambria Magazine, “the heamorrhaging of Welsh talent, culture and language is as acute in Wales as it is for many Eastern European countries, if not more so.” Moving into a century when demography, diaspora and birth-rate will be the bed-rock of politics, he argues that the Welsh diaspora is worth a second look.
So why not reconsider the Welsh diaspora in terms of its potential and ability, rather than in terms of what’s been – and what is currently being – ‘lost?’ The world, after all, is getting smaller by the day. Networks and connections are formed and enhanced everywhere thanks to technological advancement. Geographic space and physical location matter less and less. The diaspora – along with non-Welsh Welsh-speakers from other countries outside Wales – may well, in time, come to be seen as an asset for the language and culture, rather than as a simple loss.
“Without the zealous, obsessive, enthusiastic efforts of Ben-Yehuda and of teachers, writers, poets, journalists, intellectuals, social activists, political figures, linguists and others, Israelis would have spoken a language (such as English, German, Arabic or Yiddish) that could hardly be considered Hebrew.” Ghil’ad Zukermann.
4.) Personal Benefit.
Professor Zukermann claims, “Language revival does not only do historical justice and address inequality but can also result in the empowerment of people who have lost their heritage and purpose in life […] The revival of sleeping Aboriginal languages can result in personal, educational and economic empowerment, sense of pride and higher self-esteem of people who have lost their heritage.
Regaining language is a life-changing experience for many Aboriginal people. One Aboriginal person has told us that he used to be angry, often drunk and in trouble with police and his homelife was a mess. Two years later, when he had regained his language, his situation had turned around and his family life had greatly improved. Through this and other experiences we became convinced that a small investment in language revitalization could yield very significant dividends. Language revival can result in the saving of vast amounts of money and resources going into housing, social services and health intervention to little effect. A small investment into language revitalization can make an enormous difference to society. Public health can benefit from language intervention.”
It might sound far-fetched to some, but anglicisation through colonialism has been shown, time and time again, to be at least partly responsible for many of the social ills afflicting colonised cultural minorities across the globe. For example, just consider the stereotype of the alcoholic Native American. Or consider the crime and gang culture amongst disaffected Maori in New Zealand.
The fact is that deracination and dispossession resulting from the colonial and neo-colonial processes don’t just happen in the one, material dimension. This outlook belongs to western materialism, and to commercial-capitalism, which sees only the cost or price of things, and not the true value in human or spiritual terms. If you can excuse the phrase, these post-colonial injuries and ‘culture-echtomies’ are also an affliction on the level of soul.
Fortunately, many who are able to reconnect with their own culture and language (or who perhaps discover a spirit of adoption within a welcoming foreign culture) find a personally enriching inheritance, which can be healing on a deep psychological level. That is why the New Zealand government recognises a responsibility towards ethnic minorities such as Maori, who have effectively become second-class citizens within their own land. The government here spends millions each year on re-culturation initiatives for at-risk Maori through drug and alcohol counseling, the mental health system, or the prison system. The well-researched results and positive outcomes are indisputable.
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” Nelson Mandela.
5.) Because Language is More Important than Land.
When asked by a Maori journalist why he believed a native language was more important to a people than their native land, Professor Zukermann replied, “When you lose your land, the land is still there. It might be raped or mined by other people but the land is still there. When you lose your languge and culture, you lose your matauranga*. You lose your intellectual property, your intellectual sovereignty. You lose your cultural autonomy. You lose your self-identity. So the loss of language is much more severe than the loss of land.”
Of course, being of Jewish descent, Zukermann knows very well that linguistic and cultural identity, in a sense, needn’t have anything at all to do with being located in a particular land or geographic region. The Jewish diaspora was the biggest diaspora of all time, and prior to the founding of the Israeli state, the Jews existed as a distinct cultural identity, and arguably as a nation, without any recognised territory or land whatsoever!
“We hear again and again 'native title,' but where is the 'native tongue title'? Is land more important than langue and (cultural) lens?” Ghil’ad Zukermann.
6.) Because a Smug, Puritanical, Superior, Excluding, Judgmental and Elitist Attitude Doesn’t Help the Cause of Any Endangered Language.
In conclusion, when it comes to learning Welsh in this day and age, ideas about authentic and approximate Welshness, which rest on where a person lives, where a person is from, or what degree of fluency they have, are alienating and unhelpful.
“Language converts from outside [Wales …] are aggravating. ‘It’s so easy,’ they trill. Well, it isn’t – it’s bloody hard work. Sometimes though you’ve tried you just cannot muster the interest or the effort anymore. What’s worse than the trilling is when the converts are smug. That probably puts off more learners than the challenge of the language itself.” Jasmine Donahaye, former editor of Planet Magazine.
“Needless to say, even if there is eventually a sound understanding and awareness of the linguistic/sociolinguistic issues involved and even if the endeavour is well-theorised, language e revival efforts may well still fail. Internal factional politics are likely to be far more influential in deciding the fate of a language revival movement than any linguistic theory or lack of one.”
Ghil’ad Zukermann.
Some people imagine language itself to be a separating thing. In some obvious ways it is, but there’s an interesting paradox here. Spoken and written language is something peculiarly human and as such, I think, it approaches the Divine. It goes deeper than superficial communication, and, beyond how it scatters and divides people, it's also about connection and reconnection. Another good reason for learning Welsh even though you might live outside Wales.
