From Cymru to Facebook and Dallas

Cymru Am Byth

Quick foreword: this is going to be one of those scatty blog posts which hop from one subject to another like im juggling hot spuds. The mouth and tail and a meeting someplace inbetween.


Facebook. Most of the time its full of self indulgent status 'headlines' and " 'Like' This If You Love Granny " type garbage. Basically it is what you should expect from a website where the majority have nothing to say. Ever. Thankfully not everyone is a self absorbed twit and this is where the site becomes an extremely useful tool. Social media is frighteningly efficient at getting messages across to the masses and because its done in a fun way (as opposed to seemingly lecture, people hate that), the message sinks in.
Of course it doesn't have to be earth shattering news worthy of Moses. It can be a simple statement spread amongst friends, bringing them closer together. You might be already be aware of it but it doesn't harm to pass it along via Facebook/Twitter. Take the 'card' above that I spotted on a friends page for instance. How glad it made me feel! Sure all my friends already knew Welsh was my first language and that as an old Strade schoolboy (Welsh language comprehensive school in west Wales), Welsh is my mother tongue but having things like this pop up at random always feels good. "Dwi'n Siarad Cymraeg ac yn falch o hynny" Translation: I speak Welsh and am glad of that. And yes by all that is Cawl and Ray Gravelle, I am glad I speak it and God help us if this ancient, beautiful language ever dies.
Dai Jakes is actually teaching a few American friends some Cymraeg (Welsh) via Facebook. Oh aye, its a little wish of mine to be able to claim I took some diolch's and da iawn's to the streets of Texas and California. Mr Jakes the pioneer taking the gospels of Burry Port and Carmarthen to the busy sidewalks of Houston and Dallas bars! And I was all set to get my pinny out too but Ann Romney has already spread the Welshcake love so America has been spared the Dai's Youtube Welshcake Extravaganza (be grateful for that at least.)
Duw all this from Facebook? Where will end mun?

Bak Ta Scwl

Excuse me?

If social media has taught me anything, its that most people cant spell for toffee. Or toucans. Or is that parrots? At least they try. Now being a fair man I didn't jump immediately to this assumption. 'Perhaps they were being plain lazy' I thought, but alas after reading some of the things being typed, I have no choice but admit that it is in fact stupidity at work. Bless their 99p Poundland cotton socks. The combination of ignorance and text messaging was too potent.
"Hey lwk, I did na go ta scwl!" They might as well post on Facebook to their just as silly friends, babbling away like a tree house full of baboons at a jumble sale. (Nothing against jumble sales, simpy using it to paint a picture.)
And you want to know something? It kills me man, like watching a leprous toad mate with a swan, or a bungling art curator spill Tipp Ex on Van Gogh's Starry Nights.
Part blame must go to odious tabloid newsrags. For instance in recent gossip an actors name was spelled thus:

The Telegraph ~ Robert Pattinson. The Sun ~ R Patz

Is it any wonder spelling and grammar have turned to sh!t when the most popular scandal rags are slapping this abomination of english all over the headlines? So what does this make Dai Jakes? Dazza Ja? D Jakz? God's teeth, its the perfect bastard made flesh. Nothing short of the murder of language and I for one am all for swinging the illiterate swines from the nearest gallows. Its not thunder you can hear dear reader, its Milton and Coleridge turning in their graves.
People are daft aplenty without the red tops gleefully encouraging gibberish. The actors name is Robert Pattinson, not 'R Patz'! Desist this foul caper! Stop telling folk its okay to be a lazy ass! Or suffer to be the smoking gun at the scene of a bloody crime. Do we really wish to be speaking a tongue that giants of literature like George Orwell would think alien? As a lover of languages (and speaker of three) it kills me to see such wilful sabotage.
Those Ecard things have become quite popular so Mr Jakes has created one of his own.

Reversal of Civilization

Dai Jakes has written about this before but its important to revisit the subect before all hope is lost forever under the burning carcass that used to be a language. We live in an age of super quick messaging where Facebook, Twitter et al rule supreme. It would seem that proper use of grammar and spelling has proven to be too time consuming for modern communication. The beautiful language of Milton and Shakespeare long forgotten, replaced with the ever foul 'text speak', or as I prefer to call it, gibberish.
Welcome to the Reversal of Civilization! The decline in written and spoken language will be one of the most influential factors into our decline and I shall in time be proven correct. And if this blog survives 100 years or so I would like to point out to future readers that the rot of language didn't go entirely unnoticed. Mr Jakes saw it coming years ago.
Should more have been done to preserve it? Maybe but you see the majority were too busy learning new 'words' like scwl (school), prolly (probably), LOL (laughs out loud) and lwk (look). Dear God they even look vulgar! But alas what the majority want, is what they will eventually get so we are stuck with it. Stuck with the 'accomplishment' of having murdered a language so beautifully used by Keats and Byron.
Those who have had their minds rotted by celebrity and television will not care but there are few of us who think it terribly sad and a disgrace.

Only Fools Lose Tongues

Readers should know that I am extremely passionate about anything Welsh and belonging to Wales, and I am opposed to anything that will harm my great country so I had to cool off before composing this little piece. Drink in hand? Then I'll begin. So the Western Mail has come out and said that we would be wasting money by spending £400,000-a-year translating meetings held at the National Assembly into Welsh. Fine, let us have everything in Welsh then, afterall this is Wales not England.
Its quite frankly idiotic for this paper to suggest such things, especially when we are haemorrhaging money for things like the London Olympics and its downright offensive to proud Welshmen/women like myself who with every fibre of our being love Welsh, are Welsh, think Welsh, dream Welsh and will die Welsh. Im glad ive never bought the Western Mail for surely if I had I never would again. Contemptable rag!
Welsh was my first language and I attended Welsh schools where english was hardly heard and I am so glad of this. I believe any parent worth their halen should have their children speaking Welsh and I look dimly on those who don't. Other countries are proud of their mother tongues and so should we and how wonderful it sounds when I walk the streets of Carmarthen and Llanelli and hear Welsh being spoken by both young and old. It warms the Penclawdd cockles of my Celtic heart., it really does.
Think on this: Italy without Italian. Japan without Japanese. Wales without Welsh. How absurd! We should all be wanting to KEEP our language and those who don't like it ought to clear off to England. When you support Wales in rugby or football (or any other sport), you are not simply supporting a team. You are supporting the COUNTRY, all of it and that means the language too. Shame on those who would like to see our language wiped off signs and the like for surely you are helping to kill off something that should be part of your spirit. Indeed its alien for me to even consider harming the culture of Wales.
Embrace being Welsh! Cherish our rich history and if you or your children don't speak Welsh then learn it! And anyone who thinks differently, you know where the bridge is. Diolch am eich clustiau.

Word Salad

In this day of text messages and Twitter, does the ability to spell and use good grammar count for anything? Did you know pupils are NOT marked down for incorrect spelling and grammar in english language exams? (Next year they will be im told). Who on earth would be in favour of bad spelling/grammar? I realise we all make mistakes and everything I throw on this screen will not always be word perfect but I do try. This 'text speak' annoys me quite a bit (probably more than it ought to) and I tend to ignore it when I see it.
If someone were to send me an email full of 'grt, scwl, lyk, lol' it would get instantly deleted because more than anything it tells me the author is lazy and unimaginative and I don't have time for those types im afraid.
Yes the way we speak/write does change and evolve over the years, for instance Shakespeare wrote differently from the way we do now but this whole buisness of shortening words is a very poor show. In a word it is shabby. And where does it end? There has to be a certain degree of discipline or else the language will descend into drivel with people spelling however they feel like on a particular day.
Personally I look at those who use 'text speak' in a similar way I look at cheap clothes, and I don't care how snooty that makes me look. At least im being honest.