Daily Mail’s anti-Welsh venom!

Daily Mail’s anti-Welsh venom!

Well it’s a damp and dreary Friday morning and I awoke to some atrocious article/book review call it what you will as appeared on the Daily Mail’s website. (See here)

Now you could forgive them and believe they are only trying to be controversial and attract a new readership, any press is good press. But whilst pondering from paragraph to paragraph one only feels disgust and disarray that this kind of attitude and raw prejudiced is allowed to be printed these days.

The opening paragraph of this article states ‘Not many people in full possession of their faculties would find it appealing or necessary to try to turn themselves into a ‘real Welshman’. Nevertheless, this has been the ambition of Old Harrovian Jasper Rees in his new book Bred Of Heaven’

Now it’s insulting before we even begin as Roger Lewis arrogantly and ignorantly proclaims that nobody in their right frame of mind could possibly even adhere to being Welsh let alone choose to live like a ‘boyo’ as he openly proclaims. Now all’s good and well personally I wouldn’t want to live the life of an Englishman, speaking only one language and perpetually believing myself superior and thus creating a host load of enemies along their way, but each to his own.

He then goes on to say what can only be described as prejudiced and discrimination against the Welsh language in a fully blown attack that expands over 5 paragraphs, fair play to him he’s tried his best with the most apt and extensive use of vocabulary.

Nevertheless, in his quest to call himself a Celt, our author does the maddest thing of all — he actually learns Welsh, by attending evening classes (in London/Llundain) and going on courses.

I abhor the appalling and moribund monkey language myself, which hasn’t had a new noun since the Middle Ages — hence pwdin is pudding, snwcer is snooker, tacsi is taxi and bocsio is boxing.

As Kingsley Amis, who lived in Swansea for many years, once said, can it be true that there are Welshmen who are genuinely puzzled by the letter x? Incidentally, pys is not what you’d think. It’s peas.

But the trouble  with the Welsh language is that it isn’t a quaint custom revived or the relic of cultural niceties — it is foisted on people for political reasons.

Though I was born in Caerphilly and have, as it happens, not a drop of non-Welsh haemoglobin in my veins, I detest the way Wales has been turned into a foreign country, with a Welsh language radio station, television channel, and dual-language road signs.

What he begins his attack with is something we as Welsh people have witnessed all to often, the ignorance of a monolingual trying to dub down our language for borrowing words from other languages, as if to deem our language ‘moribund’ or ‘inferior’. Now if he wan’t to make that point let’s evaluate it, he states the language hasn’t had a new noun since the middle ages yet then goes on to describe evident borrowings that are evidently new and that are nouns?

Make your mind up Roger, are they new nouns or are they just borrowings? If so the case would you also explain to me the English for ‘Tomato’ ‘Coffee’ ‘Cul de sac’ ‘fait accompli’ ‘Orange’ ‘Orangutan’? Those middle ages in which you speak are when your pure English tongue changed so drastically it could be described part romance. Let’s take out every English word ending in ant/ent – Important, Apartment, Ailment, Ointment, Compliment, Distant. Let’s also remove all words ending in ance – Romance, Dance, Distance, Compliance, and Reliance. Need I elaborate further?

You see Roger 40% of  your lexicon is simple French, all words ending in ant/ent/ ance, able/ible/ que are all that of French origin, Im afraid your language has borrowed and continues to borrow more than any other which aids to part of it’s success a living language adapts and develops. I’m glad therefore that you’ve highlighted the many borrowings of Welsh to support this assumption and thus proclaiming Welsh a living flourishing language on your own behalf.

Then he goes on to speak of a ‘pure Welsh blood veined man’ (if ever one existed) from Caerffili who talks of a ‘Foreign language being imposed on his poor self, he’s correct however English is and has almost certainly been a foreign language in the Caerffili area and has only really been the language of the community since after the first world War. It begs me to question how the daily mail can publish such blatant ignorance and prejudiced with no factual basis or accountability.

Now let’s turn the argument around and say this were talking of Muslims as a group of people and we had paragraphs stating.

Nevertheless, in his quest to call himself a true son of Mohamed, our author does the maddest thing of all — he actually learns Arabic and goes to pray, by attending evening classes (in Birmingham) and going to that mosque place daily.

I abhor the appalling and moribund monkey language myself, which hasn’t had a new noun since the Middle Ages — hence il-juice is juce, breik is break, haiwei is highway and make up is meik ab.

Now if such blatant and disgusting ignorance and prejudiced was printed against any ethnic group as such there would be an uproar with the human rights commission involved, mass protests, an apology, yet because it’s Wales and the Welsh, prejudiced and discrimination is some what acceptable?

A poor bit of lazy writing by the daily mail with no substance or skill. Really you can do better than this, if you feel the need to insult our language and our country then please try to do a better job rather than a half winded sorrowful attempt.