Ariel launched into a examine of Welsh on the College of Aberystwyth, which can also be residence to the Welsh Nationwide Library. This got here to a halt due to COVID-19. This, nonetheless, didn’t deter the Welsh academics, who hope to quickly have 1 million folks talking their language. They went on-line with their lessons.
Ariel joined in and thus I grew to become used to listening to, at odd hours of the day and night time, (Greenwich imply time) listening to conversations in Welsh, which, I found, has a definite and lyrical magnificence. Additionally, it does have vowels, solely they’re disguised as consonants, (the letters “y” and “w”) in order that the phrase cwrw (beer) is, in reality, pronounceable (“kuru”).
most lessons, thus changing into one of many few Welsh-speaking canine in California. I might awake to listen to a jolly refrain from Ariel’s dog-loving Welsh classmates: “Hi there, Puck!” or, if he weren’t up but at 1 a.m., “However the place is Puck?”
I additionally discovered as we moved into fall, that the Welsh have been following our presidential election with the type of horrified fascination often reserved for motion pictures like “Pyscho” or “Evening of the Dwelling Lifeless.” I daresay Ariel’s vocabulary expanded profoundly as she tried to clarify the electoral faculty (coleg etholiadol).
It was simply earlier than Christmas when, one morning, our home was full of the sound of Welsh carols. It was a digital sing-along, which Ariel had no hesitation to hitch in, at 1 a.m. or no matter time it was. If, within the coming darkish months, you must elevate your spirits, I’d suggest googling “Welsh choral music.” That ought to do it.
