#Cymraeg

[rhywbethcymraeg]

[stephanidftba]

I figured the Jolene loving site needed to see this

[mwg-drwg]

This is a funny sign and all but I think the main takeaway should be that there is Dog English and Dog Welsh (Cimraeg?!?!?!?)

[foxgloveciara]

so yknow how miku has a leek and the leek is the national emblem of wales?

[llyfrenfys]

I have made some Welsh LGBTQ+ Prints!

P'nawn da! Today is the day I'm finally launching my Welsh LGBTQ+ prints for sale (find them here). Like with my dissertation, they're pay as you feel (min. £2 plus postage) and I can post them to the UK, US, EU and Canada! Designs include the 2017 Gilbert Baker flag with the stripe meanings in Welsh and English, the map of Wales featuring my pride redesigns of the historic county flags of Wales, lesbian redesign of the Cardiff flag and a brand new design featuring 12 pride flags with the names of each in Welsh and English. I have 5 of each print in stock!

If you're new here or didn't know, unfortunately I experienced several major life changes this year which have really affected my finances (hospitalisation, long term relationship ended, emergency house move, job loss due to employer discrimination and a family member diagnosed with a terminal illness. For more details see this post). In order to help support myself I'm offering these prints for sale while I search for a new part time job. At the time of writing, I only have enough money in savings to cover 2 more months of rent and bills (not including food), so anything you can spare will help me afford food and keep doing what I love. I also have a patreon if you want to support me there.

I have also got my 47-page undergraduate dissertation on the development of Welsh-language terminology between 1972 and 2022 available here as pay as you feel (even £1!). Any support is hugely, hugely appreciated.

[official-wales]

am dy fod yn flog swyddogol cymru, falle alle ti rhoi'r gair ola ar yr hen ddadl. llaeth neu llefrith?

LLAETH AM BYTH

[b1odeuwed]

i do a little dance whenever welsh ppl reblog my welsh miku art with something like “YOOOO MICŴ CYMRAEG!!! DYDD GWYL DEWI MICŴ HELL YEAH” DWI’N CARU CHI GYD <33333 MAE’R CELF AM CHI!!!!!!

[salvadorbonaparte]

Any fluent Welsh speakers here?

[seedsickle]

ar y tân. straight up "berwing it". and by "it", haha, well, lets just say. My sosbenits

[tarragonthedragon]

so I'm in the office when I hear it. the EIC, in the corner, my manager's manager, lights up the batsignal and voices a cry for aid:

"is anyone here who speaks Welsh?"

immediately, all heads turn to Charles' desk. Charles is Welsh. Charles takes several days to recover from the shock every time someone on a National Trust podcast mispronounces Llanidloes. surely Charles will answer the call.

Charles, the bloody nerve of him, is on Annual Leave to spend the Easter holidays with his son.

at this point I realise that several heads, including my manager's, are turning to me.

I do not speak Welsh.

I was brought up by a Welsh speaker, my grandmother, but given that we live in London and noone else in the family speaks Welsh, I only really picked up the most basic of family pleasantries. I can say cheers and goodnight, I can offer and order hot beverages, and I can answer the six questions people immediately ask when they find out you speak even a little bit of Welsh (the answer to all of these is as far as I can tell, yes but nobody says that. yes but it's baby talk. yes but it was a marketing scam. you know the ones)

I also have a master's degree in, amongst other things, medieval Welsh. as attention turns to me, I weigh up the possibility that the EIC needs someone to urgently translate Culhwch ac Olwen into modern English.

it seems unlikely. however, my CV says I have basic Welsh, and I need this job, so I head to the EICs desk with the thudding tread of someone bound for the gallows

further context-- 90% of my job is combing through business documents for aside phrases indicating business changes. this takes a lot of cross-referencing and close reading. I find this hard in my native language. I find it extremely hard in languages I'm fluent in. the idea of doing it in Welsh, a language where my conversation options are limited to "good morrow sir! the English advance on our left flank!" or "Mr fishy likes to swim", fills me with fathomless dread. in my head, I am writing my application to the next job.

the EIC turns a page around on the desk. "how do you pronounce this?"

I look at the word, relief beginning to sink in. Welsh is phonetic. even if I don't know this word, I can read it.

I do a double take. "Dai?"

"are you sure?" the EIC asks. "should I call Charles on his holidays just to check?"

"it's Dai," I repeat.

"it's not different if it's Welsh?"

I have absolutely no idea what she thinks the Welsh are doing to innocent vowel sounds that the English are not already doing. "it's Dai. like Dai Llewellyn."

"it's the same every time?"

"... yes"

"oh good." the EIC puts away her sheet and lets me go back to my desk.

as I sit down, the news editor at the next desk looks up. "so," he asks. "is it true that the Welsh for jellyfish is

[rhywbethcymraeg]

Worktop == Wyneb Gweithio Cegin.

[queerwelsh]

Pride in Wales! Balchder yng Nghymru!

Here’s a list of the Pride events happening in Wales this year, in 2023. (click the links for more information)

Dyma rhestr o ddigwyddiadau Balchder yng Nghymru blwyddyn yma, yn 2023.

22 April/Ebrill - Aberystwyth Pride / Balchder yn Aberystwyth

29 April/Ebrill - Swansea Pride / Balchder Abertawe

30 April/Ebrill - Mini Pride and Swansea Anti-Capitalist Pride (1pm Singleton Park)  / Balchder Bach a Balchder Gwrthgyfalafol Abertawe (1yp Parc Singleton)

14 May/Mai - Colwyn Bay Pride / Balchder Bae Colwyn

17 June/Mehefin - Hay Pride

17 June/Mehefin - The Big Queer Picnic

17-18 June/Mehefin - Cardiff Pride / Balchder Caerdydd (Pride Cymru)

19 June/Mehefin - Cowbridge Pride / Balchder y Bontfaen

24 June/Mehefin - Caerphilly Pride / Balchder Caerffili

24 June/Mehefin - Abergavenny Pride

24 June/Mefefin - Balchder Gogledd Cymru / North Wales Pride Caernarfon

29 June/Mehefin - 2 July/Gorffennaf - Balchder Neath Port Talbot Pride

8 July/Gorffennaf - Llandeilo Pride / Balchder Llandeilo

15 July/Gorffennaf - Llanelli Pride / Balchder Llaneilli

29 July/Gorffennaf - Llandovery Pride / Balchder Llanymddyfri

12 August/Awst - Barry Pride / Balchder y Barri

12 August/Awst - Balchder Glitter Pride Cardiff

26 August/Awst - Merthyr Tydfil Pride / Balchder Merthyr Tudful

2 September/Medi - Pride in the Port Newport / Balchder Casnewydd

9-10 September/Medi - RCT Pride

15-17 September/Medi - Trans Pride Cardiff

16 September/Medi - Carmarthen Pride/Balchder Caerfyrddin

[karmagotme]

It's been announced that DuoLingo will stop updating Welsh courses. They've always championed endangered languages in the past but articles say they want to focus more on popular languages like Spanish and French. The following is a link to a petition to get the First Minister of Wales to work with the DuoLingo CEO and get them to save the course.

As someone who is learning Welsh, it's devastating news. Yes, there is still Say Something in Welsh and other methods, but DuoLingo is also extremely helpfull, especially for anyone who may not be able to afford all of the later courses in SSIW.

So please, signage would be most appreciated.

EDIT: Please don't think you have to live in Wales to sign this! I signed and I live in Australia. Share this with your language-learning friends around the world!

[llyfrenfys]

PLEASE TELL US ABOUT Y DDRAIG TRAWS!

Certainly! I'm more than happy to oblige.

First though I'm gonna need to tldr: the history of Y Ddraig Goch before we get onto the (accidentally) canonically trans part.

A brief history of Y Ddraig Goch:

(The modern Welsh flag)

Y Ddraig Goch first appears in the tales of the Mabinogi (Charlotte Guest version) in the tale of Lludd and Llefelys where it is fighting a white dragon. The fight is also described/expanded upon in the c. 829 AD text Historia Brittonum (attributed to Nennius) - where the red dragon represents Wales and the white dragon represents the Anglo-Saxons. In the story the red dragon triumphs over the white. Of course, Geoffrey of Monmouth also covers the story c. 1136 in Historia Regnum Brittaniae in which he introduces the concept of the red dragon heralding the arrival of King Arthur.

Geoffrey of Monmouth claims Arthur used a banner featuring a golden dragon. But we also know the accuracy of Monmouth can be questionable at times. Owain Glyndŵr did use a banner with a golden dragon called Y Ddraig Aur - raised in 1401 at Caernarfon - Glyndŵr chose this banner as a nod to the supposed banner of Arthur and his father.

Later on the Tudor monarchs (being a Welsh family) adopted a red dragon on a white and green background in their heraldry. Eventually Y Ddraig Goch on a white and green background became the official badge of Wales in 1800. The design became the official flag of Wales in 1959.

Y Ddraig Traws:

Now for the thing you're all here for -

So, as outlined, the history of the dragon as a national symbol of Wales goes back a long way. If we're just talking post-1959, there's some interesting implications for Y Ddraig Goch's depiction.

This is what the Welsh flag (and Y Ddraig Goch) looked like in 1959 when it was officially adopted as the flag of Wales. It looks broadly the same as the first flag and has some common features - such as not having a penis (or, as in the correct heraldic terminology - a pizzle). Meanwhile, in the arms of the Tudors (specifically Henry VII)

(Tudor dragon with pizzle) vs (dragon on the flag of Cardiff - pizzleless)

the penis is almost always included. So much to the point that the present royal family still includes the penis. While pretty much 0 depictions of the dragon in Wales include a penis. So you could interpret this as the dragon is seen as male only by the British royal family and as female everywhere else (which kinda implies that at some point the Tudor dragon had an mtf transition in Wales and she keeps getting misgendered by the royal family every time she is depicted in (mostly) England).

So much to the point that in 1995 this pound coin was made by the Royal Mint featuring the pizzle on the dragon with all four feet touching the ground as opposed to standing up (passant rather than rampant).

But in Wales you'd be hard pressed to see a pizzled dragon anywhere. Ergo, we can only conclude Y Ddraig Goch is trans and she transitioned in Wales and keeps getting misgendered in England.

[note: This is mostly tongue in cheek - but I do think it's fun to extrapolate that the Welsh dragon is trans because of the differences in depiction between Wales and England. Like many things Welsh, it is misrepresented by England and the idea of the Welsh dragon being misgendered only in England is, I think, a good metaphor for a whole lot of English treatment of Wales.]

Unrelatedly, there is a gay Welsh flag held at the National Museum of Wales which has a very wonky dragon which I find very endearing.

(cleaned up version I made)

So much so I made it an emoji in my Welsh bilingual LGBTQIA+ Discord (requirements for joining are - be 16+, either speak or are learning Welsh and identify as LGBTQIA+ in some way. Dm for link!).

(triaist ti 'you tried' emoji)

~ Completely unrelatedly ~ never forget the time someone was trying to homophobic to me by suggesting that I was disrespecting all the soldiers who died 'for the Welsh flag' by making it rainbow colours and not red - arguing that any change of colour of the dragon was disrespectful. Reader, my bus pass at the time for Mid Wales Travel had a purple dragon on it.

[official-wales]

Is there an official Welsh word of the year? Like the Oxford word of the year (but better).

only for you anon