#welshness

[llyfrenfys]

how is welsh not an ethnicity? /gen bc at this point i genuinely don't think i know what an ethnicity is! on forms it tends to be skin colour, but when i google it there's always an emphasis on culture.

This one is a bit of a sticky topic since it is a situation where the same words can mean slightly different things to different people and conflation between similar words is common.

I'm going to use a crochet metaphor for this since it is a non-problematic version of the same problem. So, in crochet, there are various different kinds of stitches, the most common being single and double crochet. However, in the US and the UK, there are terminology differences which can get confusing since they refer to similar (yet distinct) stitches. What is called 'Single Crochet' in the US is called 'Double Crochet' in the UK. And what the US calls 'Double Crochet' is called 'Treble Crochet' in the UK. This kind of thing happens all the time in various situations - be it a hobby, a topic or a concept, linguistic differences can arise in two or more groups which leads to all groups involved using the same terminology, but it meaning wildly different things to different people.

This is the situation when it comes to defining race and ethnicity. Like crochet, in the English-speaking world, the US uses the terms race and ethnicity differently to how the UK does it. Ditto for other Anglophone nations like Australia, New Zealand etc. But for simplicity I will just focus on the US and UK for now. [Note: there will be many caveats and nuanced things which will require a pinch of salt in my answer here, so do keep in mind I'm simplifying a lot here to avoid this post from getting too long]. This is also where I introduce a third term to the mix: Nationality. Nationality is our 'Treble Crochet' in this metaphor.

Ethnicity:

As you point out, on forms ethnicity sometimes is used to refer to skin colour, but in other circumstances there's more of an emphasis on culture. This is where the different people using the same terms for different things starts to cause problems. Using the forms example as a jumping off point, when you fill in a form and get to the section titled ethnicity, the options can often be quite confusing since some of them appear to refer to race, while others do not. In 2021 England and Wales had a census and the government made a list of ethnicities here from the results:

"The main changes to the 2021 Census of England and Wales, compared with the previous Census, were: -the ‘Roma’ group was added under the ‘White’ ethnic group -a write-in response was added for the ‘Black African’ ethnic group"

This, as you can probably see, already has Some Issues. For example, Roma are a distinct ethnic group, but have here been put under the category of white (which is a more racial classification), when many Roma would not identify this way. Some would identify this way- but the problem lies within the creation of rigid boxes with no room for overlap. Ethnicity as a concept overlaps with nationality a fair bit, since there is no agreed upon definition for either term. Things get complicated when some people approach ethnicity with solely race in mind, while others approach ethnicity with solely nationality in mind. Ethnicity can be informed by race and nationality- however - that can get sticky fast depending on context. Just focusing on Wales, however, I would argue Welshness is only informed by nationality and culture, not race. To argue there is a racial component to being Welsh would mean arguing that Welsh people have significant racial identifiers which distinguish them from the neighbouring Scottish and English- as well as the rest of Europe in general. And this, inevitably is how fascism happens. It also raises red flags to go down this road simply because by default, these arguments disqualify nonwhite people from being Welsh at all and we all know what happens when certain white traits are idolised over others...

On the other hand, considering ethnicity from a purely nationality and culture-based approach is much more suitable for Wales as it encapsulates what comes to mind when one thinks of Wales and Welshness. Welsh national dishes and traditional dress are not tied to race in any way. Race simply has not been significant to the formation of Welshness amongst its neighbours (England- more distantly Scotland and Ireland). Whereas race *is* significant to the conception of ethnicity of other nations in the world, such as Aboriginal Australians, whose modern conception of ethnicity is tied to their race in contrast with the arrival of white Australians. In other words, Aboriginal Australians are a racialised people while Welsh people are not. Ergo, it is a highly individual thing as to whether certain nations find race important to their ethnic identity or not.

Official forms may list "White, Welsh" as an option for ethnicity, however, this does not imply that white Welsh people are a separate race to "White, English", "White, Scottish" or "White, Northern Irish" or vice versa, it is more of an appeasement by the government in the census to allow people from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to be able to identify as Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish where they ordinarily would have to begrudgingly select "British". That being said, the government should add "Black, Welsh" etc. options as well, but their absence here is governmental laziness than anything else (they have a box on the census to 'write-in' any ethnicity option not available on the list) so that avoids them from having to formally add in these as options. The bottom line is- it is not possible to be 'racially ethnically Welsh' but it is possible to be 'culturally ethnically Welsh'. Despite this, the latter designation is shied away from simply because 'ethnically Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish' in any context is a dogwhistle used by white supremacists. Most people tend to identify as Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish without any racial component to that identity for this reason.

Nationality:

Nationality is a little easier to define (but cannot be pinned down 100% for a few reasons) but the simplest definition of nationality relates to the country you were born in or are a citizen of. Nationality is not fixed and can change. However, the problems with defining nationality this way is that there are many nations which are not recognised as such internationally. Take Wales for an example- Wales is a country or a nation but it is part of the United Kingdom, which is a State. Here too is where a US/UK divide springs up, since in the US state can refer to the individual States which make up the US. While elsewhere State generally refers to a country or nation with international recognition on the world stage. The US is a State, so is the UK in this metric.

[Important to note that the US is not the only country to have states within it- the system of states within a country is called Federalism and many countries have this system. E.g. Australia has many states, but none of those states are separate countries. Neither are US states (i.e. Oregon is not a separate entity to the US on an international level- it does not send diplomats to the rest of the US or other countries, for example. Ergo it is a constituent part of the US, not separate to it. Ditto the other 48 states on Mainland America. Hawaii is *different*). Part of the confusion stems from the tendency for Americans to view their states as if they were separate countries within a regional organisation, however, this is a misunderstanding of Federalism. Many Americans point to the EU and assume the EU is a country with lots of little European 'states' (small 's') within it. This is false- the EU is essentially just a club the European countries are part of. It's like saying NATO is a country- if you understand how that wouldn't make sense, that's also how calling the EU a country doesn't make sense. Members of the EU like Germany also have Federalism- e.g. Germany has 16 states.]

Back to the point- Wales is a nation which exists within the UK alongside England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is possible to get a passport as a citizen of the United Kingdom, but impossible to get a Welsh, English, Scottish or Northern Irish passport. The same way you can get a US passport but not a Maine passport etc. The stickiness lies within the fact that Wales is indisputably a nation, but legally it is not possible to be a citizen of Wales. All people who live or are born in Wales are citizens of the United Kingdom by default. Therefore, defining nationality strictly on where you're born or where you move to live is exclusionary of many nations that aren't Nations (capital 'N'). See also: the Native American Nations that exist within the US who also don't have international recognition as separate nations which can issue (legally recognised) passports. The goal of Welsh nationalism is to establish Wales as an independent country to the United Kingdom, similar to the Scottish independence movement for Scotland. Hence why someone's Nationality can be Welsh without Wales legally being a separate country.

Race:

I have touched on why race isn't relevant to Welshness already a little bit, but I will add a little more here too.

There is a tendency from many people in the US (specifying US as there seems to be a real culture for it there) to identify with a country they have an ancestor from. There isn't anything wrong with celebrating your own heritage. However, this is where the US and rest of the world tend to define things differently. It is not uncommon to find any European lamenting (some) Americans who identify as the country that European is from based purely on having one ancestor from that country hundreds of years ago. This is down to the US conception of race and the racial climate specific to the US (and only the US). E.g, you may get many people in the US who are proud Irish-Americans and go around claiming Irishness because of having 'Irish blood'* from their great-great-great-great grandmother on their father's side (*another dogwhistle which many who do this are not aware of). This, and it cannot be stressed enough, does NOT go down well in Europe. 'X country's blood' harks back to the conception of ethnicity which includes racial aspects- which as I've explained, is a white supremacist dogwhistle. It also very clearly has parallels with 'blood quantum'.

The other complication is that 'Irish-American' to a European would generally be understood to mean someone with dual nationality in Ireland and the US. This terminology is overwhelmingly US based and as such, US concepts of race butt heads with how it is defined in other parts of the world. E.g. in the US it has been common to refer to black Americans as African-American (regardless of how inaccurate that can be) to the point where the term black and African-American are synonymous. This leads to the black British actor Idris Elba being called African-American, when that makes no sense outside of a US context. Furthermore, UK and US terminology differs in other ways. The US uses the acronym POC to refer to People of Colour, while in the UK BAME is sometimes used for Black, Asian, Minority Ethnicities [caveat both have their own issues which we will not get into here].

Bringing this back to Welshness, there is no racial component to being Welsh, ergo race is not a factor in someone's Welshness.

Summary:

Ethnicity is something that may be informed by both race, culture and nationality, just race, just culture or just nationality. Whichever of those a given people has is informed by the historical evolution of the people and its relationship with other peoples. Certain combinations of the above are more suitable for certain peoples than others.

Nationality is something which is usually formally bestowed upon an individual based on either where they were born or if they move and naturalise as a citizen of somewhere different to where they were born. It can also be something which is informally adopted by a person living in or identifying with a nation not currently recognised as independent by the international community, but is nonetheless extant and may even be campaigning for Statehood. Lack of international recognition is not a barrier to national identity.

Race is something which is also bestowed at birth and consists of a set of traits or features associated with different racial groups, such as skin colour.

I hope that this has been useful and informative. Since you're on anon I don't know where you are from exactly, but I hope this at least leaves you feeling less confused. As with all things, there are many asterisks and pinches of salt, so do not take this for gospel. Rather think for yourself and do some research around some of the topics I've mentioned here to get more informed on the topic.

[random-brushstrokes]

William P. Welsh - Burlesque Queen (1941)

[aeolianblues]

THERE ARE NO TORIES LEFT IN WALES

[molags-balls]

big things happening in england

[tearlessrain]

please help me- i used to be pretty smart but i’m having so much trouble grasping the concept of diegetic vs non-diegetic bdsm!

gfkjldghfd okay first of all I'm sorry for the confusion, if you're not finding anything on the phrase it's because I made it up and absolutely nobody but me ever uses it, but I haven't found a better way to express what I'm trying to say so I keep using it. but now you've given me an excuse to ramble on about some shit that is only relevant to me and my deeply inefficient way of talking and by god I'm going to take it.

SO. the way diegetic and non-diegetic are normally used is to talk about music and sound design in movies/tv shows. in case you aren't familiar with that concept, here's a rundown:

diegetic sound is sound that happens within the world of the movie/show and can be acknowledged by the characters, like a song playing on the stereo during a driving scene, or sung on stage in Phantom of the Opera. it's also most other sounds that happen in a movie, like the sounds of traffic in a city scene, or a thunderclap, or a marching band passing by. or one of the three stock horse sounds they use in every movie with a horse in it even though horses don't really vocalize much in real life, but that's beside the point, the horse is supposed to be actually making that noise within the movie's world and the characters can hear it whinnying.

non-diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't exist in the world of the movie/show and can't be perceived by the characters. this includes things like laugh tracks and most soundtrack music. when Duel of Fates plays in Star Wars during the lightsaber fight for dramatic effect, that's non-diegetic. it exists to the audience, but the characters don't know their fight is being backed by sick ass music and, sadly, can't hear it.

the lines can get blurry between the two, you've probably seen the film trope where the clearly non-diegetic music in the title sequence fades out to the same music, now diegetic and playing from the character's car stereo. and then there are things like Phantom of the Opera as mentioned above, where the soundtrack is also part of the plot, but Phantom of the Opera does also have segments of non-diegetic music: the Phantom probably does not have an entire orchestra and some guy with an electric guitar hiding down in his sewer just waiting for someone to break into song, but both of those show up in the songs they sing down there.

now, on to how I apply this to bdsm in fiction.

if I'm referring to diegetic bdsm what I mean is that the bdsm is acknowledged for what it is in-world. the characters themselves are roleplaying whatever scenarios their scenes involve and are operating with knowledge of real life rules/safety practices. if there's cnc depicted, it will be apparent at some point, usually right away, that both characters actually are fully consenting and it's all just a planned scene, and you'll often see on-screen negotiation and aftercare, and elements of the story may involve the kink community wherever the characters are. Love and Leashes is a great example of this, 50 Shades and Bonding are terrible examples of this, but they all feature characters that know they're doing bdsm and are intentional about it.

if I'm talking about non-diegetic bdsm, I'm referring to a story that portrays certain kinks without the direct acknowledgement that the characters are doing bdsm. this would be something like Captive Prince, or Phantom of the Opera again, or the vast majority of bodice ripper type stories where an innocent woman is kidnapped by a pirate king or something and totally doesn't want to be ravished but then it turns out he's so cool and sexy and good at ravishing that she decides she's into it and becomes his pirate consort or whatever it is that happens at the end of those books. the characters don't know they're playing out a cnc or D/s fantasy, and in-universe it's often straight up noncon or dubcon rather than cnc at all. the thing about entirely non-diegetic bdsm is that it's almost always Problematic™ in some way if you're not willing to meet the story where it's at, but as long as you're not judging it by the standards of diegetic bdsm, it's just providing the reader the same thing that a partner in a scene would: the illusion of whatever risk or taboo floats your boat, sometimes to extremes that can't be replicated in real life due to safety, practicality, physics, the law, vampires not being real, etc. it's consensual by default because it's already pretend; the characters are vehicles for the story and not actually people who can be hurt, and the reader chose to pick up the book and is aware that nothing in it is real, so it's all good.

this difference is where people tend to get hung up in the discourse, from what I've observed. which is why I started using this phrasing, because I think it's very crucial to be able to differentiate which one you're talking about if you try to have a conversation with someone about the portrayal of bdsm in media. it would also, frankly, be useful for tagging, because sometimes when you're in the mood for non-diegetic bodice ripper shit you'd call the police over in real life, it can get really annoying to read paragraphs of negotiation and check-ins that break the illusion of the scene and so on, and the opposite can be jarring too.

it's very possible to blur these together the same way Phantom of the Opera blurs its diegetic and non-diegetic music as well. this leaves you even more open to being misunderstood by people reading in bad faith, but it can also be really fun to play with. @not-poignant writes fantastic fanfic, novels, and original serials on ao3 that pull this off really well, if you're okay with some dark shit in your fiction I would highly recommend their work. some of it does get really fucking dark in places though, just like. be advised. read the tags and all that.

but yeah, spontaneous writer plug aside, that's what I mean.

[runawayandhide]

[tsotc]

fucking obsessed with the uni town i live in

[celestial-kestrel]

It's that time of year again where Mari Lwyd starts to be talked about and shared around and an INCREDIBLY misleading post gets shared a lot. As someone who grew up with Mari Lwyd I wanted to clear some things up.

Also hello, if you are unaware who Mari Lwyd is. This is about the Welsh tradition of the horse skull who visits houses during the Christmas to New Years period in Wales asking for alcohol.

First off and probably the most important one:

Mari Lwyd is not a cryptid!

I can not emphasise this enough. She. Is. Not. A. Cryptid. There is no story or mystery about a ghost or zombie horse roaming the Welsh valleys. She's not even supposed to be a ghost or a zombie. It's just a horse skull on a stick with a guy under a sheet. She's a hobbyhorse and a folk character used to tell Welsh stories and keep songs alive. When people spread the misinformation that she's a cryptid, it's the equivalent of saying Kermit the Frog is a cryptid.

She is actually only one character in a wider cast of characters who go door to door or, in more modern times, pub to pub. The cast of characters can change town to town and village to village but there are some common ones I see time and time again. The Leader, the Merryman, The Jester and The Lady are just some I see regularly. Punch and Judy used to be more popular a few years ago but I haven't seen them in a while as their tradition has mostly fallen out of popularity. In most cases, almost the whole cast will be played by men. Even the characters are considered and referred to as female. Though this again depends and varies by which group is partaking in the Mari Lwyd tradition.

This point also goes onto my second point,

Mari Lwyd does not rap.

I think this comes from a very common misunderstanding of what rap is vs spoken word. Rap is a very specific style of music originating from the African American communities of the USA and has it's own structure and motifs unique to it. It's a lot more complex than people give it credit for as a style of music and just flippantly assign anything similar to it as being rap. If someone is talking fast or reciting poetry, it is not rap. Or anything that is an exchange of words between two people is not a rap battle. Mari Lwyd does not do rap, actually something that gets left out of these posts is the fact Mari Lwyd does not even speak. It's actually the Leader, who does all the speaking and song based banter between the house/pub owner for entry. Mari Lwyd just clicks her mouth, bites people and bobs her head around.

I think Mari Lwyd is a really beautiful and unique part of Welsh culture. She's not actually as wildly celebrated as a lot of the posts make her out to be. Actually, I think most Welsh people themselves learn about Mari Lwyd through the internet as well. Her popularity is increasing thanks to the drive of local groups wanting to keep the traditions alive and a renewed desire to document Welsh traditions before they're gone. Which is why it's such a shame that she's turned into something she's not to earn horror points on the internet. I think this is why it bothers me so much to see the misunderstandings of the culture and the folk tradition. Mari Lwyd's origin is very hot debated as well as how long it's been going on for. But I think it's thanks to a lot of traditions like this that the Welsh language and our stories weren't lost forever. Welsh culture is recovering as is the language. But it's still in a very fragile place. I think it's why it's important to document and correct information when it's spread.

Anyway, if you want to see the tradition in action, here's a lovely video from the Cwmafan RFC going to one of the pubs for charity. It includes the song exchange with the pub owner for entry and the whole pub singing and joining in once Mari Lwyd and the rest are inside.

As well with another video from St Fagan's showcasing the more traditional and door to door form with the larger cast.

[wachinyeya]

[stephanidftba]

I figured the Jolene loving site needed to see this

[allinllachuteruteru]

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

[ourtubahero-blog]

David Tennant vs furniture.

[moodyacademic]

a hidden bookshelf door would heal me

[scampthecorgi]

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! This day wouldn’t be complete without these classic Scamp pie pics!

[hometoursandotherstuff]