Anti-Welsh Conspiracy?
There was a very disturbing story on the BBC's website recently about a horse being injured and graffiti being sprayed on the owner's building.
This is quite a disturbing story, but it sounds a bit strange. The graffiti message 'Cai Maes Saes' is'nt actually Welsh or Welsh slang, it's jibberish.A horse's nose was cut and anti-English graffiti daubed on a stables owned by a Cardiff woman who had moved to a village in west Wales.
Alison Hayes, who was born in the Welsh capital, found her seven-month-old pony with a wound to its nose.
As she helped the animal at her land in Tegryn, near Crymych, Pembrokeshire, she also noticed graffiti written in slang Welsh saying "English out".
There's been quite a lot news stories in Wales about Welsh signs been translated by translation websites, which give out nonsense phrases. Oh, hang on, how about we type, say 'Get out Englishman' into tranexp.com and see what we get. Well well, who'd have thought, it only gives 'Ca i maes Saes'.
The respeced media of Wales can't even agree what it's supposed to actually mean as Hen Ferchetan point's out:
Clearly someone up in Trinity Mirror has realised something is wrong, they just havn't quite put their finger on it. The South Wales Echo would have us believe that it's common slang for "English Out" while icWales disagrees and tells us it's actually very old Welsh for "English Out". The Western Mail disagrees again, telling us that the writing doesn't say "English Out" but "English Out of This Field". Top prize for awful reporting must go to BBC Newyddion Arlein (Welsh BBC News) which actually quotes the graffiti as saying "Sais Mas" (English Out) even though the picture of the actual words used above comes from the BBC!
This hasn't stopped Daily Mail readers and anti-Welsh blogger wonkotsane from having a field day - 'field' day - get it? Thankfully, not all English nationalists are thick as shit."Hope loved being around people but now I can't get near her. She is terrified." says Hayes as she stands next to the horse. hmmm
Labels: bbc
posted by Rhys Wynne at 10:00 am
12 Comments:
Anti-Welsh blogger? For your information boyo, my great grandad was Welsh and my Dad's step-dad is Welsh. I'm certainly not anti-Welsh, just pro-English. And whilst the fact that the perpetrators don't speak Welsh might be enough to convince you that they can't be Welsh nationalists, all it's convinced me of is the fact that they're Welsh nationalists that don't speak Welsh. I'm an English nationalist and I don't speak Anglo Saxon, why should all Welsh nationalists speak Welsh?
"I'm an English nationalist and I don't speak Anglo Saxon, why should all Welsh nationalists speak Welsh?"
But... you're an ENGLISH nationalist that speaks ENGLISH. If you were an English nationalist who spoke French, you might have a point. "I'm an English nationalist but I don't speak English".
You're right about one thing, not all Welsh nationalists speak Welsh. BUT keeping the language alive is a large part of what Welsh Nationalism is about. I Think you'll find the majority of Welsh Nationalists DO speak Welsh, whether a smattering or full fluency. Speaking the language is as important as any political devolution stuff that goes on. The two are intertwined, and inseparable.
As for the "it must be my Cardiff accent" thing, I don't buy that for one minute. Unless the owners have put-on Englishy accents, kind of like Mrs Bucket. I've not seen them interviewed so I can't comment more.
Anglo Saxon is the old language of England like Welsh is the old language of Wales. English is the first language of Wales, Welsh is a second minority language. A lot of English nationalists learn Anglo Saxon, English culture and history is a big part of English nationalism.
I Think you'll find the majority of Welsh Nationalists DO speak Welsh
Yes and most of them don't slash horses faces because they think the owner is English. Most doesn't mean all.
Anglo Saxon is the old language of England like Welsh is the old language of Wales. English is the first language of Wales, Welsh is a second minority language. A lot of English nationalists learn Anglo Saxon, English culture and history is a big part of English nationalism.
Yes but you don't have anglo-Saxon speaking communities do you? Your analogy and logic is flawed.
You can be a non-Welsh speaking Welsh nationalist but for the most part Welsh nationalists in areas like this can speak Welsh or have a basic knowledge of Welsh. The person who wrote that graffiti didn't even have a basic grasp of Welsh.
The point remains that you're an English speaking English nationalist and if someone wrote anti-Welsh slogans in gibberish masquerading as English then you'd have your doubts as to wether it was an English speaker who did it, no?
Or have you dug yourself so far into that hole that you can't admit you got it wrong?
Are you falling into the trap that certain nationalist fall into that every attack, real or not has to be presented as victimisation?
O dear, I hope I haven't upset you Wonko.
"For your information boyo,"
Love it :P
I'm an English nationalist and I don't speak Anglo Saxon, why should all Welsh nationalists speak Welsh?
I never said you had to speak Welsh to be a nationalist, and I have many nationalist friends who don't speak Welsh.
I don't deny there are loons out there of all persuasions, but if someone has such a problem with English folk or non-Welsh speaking Welsh folk, it would be very, very odd for them not to speak Welsh themselves in that area.
Anglo Saxon is the old language of England like Welsh is the old language of Wales. English is the first language of Wales, Welsh is a second minority language.
That's not a sensible comparison. While the majority speak English as a first language, there are those who have Welsh as a first language. The percentage that speaks Welsh as a first language obviously varies significantly in different parts of the country.
I know you think that people only speak Welsh to offend English visitors to rural pubs, but people honestly speak it everyday as a community language and not as a 'code'.
A lot of English nationalists learn Anglo Saxon, English culture and history is a big part of English nationalism.
That's quite interesting that people are learning the language, I wasn't aware of that at all.
Although as I mentioned the lingustic situation of Welsh and Anglo Saxon are very different, maybe something can be learnt from Wales as we have experience of teaching Welsh to adults as a second language and to schoolchildren as a first language.
I've recently started teaching Welsh to Adults myself, and I'd have to say my best student so far is a proud Englishman (he has 'Sweet Chariot' as a ringtone - grr) from Keighley.
I also agree that language, culture and history play a major part in shaping one's identity and hope that people in England gain a greater understanding of all of them, particularly after the bullshit we've all been fed via the media and the education system about this mysterious 'Britishness' we're all supposed to be part of and proud of!
I'm glad at least one person noticed my tongue in cheek.
I have Jerusalem as my ring tone.
The thing is, the kind of people that slash a horses face aren't likely to be academic. And just because they don't speak Welsh doesn't mean they weren't Welsh. The fact that the slogan was supposed to be anti-English and it happened in Wales is pretty conclusive. The suggestion that it's ultra right wing English nationalists on the basis that they didn't speak Welsh is laughable to say the least.
The fact that the slogan was supposed to be anti-English and it happened in Wales is pretty conclusive.
Please don't tell me you work in the legal proffession. That'd be worrying. If that's what constitutes 'pretty conclusive' in your book, thank god we don't hang people anymore
It's case closed as far as Wonkos concerned :-(
Anyway, just for fun I typed 'Cymry Allan' (Welsh Out) in the same website, but Welsh>English this time, and the translation is Welshmen They Are being able
Hey Wonko, my ringtone is Jerusalem too. Problem is I never get to hear the song because I have to answer.
Maybe we should all make an effort to learn Anglo-Saxon and insist on having bilingual road signs and stuff, just for the fun of it.
Anyway, just for fun I typed 'Cymry Allan' (Welsh Out) in the same website, but Welsh>English this time, and the translation is Welshmen They Are being able
Coming to a wall near me any day soon no doubt.
Hey Wonko, my ringtone is Jerusalem too. Problem is I never get to hear the song because I have to answer.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Perhaps we should start screening calls more often. ;)
Maybe we should all make an effort to learn Anglo-Saxon and insist on having bilingual road signs and stuff, just for the fun of it.
I like your way of thinking.
I read about this incident & wondered whether some Welsh Nationalist in West Wales didn't recognise a Cardiff accent, or whether the local paper, & other reporters, had just gotten it all mixed up. I know our local paper does all too often!
Either way the perpetrator seems to be a silly vandal (or should that be Vandal?) who could do better things with their time!
This is a bizarrely erroneous comparison: present day Welsh is not
the equivalent of Anglo-Saxon, but the equivalent of present day English. The equivalence "Wonkotsane"{What language does that epithet come from?} is groping for clumsily is between early mediaeval Welsh, the first recorded version of the tongue, and Anglo-Saxon. End of saga.
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