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Faint ohonoch chi sy’n siarad Cymraeg?

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Reading about that wonderful polyglot, Astrud Gilberto, and her German dad, got me thinking about language learning and childhood. So now I’d like to ask ..

How many of you Afterworders belong to a bi-lingual or even multi-lingual family?

And how many of you grew up in a family where several languages were spoken?

I live in a bi-lingual family with a Swedish partner and two young adult kids who are used to hearing both Swedish and English.

I was thinking about my bilingual family here in Stockholm, where there’s always a discussion about which language we should use.
And then it struck me. With an English father and Welsh-speaking mother, I grew up in a bi-lingual family in Pinner.
The big difference being that my mother tongue was never spoken.

My mum never encouraged my brother and me to learn Welsh. And despite the fact that we heard a lot of Welsh being spoken when we visited all our aunts and uncles in Dyfed, my dad never considered learning a little more of the language. When I start to think about it, it seems odd to be married to someone and not want to learn their language.

Back in the 1960s it was never even discussed that any of us should learn Welsh. What use was that?

Nowadays I have a completely different attitude.

There’s a young woman from Swansea who is a Welsh native speaker who I run into occasionally in the laundry room here in Bagis. My visits to the tvättstuga would be so much more lively if I could chat fluently in Welsh about mangles, spangles and the Bangles.

Oddly enough, my brother moved to New York, did a language course and became very active in the Welsh Church of Manhattan.

I moved to Stockholm and ..erm…. became a big fan of Goldie Lookin’ Chain…

Many thanks to @Salwarpe who I suggested that I start this as a new thread. And to @Dai who has already provided an interesting answer to my question,

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Comments

  2. Mrs F was born to a Scottish father and Spanish mother, and raised in France. She studied Italian and Japanese to A-level.

    I once took some evening classes in German. Well, they say opposites attract.

    The real curiosity in the family is my brother-in-law, who remained in France from the age of two. He speaks fluent French and English, but with the same Cairngorms brogue my father-in-law had when he moved to France in 1967.

  3. I spent my teens in north Wales. The school was so close to the border that we would sometimes sneak out of grounds to have our lunch in England, but that was Welsh enough to mean compulsory Welsh lessons in what is now called KS3.

    All I remember now is how to count from 1 to 10. I used to know the Welsh for ‘Mr Jones had bacon and eggs for breakfast’ but that got pushed out of my brain by a subsequent piece of knowledge somewhere along the way. I’ve never found myself in a situation where I have had cause to regret the loss.

    I’ve been in north Wales a couple of times in the last decade and the language seems to be enjoying a revival. In the 80s I would occasionally hear old ladies chat in Welsh on the bus, and a couple of teachers would speak Welsh between each other confident that we pupils wouldn’t understand a word. Recent experience suggests that a smattering of tourist Welsh, at least to the level of bore da and diolch, is appreciated in a way it wouldn’t have been a few decades ago.

  5. Rather than a Welsh mother, mine was Hebridean, with Gaelic as her first language, if taught, at school, in Stornoway, in English. And, like in your childhood home, it was never spoken, except when she met up with her sister. My father came from the other side of the country, a non Gaelic speaking area, although I gather he could understand Doric, the Aberdonian patois.
    It is such a shame, as I would love to have been gratuitously immersed in the Gaelic as a child. Attempting to learn it in my dotage has shown it a mighty tricky tongue.

  6. I grew up in a bilingual household or even multilingual if Yorkshire dialect and bits and pieces of Arabic count. My Mam was Welsh and was a fluent Welsh speaker. She spoke Welsh to me and sang many Welsh songs to me when I was very young. She had a quite lovely voice and won singing contests as a young girl. My Mam was born and raised in the Rhondda the daughter of a miner. My Dad was a Yorkshire man born in Hull but raised mostly in the Whitby, Robin Hood”s Bay area. He spoke reasonably fluent Arabic which he had aquirred during the war years when he was posted to the Western desert. He tried to teach me but unfortunately apart from a smattering of it I’ve largely forgotten. Over the years my Welsh has grown rusty from lack of use, this corner of N.E.Wales is largely occupied territory so I have little occassion to speak my native tongue. I try to take any opportunity to do so though even if it’s just freaking out the English speaking locals by thanking them in Welsh or wishing them the time of day. Watching their confusion is most amusing.

    • Fascinating to read about your dad learning Arabic @pencilsqueezer.

      WW2 led to many British servicemen and women travelling to corners of the globe that they would otherwise never have been, My dad, who was in the Fleet Air Arm, was sent to Canada on some kind of training course and then spent a lot of time in the Med.

      My mum was a nurse and worked in first India and then in Japan. She never wanted to talk about the latter

    • So we are both half Welsh and half Yorkshire, we should form a club!

      My DNA results however also indicate Scottish/Irish, Norwegian and Dutch ancestry. Also, bafflingly French Canadian! Maybe I caught that from my ex wife?

  7. As I wrote on the other thread, Welsh father, English mother (Yorkshire), but my dad didn’t speak Welsh apart from the odd word which is the case for the majority of Welsh people especially in the South East. So English only at home

  8. My mum is Norwegian (basically the same language as Swedish) and dad was Italian, and they met in a factory in Stockholm after the war. Mum learned Italian (knowing Swedish, dad sort of got the Norwegian as a bonus) and Italian cooking, more importantly…
    My older siblings all know Italian fairly well (some of it’s been lost from lack of use) but when I came along, sixteen years after the first kid, and being a very stubborn child who didn’t want to speak Italian in Sweden, they soon gave up the fight. I have a very vivid memory of being held by my dad high up in the air and him pointing to the lamp in the ceiling saying “Lampada!” but that’s about it for me and Italian.
    Of course, being around them speaking the language with friends and relatives, I know enough to sort of understand what the subject of the conversation is about, and certain expressions, but I wouldn’t be able to say anything in Italian beyond pointing at things and exclaiming “Lampada – papagallo – macchina!” 🙂

    My dad later divorced mum and married a Hungarian woman, so my two half-sisters know that language as well as Italian and Swedish, but (again) a lot of it has been lost through lack of use (their mother died much too soon).
    One of them is a French teacher, so fluid in that language, which none of the rest of us can claim, despite all taking French in school. I blame my teacher, who spent the lessons doing just about anything he could do, other than actually teaching any French… I remember some words, phrases and some conjugations of words I can’t put in a whole sentence, but I can’t speak it, and understand it even less than I understand Italian.

    My mum learned Spanish in evening classes after the divorce, inspired by going there on holidays for many years. She and dad also knew some German, thanks to the war; mum was in occupied Norway surrounded by German soldiers, dad at 15 was thrown in prison by the Germans in Italy…I believe it was taught to them in school as well!

    My grandmother was Danish, lived in Norway most of her life but had Danish siblings. Danish is of course also understood by Swedes, if much less so than Norwegian thanks to the Danish pronunciation…I certainly struggled when my Danish great uncle visited unexpectedly once when I was around twelve years old, and I had to translate and repeat what he was saying to my mum (who was born with a hearing disability). Somehow I managed, and was rewarded with a beautiful silver and amethyst ring for my troubles.

    We had a few Moroccans in the family for a while (through marriage) so one of my sisters know some Arabic words and phrases, although I don’t know how much she remembers or uses it anymore.
    I have a nephew who has taught himself some strange languages, just for fun, but I can’t remember what they are. Cousins are spread around the world, one lives in China with his Chinese wife, but I’m unsure how much Chinese he speaks. But his mom learned Chinese in her eighties, as a hobby! She also knew Spanish, having lived there for decades.
    Another cousin’s son is married to a Ukrainian woman, but I doubt that he’s learned her language – she’s learned Italian and they live in Italy.

    My sister-in-law’s family has ties to Finland, but it’s the Swedish speaking part of Finland…

    • Wow.

      What a fascinating account of all the many languages spoken among your extended family, @Locust.

      I was very amused by your refusal to speak Italian in Sweden. I’m sure that many non-Swedish parents have faced that kind of reaction when trying to get their kids speaking their first language. Particularly so when those kids became teenagers, When you are a teen, most people don’t want to stand out and be different.

      Mercifully this was not the case with our son. He delighted in not being lagom and being a very fluent English speaker is very much a part of his identity,

      No King’s English for him. He sounds like a rude dude from the hood.

      • I refused from the very start, didn’t answer when they spoke to me in Italian, never repeated any Italian words.
        I just remember finding it annoying, and illogical to speak a language that very few people here could understand. I also always hated doing as I was told and always feeling a need to be rebellious – I certainly had no problems standing out and being different! I was always different in every way I could be, and flaunting it proudly.
        I’ve never regretted not learning Italian, I’ve never really been in a situation where I’ve thought “It would have been handy to know Italian now”.

        My siblings who grew up speaking Italian (but rarely use it now) have come to understand that the Italian they know how to speak is a fairly antiquarian version of the language. My dad moved out of Italy in his late teens, and only returned for a week or two every few years, and mostly to visit his old parents, once they had moved back from Sweden after retirement. So having very few chances to update his language skills, and in later years he complained that he had a hard time solving the Italian crossword puzzles, because he didn’t know the new words and phrases (nor the new celebrities)!

        • I’ve always thought that your command of English, as a second language, is outstanding. I expect that’s due in large part to everything you’ve learnt from this place. Me in particular.

  9. Although we are a multi-lingual family, its downwards and I’m very much the stubborn arse that only speaks English.

    My wife is Singaporean and so speaks fluent Mandarin and English, along with the Chinese dialects of Cantonese (from her dad) and Teochew (from her mum) and a smattering of Malay (as Singapore is so multicultural).

    As such my two boys can speak both English and Mandarin as they were educated here and taking a mother tongue to at least A-level is compulsory. As pretty much everything else here is in English (one of the reasons I never learned Chinese, along with being useless at languages !), my wife reckons their Chinese is not that brilliant, even though on paper they are more qualified (in her day it was only to O level) !

    As an aside, when they started primary school, the “mother tongue” subject usually follows the father (Mandarin, Malay or Tamil are the options) and so I had to officially apply to the Ministry Of Education for them to do Mandarin – under the reason for choosing Mandarin, I simply stated “because their mother speaks it”. Did the trick.

    Whilst neither boy enjoyed studying Mandarin at school and only really did as they had to, I think both now recognise that it’s useful and so do try and maintain a bit of – even if it’s just talking to their grandparents (who actually speak fluent English!).

  10. On the paternal side, I am the first in four generations to have remained living in the country of my birth, and I still live just a mile and a half from the maternity hospital were I was born. Admittedly, they were all anglophone countries: Ireland to England to Australia back to England again, but the belief that the world is your oyster underpins my family.
    So, my eldest brother married an Englishwoman, but lived in Paris. My second brother did marry a Frenchwoman, but they never lived in France, though my niece and nephew are still bilingual. They had chosen to domicile in Turkish Cyprus, though sadly she is no longer with us. My brother is happily remarried to an Austrian with a UK passport resident on Menorca, whose English sons live in Luxembourg and Galicia.
    My third brother lives in Kenya where my sister-in-law speaks kiSwahili and kiMeru like a native, because she is one. Their wedding, which took place in the church at the top of the lane from my house, had more nationalities represented than a UN convention.

    By contrast, my mother’s family all lived within a couple of miles of each other in the east end of Newcastle for generations. It must have been one hell of a shock for her to be plucked out of that to go to India to marry an Ozzy.

  11. Rwy’n rhugl yn y Gymraeg ac hefyd yn siarad ychydig o Siapaneag. Saesneg yw fy ail iaith. I ddweud y gwir doeddwn I ddim yn siarad yr ‘iaith fain’ nes i mi fod yn bum mlwydd oed. Rwyf wedi cyhoeddi nofelau a chasgliadau o storiau a barddoniaeth yn y ddwy iaith (ond nid, eto fodd bynnag!) yn y Siapaneag!

  13. Un o The Vaults: cymysgedd o fandiau, cantorion a chyfansoddwyr o Gymruyn

    ETHANIA : Pennod Un
    ‘THE PRISIONER’ THEME : Main Titles
    BADFINGER : Come And Get It
    SUPER FURRY ANIMALS : Out Of Control
    AUSTERBERRY : Twist The World
    JOHN CALE : Paris 1919
    CHARLOTTE CHURCH : Pie Jesu
    ETHANIA : Marquis Ethania Ping
    LLWYBR LLAETHOG : Ai Bod Dub
    GORKYS ZYGOTIC MYNCI : 20
    DERRERO : Chunder Drum
    SUPER FURRY ANIMALS : Drygioni
    AFALLON : Snog
    MC MABON : Fake American Accents
    GORKYS ZYGOTIC MYNCI : Merion Wylt
    ETHANIA : Tad

      • Thanks for all your fascinating answers. A lot of food for thought.

        I began to think a little more about my childhood language learning experience and remembered that on Saturday mornings in the 60s the BBC had programmes for language learning-

        This is what the whole family were watching on Saturdays back in 1964.

        Komm Mit!, BBC1 3 October 1964 on Saturdays at 12.30pm, and Thursdays at 11pm, 30-part series for beginners with Heidi Treutler and Dieter Geißler, introduced by Sabine Michael and Paul Hansard, featured the actor Jeremy Kemp, directed by Maddalena Fagandini, produced by Colin Nears; repeated in October 1967

        And then in 1966 there was the Spanish course, VAMOS A VER. Shame I didn’t keep the coursebook. It’s now worth 26 quid.

        https://www.abebooks.co.uk/VER-LOOK-SPANISH-Lessons-Beginners-BBC/22761913161/

        So we may not have had Welsh lessons, but my dad was keen on us learning other languages. To be honest, if Welsh lessons had been available, I’d have probably DONE A LOCUST and refused to take part.

        I’m not sure when we first started foreign languages at school, but at primary school I vividly remember that we had some fresh copies of PARIS MATCH. I was fascinated by the Eiffel Tower, the Champs-Elysees and all these beautiful French women, glamorous international film stars in haute couture frocks. Or in Bardot’s case not wearing very much at all. Talk about motivating language learners.

        On arrival at grammar school, I found that Latin and Ancient Greek had an equal, if not higher status than modern languages.

        But the modern languages had a Language Lab at their disposal. I haven’t thought about that for years. I Googled and found out this was a pretty modern innovation in the 60s and had first been developed by the US Military. The kind of hi-tech tool they probably had on Tracey Island.

        Fast Forward to the late 1980s. i was living in Helsinki for a year and decided to try and learn some Finnish and turned up a free course at the uni. There was a large lecture theatre full of sundry foreigner. The teacher would say a word or phrase and then one by one, we all had to repeat it. I lasted one lesson.

        This is an extremely interesting, very comprehensive, article about the history of language teaching in the UK. full of interesting titbits, For example…

        https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09571736.2017.1382052#d1e225

        Britain’s multilingual history, with its indigenous Celtic languages and the languages of colonisation, empire, migration and conquest (Roman, Viking and Norman: cf. Tyler Citation2011) means that much informal language learning must have been going on for which we have scant or no evidence. The earliest evidence of formal language teaching is in the form of bilingual English–Latin dialogues for young monks around 1000 A.D. After the Norman conquest in 1066, French – initially the language of the conquerors and the elite who collaborated with them – became, over the course of generations, the first foreign language and language of prestige for those outside the clerical education system. Britain’s continuing close ties with neighbouring France and France’s cultural pre-eminence in Europe for centuries have kept French as the ‘first’ foreign language for most British children ever since. French remains the most widely taught foreign language in secondary schools, and in 2014–2015, the first year in which it was compulsory for primary schools to teach a foreign language to all pupils from age 7 (Key Stage 2) and up, French was the language chosen by 77% of primary schools (Board and Tinsley Citation2015: 121). Many British people have little or no useful command of French, but nearly everyone with some education recognises a few words of French (e.g. recognising Mercy buckets as a jocular corruption of merci beaucoup). The same could not be said of other English-speaking countries such as Australia.

        • Moving to Reading in 1988, one of my biggest surprises was the huge reception area provided by Wenvoe (near Cardiff) TV transmitter. I could watch S4C in my student digs in Berskhire!

          Not every TV show could be directly translated into Welsh, so a typical link would be something like “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Superted, Llansantffraed-Cwmdeuddwr News at Ten

  14. I was fascinated by this comment by @fentonsteve.

    The real curiosity in the family is my brother-in-law, who remained in France from the age of two. He speaks fluent French and English, but with the same Cairngorms brogue my father-in-law had when he moved to France in 1967.

    Nothing strange about imitating those around you when learning a language. The odd thing is that he has not modified his accent since.

    This make me think of the Chameleon Effect,

    Here’s an explanation….

    Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a conversation with someone and noticed they were standing in the same position as you or mimicking your facial expression? While it may appear as though they are intentionally copying you, it is more likely that this is the result of the chameleon effect.

    This phenomenon is a form of nonconscious mimicry where individuals unconsciously adopt the gestures and behaviors of others in order to blend in and create a sense of cohesion in their interactions.

    https://medium.com/illumination/the-chameleon-effect-13a40f34ba06

    Being a good chameleon is a great language learning skill.

    If they’re not much a chameleon, someone may need some accident modification therapy.

    This lady will be happy to oblige…

    https://lenalivinsky.com/should-i-modify-my-accent/

    I fear it’s probably as expensive as plastic surgery. But if it gets you that promotion.

    Back in the bad old days of the BEEB, you would get nowhere with a regional accent.

    The Swinging 60s, with The Beatles and Michael Caine etc etc put paid to all that.

    RP was out.

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