Travels in an Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh

Travels in an Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh
Pamela Petro

The idiosyncratic and witty travelogue of a young Welsh-speaking woman who travels the globe in search of Welsh communities.Studying in Lampeter, Dyfed, and learning Welsh, Pamela Petro found it infuriating that whenever – in the post office, at the butcher’s, in the pub – she stumbled with her Welsh, the locals would – kindly, they thought – always revert to English: ‘English is so much easier for you, izznit?’ So she decided to go where English was not an option (i.e. not to Canada, Australia, South Africa or the USA) for the student of Welsh – Paris…Oslo…Tokyo…all kinds of unlikely places with long-standing Welsh communities.Once you start to look, you find the Welsh everywhere: among Petro’s intended ports of call were the Hong Kong Men’s Choir, all Chinamen who sing in Welsh; the Japanese bardic eisteddfod in Tokyo; the Welsh golfers of Oslo; the diners of the Paris Welsh Society (one of three in the city); and many more including, naturally the long-suffering Patagonians. Her simultaneous virtual travels (through the Internet) explore the effects and implications of the language itself, ranging from global searches for the strongest Welsh expletive (Iesu Christ) to how exactly Welsh (officially outlawed between 1536 and 1967) survived centuries of English oppression.

PAMELA PETRO

Travels in an Old Tongue

Touring the World Speaking Welsh

COPYRIGHT (#ulink_6774f5c8-f532-5b2a-93b4-ee4e37741909)

Willam Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)

Published by Flamingo 1998

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Publishers 1997

Copyright © Pamela Petro 1997

Pamela Petro asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

The author and publishers of this work would like to express their gratitude to the following:

David Higham Associates for permission to quote ‘The Sunset Song’ from Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas; Gwydion Thomas for permission to quote R. S. Thomas’ poem ‘Something’; J. M. Dent & Sons for permission to quote ‘The Small Window’ and ‘Welsh’ from Collected Poems 1945–1990 by R. S. Thomas; and Gwasg Gomer for permission to quote T. H. Parry-Williams’ poem ‘Hon’ from Poetry of Wales 1930–1970; Meic Stephens for permission to quote Harri Webb’s poem ‘Ode to The Severn Bridge’.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780006550105

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780007393299

Version: 2016-01-12

DEDICATION (#ulink_b2ac3977-1fd9-58a2-bad2-c6b47eb9ec72)

For my parents,Patricia and Stephen Petro

CONTENTS

COVER (#uc5a56ebf-4f2e-563f-8b6c-116a37b95cee)

TITLE PAGE (#ufb4ba3a1-a8c9-58ea-b7c3-b999d96afe17)

COPYRIGHT (#uee1d82ad-1731-53c9-866d-8158a42ba718)

DEDICATION (#u13bc9762-b7a2-5f24-b257-5b81f8b1d508)

PROLOGUE (#u67400c2e-9da8-5c1e-8e22-c4bec5832bb2)

PART ONE: Ewrob (Europe) (#ud3f4f514-022b-5e51-b7d6-2920d75abc5f)

INTERLUDE (#litres_trial_promo)

PART TWO: Asia (Asia) (#litres_trial_promo)

INTERLUDE II (#litres_trial_promo)

PART THREE: De Amerig (South America) (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

KEEP READING (#litres_trial_promo)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#litres_trial_promo)

PRAISE (#litres_trial_promo)

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#ulink_a46ff068-cc72-5374-b986-bddf416887ee)

Something to bring back to show

you have been there: a lock of God’s

hair, stolen from him while he was

asleep; a photograph of the garden

of the spirit. As has been said,

the point of travelling is not

to arrive, but to return home

laden with pollen you shall work up

into the honey the mind feeds on.