Finding the language of my father
I have so many thoughts about this. And at the moment, I have to do a lot of thinking. I am building a new business for at least the third time in three years.
I have so much information in my head.
This is catharsis, no doubt, but also, I want to tell you about this because it matters to me in a way that I did not realise that it mattered to me before.
The other day, I was having lunch with one of my best friends. I was telling him about a conversation I have been having over and over again recently: I feel more patriotic than ever.
Whether it’s the increasing disgust I feel about Westminster or whether this happens as you grow up, I can’t say. Probably it’s both.
But more than ever, I realise that I am incredibly proud of Wales and of being Welsh.
And I told him about some pretty awful story that I had heard about the Welsh language being ignored or abused and he said:
— Yeh, but do you even speak Welsh?
I looked back at him and thought about how long we’ve known eachother. He knows me almost as well as anyone. And he had to ask me about whether I speak the language that my Father grew up speaking, about the language of my Grandparents, of many people in my family.
Do I speak Welsh?
Do I?
I always tell people almost this exact thing:
— No. Well. Yeh. But I don’t enjoy it.
And then I launch into a spiel about the Welsh language and my experience and struggle with it.
I will explain this to you briefly:
I speak three languages fluently. I could happily forget my mother tongue and continue to speak in French or German if I needed to. I would not mind. I am not attached to English by anything other than my social relationships and the logo on my passport.
When I was in school, I continued with Welsh lessons past the age that the Government said I had to learn the language. I got great grades.
But I remember that at the same time as I was learning Welsh, I was making huge leaps ahead in French and German. French in particular came naturally to me. I thought and dreamt in French long before I was able to realise it had surpassed my paternal language in my preference.
And I remember the day when I decided to start saying that I was not able to speak Welsh. I remember it because I was 18 and I was talking to an elderly family member who had confused me for my father and spoken to me in the language that they spoke together.
I opened my mouth to speak to him in Welsh. All that came into my head was French. And I looked dumb. Lost for words. From then on, and for the next 10 years, I said:
— No. Well. Yeh. But I don’t enjoy it.
And my mother told me never to lie.
I am not old. I do not want to sound overly sentimental.
But recently, I have dreamt about my grandfather a lot. A few months back, almost every night, he was in my dreams.
And I thought about how I only ever spoke English to him. I don’t regret anything about my relationship with him. But I do wish that he knew that I am able to speak his language.
The closer I get to having children of my own, the more I think about how the stories that my father tells me are connected to the language. How the history of the country is connected to this new old language.
And I thought: I want to be part of that history. I can tell stories, but I want to feel them too. I want to understand the way that language changes perspective.
I want to be part of saving my cultural history.
I have never spoken Welsh to my cousin. Or my aunt. Or my father. Or my mother. And of course, that is not any of their faults. It’s just a fact.
There is a great cultural silence in our country — and the more time passes, the louder it sounds.
I looked across the table at my friend the other week, and when one of the people who knows me best in the entire world asked me if I am able to speak Welsh, for the first time in many years or maybe forever, I answered:
— Yes.
For now I am done with saying what I think about the Welsh language.
It’s a language that I love to speak. And although there are large gaps in my vocabulary and hideous grammatical failures in my speech, through the help of friends and family, I have recently been encouraged to just chat with them.
So if you see me soon and you know how, say hello. Any language you choose. All four of mine are available to you now. I’ll respond in whichever one you choose.
And I won’t protest anymore.
