A Caerphilly-born literary critic has sparked controversy by labelling the Welsh language as an “appalling and moribund monkey language”.
The comments were made by Roger Lewis in his Daily Mail review of Bred of Heaven, a book written by English author Jasper Rees about his Welsh heritage.
He writes: “In his quest to call himself a Celt, our author does the maddest thing of all — he actually learns Welsh, by attending evening classes (in London/Llundain) and going on courses.
“I abhor the appalling and moribund monkey language myself, which hasn’t had a new noun since the Middle Ages — hence pwdin is pudding, snwcer is snooker, tacsi is taxi and bocsio is boxing.
“As Kingsley Amis, who lived in Swansea for many years, once said, can it be true that there are Welshmen who are genuinely puzzled by the letter x? Incidentally, pys is not what you’d think. It’s peas.
“But the trouble with the Welsh language is that it isn’t a quaint custom revived or the relic of cultural niceties — it is foisted on people for political reasons.
“Though I was born in Caerphilly and have, as it happens, not a drop of non-Welsh haemoglobin in my veins, I detest the way Wales has been turned into a foreign country, with a Welsh language radio station, television channel, and dual-language road signs.”
The review also likens bards to “Ku Klux Klan in white wellies”.
Plaid Cymru’s Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Jonathan Edwards has written to the Home Secretary condemning the article and calling it “deeply inflammatory.”
Mr Edwards has also complained to industry watchdog the Press Complaints Commission.
Roger Lewis is critical of the Welsh language because it borrows words from other tongues and adapts the spelling. I wonder what he thinks the English words are for 'video' 'entrepreneur', poltergeist, to name but a few words happily used by us but derived from other languages.
The fact that Welsh adapts is proof that it is far from moribund. When the Romans occupied these islands they brought new technology with them, an example of which was the bridge. The amazed inhabitants asked what it was called, the reply was 'Pont' which remains the Welsh for bridge to this day. Would he argue that Welsh was moribund in 100 A.D. because they did this. As the Romans would say 'Quad erat demonstrandum'. Latin, now that is a dead language but still useful.
Roger seems an amusing chap, an underlying sadness perhaps but still amusing. I have a question if he lived in Caerphilly why did he attend Bassaleg Comp?
His views about the Welsh language reflects that of many others and that's his business and theirs but his own claim to be entirly Welsh in his genetic inheritance is unlikely to be true. Given there are reputed to be 400 Castles in Wales with Norman/Saxon troops the chance of someone being of entirely Welsh descent is statistically unlikely, at rough calculation we have 4million predecessor from the year 800AD and the population of England and Wales at the time of the Doomsday book was about 2million,so we are likely to be related to everyone Celt,Norman or Saxon twice over. None of us is of pure Brythonic stock. So his irritation with the Welsh language is entirely reasonable
As an aside,
"Plaid Cymru’s Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Jonathan Edwards has written to the Home Secretary condemning the article and calling it “deeply inflammatory.”
This is typical sort of statement made by many modern day Plaid Cymru politicians who sincerely believe that anyone who is Welsh and dares to disagree with them is an enemy and wrong and should have their opinion suppressed. Roger Lewis' comment was only "deeply inflamatory" to the likes of Jonathan Edwards, most proud Welshmen (women too!) would just chuckle and make their own, counter, comment.
I hope his stupid complaint fails to be investigated, at all, by the home secretary who is quite busy at the moment trying to figure out how he can stop the rioting in English ciites.
The Welsh language will continue to thrive and does not belong to Plaid Cymru.