Wales – our big sister to the north.

Everybody knows all about the similarity between Cornish and Welsh… however with common simple sayings this is not the case;

‘Dydh da’ is ‘Helo’, Fatla genes? ‘Sut wyt ti?’, Pur dha Da ‘iawn’ … mmm… it’s not that close.

Perhaps this trip to the Eiseddfod wouldn’t be that easy. We were on our way to Llanrwst in North Wales and I was an official representative for the Gorsedd of Cornwall at Gorsedd Cymru. However, when we were there, everything was fine with the warmth of the welcome. People were happy for us to be at the Eiseddfod and happier when we said we were from Cornwall and happier still when they found out we were Cornish speakers.

With all the Welsh spoken around, I learned; that Welsh is an extremely lively language, people are happy for us to have a go at speaking it and there is an atmosphere of confidence with this tongue.

One point of confidence for me is the use of all the English language loan words; ‘siop’ for shop, ‘pinc’ pink, ‘lôn’ lane, ‘bws’ bus, ‘toiled’ toilet, etc. I say confidence because the Cornish language is afraid of being drowned by the English language. We are a revived language and this fear is more like paranoia! Do we really need to have every single word so different from English? This is a matter for the Akademi Kernewek – indeed, a small group of people but this is so because there isn’t a huge group of Cornish speakers. There is an English saying, ‘a big fish in a small pond’. But with Welsh there are big fish and they are in a shoal here at Eiseddfod.

It was a great honour to be a Cornish ambassador and with that I had to be at ‘Swyddfa y’r Eiseddfod’ (Eiseddfod Office) early in order to robe for the ceremonies. Amongst all the druids (white robes), bards (blue robes), and ovates (green robes) there was a dance group and one of them recognised me. Rhian Angharad Davies from the Magi Ann team – the brilliant app for teaching young children. Our Magi Ann app is very good because it’s easy for adults without any Cornish at all to teach their kids.

How marvellous it was to see a good friend and we were part of a Welsh Gorsedd ceremony. And it was good to come across Rhian so far from home. Was the Eiseddfod a cultural high-point of some foreign land or another part of our land?

As I was seated with the Grand Bard of Gorsedh Kernow in the circle of the Welsh Gorsedd we were listening to the Archdruid’s speech. In truth I didn’t understand much but then I heard, “Say Something in Welsh”. There’s VAT on Welsh language resources but not on English language resources.

But again the Say Something in Cornish course comes from friends in Wales, Aran Jones, (one of the creators of Say Something In). This business is essential to language learning all over the world and also a big supporter of Cornish.

There are more stories still but ‘diloch yn fawr iawn’ to everyone in the Eiseddfod, it was good for the Celtic soul.