'When in Rome' eh Dave?
I see that we have veered of the topic of Social Housing and down some kind of Nationalistic cul de sac.
A subject I don't mend debating at all, but it seems a little misplaced to have it here.
Nevertheless, my grandparents were Welsh, but moved to England before WWII, so perhaps I was only on loan to England for a generation? Who knows, and its of no importance to me.
I have had a dabble with learning Cymraeg, (did you see what I did there eh?) ..mainly from a phrase book and local friends.
Even Merddin Emrys passed on a few phrases to me, Dave R has too... but I let it all lapse for two important reasons.
1, I realised that I wasn't very good at it, plus the fact that it wasn't really THAT critical seeing as Cymraeg is not the first language of Wales. When I worked in France I was forced to try harder, because some (the minority) of business meetings were held in French. I was rubbish at that too.
2, A local friend of mine (born in Gyffin) who was brought up devoutly to speak Welsh and is flawless at it, no longer speaks it. What a terrible shame I thought. He maintains that this is because of the snobbery around the subject.
Apparently many people like to pick fault and correct others who may have used the wrong tense or syntax in Welsh. So, if this was happening to a perfectly fluent Welsh speaker, what chance would I have?