Adrian Chiles’ beautiful defence of the Welsh language
David Owens
Radio presenter and all-round top bloke Adrian Chiles has made a stirring defence of the Welsh language in a new book.
His newly-published tome ‘The Curious Columns of Adrian Chiles’ is a best of his weekly columns for The Guardian, which have gained something of a cult following thanks to his wry, sideways slant on life and all its curious minutiae.
Something that many may not know about the West Bromwich Albion superfan is that he loves Wales.
In fact he’s such a fan of our fair nation he appeared on S4C’s Iaith ar Daith TV series where celebrities attempt to learn Welsh with the aid of their own personal tutor, which in this case was fellow radio and TV presenter Steffan Powell.
No surprise then that one of Adrian’s most beloved columns ruminated on why the Welsh language gets such a hard time from various quarters.
The column which originally appeared in The Guardian in 2020 has been reproduced in the book with a brand new footnote from his Radio Five Live buddy Elis James, whose on air chats in tandem with broadcast partner John Robins have become the stuff of radio legend.
Adrian Chiles on his love affair with Wales
This was the column that originally appeared in The Guardian
Learning Welsh isn’t pointless. You see the world from a whole new angle
I have many Welsh-speaking friends who were annoyed by a throwaway remark in this publication. A fellow columnist wrote that something they were doing was as pointless as “eating cottage cheese or learning Welsh”. I happen to be very keen on both activities, but I am entirely sure they meant no harm or disrespect. In fact, depending on how you define pointless they have … well, a point.
If the number of people in the world who speak a particular language is your measure, it’s a fair point. If the number of people who speak that language, but not English, is your measure, then you have a fair point, too. I have held both of these opinions for most of my life. Proud as I am of my rather poor Croatian, I am ashamed to say I often wondered if French, Spanish or Mandarin might have had more point to them.
But now I finally get the point of learning a language for its own sake, and that has come through learning Welsh, from scratch, in a short time. I do very few things mindfully, but you cannot learn a language intensively without being completely absorbed in the moment, and I have found the whole process incredibly soothing. Walking around, sitting in cafes, on trains, buses or whatever, listening to my app, muttering to myself in poor Welsh, all the other troubling thoughts that are stinking out my mind vanish.
And then there is the actual communication bit, which almost came to seem like an added bonus rather than the point of the exercise. I have been friends with a Welsh speaker, the football journalist Bryn Law, for more than 30 years now. The other evening, we briefly crossed paths in a London pub. I said something to him in Welsh, he replied in Welsh, and then I actually said something back. And there the exchange ended, but in some small way we were both exhilarated. It was really something: pointless, it definitely wasn’t. As soon as you formulate any sentence in a newly acquired language, I am sure you start seeing the world from a new angle, through a new prism.
And why do we English apparently feel we can mock the Welsh language with impunity? Is it because we think it is pitiably marginal, or because we see it thriving and, for some unknown reason, are threatened by that? As Bryn fulminated (in English): “The test is to swap Irish for Welsh. Would anyone dare say it’s pointless to learn Irish?” And this, undoubtedly, is a fair point.
That said, I am in Australia just now, and sit writing this on Sydney’s Manly ferry. The young man next to me who has just said hello turns out to be a first-language Welsh-speaker from Cardiff called Tomos. I can’t tell you what he is doing here because I asked him in Welsh and he replied in Welsh and I didn’t quite understand what he said. I have told him, in English, what I am writing about, I have pulled my most earnest, concerned face, and asked him if all the piss-taking about Welsh pisses him off.
“Nah mate,” he’s said. “It’s quite funny.”
In his book Adrian adds a footnote to the original column courtesy of his Welsh radio pal Elis. It reads… ‘The best argument I’ve heard to demolish English scorn for the Welsh language came from the comedian Elis James. Being bilingual is the way of the world now. Many native English speakers are the exception to this. No one asks lcelanders what point there is speaking Icelandic’. Da iawn.
Da iawn indeed Mr Chiles!
The Curious Columns of Adrian Chiles is out now
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I’m English, I suppose, and I’ve never mocked Welsh – I thought the resurgence in the number of Welsh speakers was going well – didn’t know the language needed defending by Adrian. I think it would be nice if an introduction to Welsh was taught in English and Scottish schools so children realise it is part of their British heritage, and close to the Brythonic that was spoken by many of their forebears.
Despite the Brummie accent, Adrian is as much Croation as he is English and can speak both languages. Maybe the reason he’s a descent open minded bloke without the common English dislike towards people speaking their own language in their own country; Cymraeg, Francais, Espanol, etc.
I live in the midlands where English will soon be the minority language you never hear the English complaining about walking into a pub or a shop and every one is speaking in a foreign language walk down the main shopping street in Wolverhampton and you hardly hear English spoken they never mention that maybe they are jealous of the Welsh because they speak both languages
It’s a pity Snowdonia national park doesn’t intend to allow bilingual signs. I think that is insensitive to the non Welsh speaking majority.
Grow up even White Australia has embraced the single use of the correct word Uluru.
English is the second most spoken language in India after Hindi, nobody there is upset about the reversion to Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.
I am beyond impressed that you know what those millions of people think and can speak for them. On the other hand, you haven’t said anything to persuade me that money should be wasted replacing bilingual signs in Snowdonia. If you bothered to read more widely you would find that a quite substantial number of people are annoyed by Bannau Brycheiniog changes and the other whims imposed by zealous minorities. Maybe you could be a little more polite in future.
I am not sure that you should speak for those millions of people. On the other hand, you haven’t said anything to persuade me that money should be wasted replacing bilingual signs in Snowdonia. If you were to read more widely you would find that a quite substantial number of people are annoyed by Bannau Brycheiniog changes and the other whims imposed by zealous minorities. Maybe you could show a little more courtesy in future posts.