Tomorrow I’m off to Nant Gwrtheyrn, the Welsh Language and Heritage Centre in North Wales, where I’m going to learn some more Welsh. I’ll be there for a week and probably won’t have internet access, so won’t be able to answer your emails. I’m also going to turn off comments to prevent the usual flood of spam that inundates this blog.
In the meantime, here’s a recording of a poem in a mystery language. Can you work out which language it is? I’ll give you the answer when I return from Wales.
My best guess would be Shona or Tswana, maybe Sotho. But almost definitely Bantu. Enjoy the Llŷn!
Yep, my guess is also that it’s a Bantu language. Enjoy speaking Welsh!
The answer is Shona (chiShona), which is spoken mainly in Zimbabwe, and also in Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana.
The recording comes from the Poetry International Web.
Writing this here as the comments are off on the post above…
How much do you think one can learn and retain from short periods of language immersion? Did you find your week in Wales boosted your accent, speaking rhythm, vocabulary etc?
I am going to Paris for a month this summer to do a French immersion course – it will be really interesting to see how much my French improves.
Tioraidh matha, Seumas
Seumas – it is possible to learn a fair bit on a short language course. My week’s immersion in Welsh increased my confidence to use the language. My pronunciation also improved a bit, and I learnt a bit more of the North Wales dialect. It was more a case of practising what I’ve already learnt, rather than learning a lot of new things.
I simply was very impressed of the beauty of this language. I sounds good, is very “euphonic”.