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My sister was expressing the popular American sadness that she doesn't feel a connection to centuries-old cultural traditions, languages, or places (and in our case not even religions - our dad's family is two generations removed from contact with Jewish cultural traditions), and mentioned that her husband is 'proud' of his Welsh ancestry but probably knows even less about it than we know about Jewish culture (which is all from books and tv basically, even though our dad's first cousins went to shul and Temple and had bar and bat mitzvahs! I know less Yiddish than Wax because she watches more stuff than me, though it was the native language of both my paternal grandmother's parents).
I said, idly, that since our great-grandmother* was born a Welsh-speaking monolingual and her mother was entirely Welsh (her father was English and the Welsh was beaten out of her by his second wife after age 5, so she forgot it before adulthood), it's likely that my sis is just as Welsh as her husband is, and for that matter, if she wants to learn something about one of her cultural heritages, that's a good one since they have it in common, and Wales has an Arthurian legend connection, a dragon on the flag, at least one British sitcom set there as well as Hinterland and a living tradition with like. Welsh-language tv and road signs and things like that, plus it would be comparatively easy to potentially visit on vacation sometime. It turned out that Welsh is on Duolingo, so now my sister and I are doing Welsh Duolingo together.
I guess we'll see what happens. I've never tried to start learning a language like... outside of a classroom before. Any other tv-or-movies set in Wales recommendations would be welcome (except Torchwood: I've seen that too) .
*This is the one who emigrated alone to Canada after WWI and worked as a nurse, was a flapper, jumped into the Hudson on a dare one time and contracted pneumonia, and divorced my great-grandfather when he cheated on her and raised my paternal grandfather alone from the time he was about two.
I said, idly, that since our great-grandmother* was born a Welsh-speaking monolingual and her mother was entirely Welsh (her father was English and the Welsh was beaten out of her by his second wife after age 5, so she forgot it before adulthood), it's likely that my sis is just as Welsh as her husband is, and for that matter, if she wants to learn something about one of her cultural heritages, that's a good one since they have it in common, and Wales has an Arthurian legend connection, a dragon on the flag, at least one British sitcom set there as well as Hinterland and a living tradition with like. Welsh-language tv and road signs and things like that, plus it would be comparatively easy to potentially visit on vacation sometime. It turned out that Welsh is on Duolingo, so now my sister and I are doing Welsh Duolingo together.
I guess we'll see what happens. I've never tried to start learning a language like... outside of a classroom before. Any other tv-or-movies set in Wales recommendations would be welcome (except Torchwood: I've seen that too) .
*This is the one who emigrated alone to Canada after WWI and worked as a nurse, was a flapper, jumped into the Hudson on a dare one time and contracted pneumonia, and divorced my great-grandfather when he cheated on her and raised my paternal grandfather alone from the time he was about two.
