I’m glad you said this, because I came into this thread to say the same thing. It bugs me quite a bit.
I lived in Wales when at college, and found the people to have a proud and strong culture, thriving language, interesting history, self-deprecating humour, and great music.
One thing that puzzles me is the lack of affinity the Irish have with their nearest neighbours - next door and Celtic, you’d think they’d be best of buddies, but most people I’ve spoken to here about Wales trot out the same negative stereotypes as the English do.
I’m an adopted Taff, having lived here for 7 years (I believe Vetch is the real deal).
I’ve never heard about the “picky eater” thing, in fact your average egg-chasing valley-boyo would shovel down pretty much any old crap.
Female Welsh accents are very popular with British men, it seems. Perhaps they all fancied Ruth Madoc as kids.
The singing, yes, the bestiality, yes, but also poetry and statesmanship (the number of Welsh PM’s/opposition leaders is wildly out of proportion to their numbers).
They are certainly seen as the most “foreign” regional group I feel, perhaps because of the language. They are also a “safe” group to take the piss out of, being rural and out of the way somewhat.
As for a stereotype, I would suggest that “fatalistic stoicism” is almost the National Attitude. Give tham a football team who actually wins matches and they don’t know what to do with themselves!
Incidentally, Welsh is not unpronounceable - you just pronounce certain letters differently. The double L sound is produced by blowing past your tongue when it touches the roof of your mouth, kind of a cross between “thl” and the hard “ch” as in “loch”.
And L_C, I didn’t really need to know about the earthy cum of your Welshman.
I lived among the Welsh at Coleg Jesu, including having two Welsh flatmates and eventually marrying a half-Welsh woman from the college. Here are my quick-and-dirty Welsh stereotypes:
The Welsh like to sing, and they all think they can sing well, even the ones that can’t.
The Welsh like to drink, many to excess. There is a certain class of Welshman who fancies himself as a poet-drinker (the Dylan Thomas ideal).
The Welsh like to play rugby, and talk about rugby. They have especially long memories when it comes to the oval ball. You can always get on a Welshman’s good side by talking about the time Llanelli beat New Zealand.
You can’t upset a Welshman by bringing up sheep jokes. Heck, our college newspaper was called “The Sheepshagger.” Just don’t push it.
The Welsh are not cheap, they are thrifty. “Buy cheap, buy twice,” admonished one Welshman to me.
About the sex thing. Since I am not of that orientation, I don’t know about how good Welshmen are in bed. I know they talk a lot about how good they are, though. As for Welsh women…we better put that one aside. Let’s not go there.
The last Welsh stereotype–they are much farther to the left politically than the English (although I had a flatmate in the Welsh Tory party who was the exception which proves the rule).
FYI…I had the privilege of visiting the Snowdonia district in northern Wales in the early 90’s.
We were camping near Llangollen, during their music festival. The locals were lovely and friendly. I learned some Welsh from a shepherd whose field we camped in. The hiking was out of this world. One of the best meals I’ve ever had was in Llangollen.
Just thought I’d knock out a few bad stereotypes:). If you ever have a chance, get thee to Wales. I loved it.
Just an aside, the reason that yll is in the name is because lle and yll both refer to the word for place. So the words are like Book Place (library), Living place, etc.
The Welsh call “welsh rarebit” Caws Pobi which means baked cheese. I just wanted to show off my extent of Welsh knowledge (mmm we used to cook this at home.)
The big Welsh stereotype that I have been told about is that many Welsh people write poetry to some degree or another. I see that Sentient Meat also posted that and is an “adopted native” so I will be on my merry way.
And they’re everywhere. It’s called the Great Welsh Conspiracy. It was explained to me by the Celtic Studies Chair at Ottawa University. Anywhere in Canada, take a group of 10 people, and at least one of them either has welsh heritage, or knows more than one welshman. They’re quiet, but they’re there. And they’re out to take over the welsh.
I’m an American of Welsh heritage, and my family gets indignant over the whole British/Welsh thing. On St. Patrick’s Day, my mother used to insist I wear orange-red to school to emphasize that we were Welsh, not Irish. I sure got pinched for it, too.
My uncle says that whenever he feels like meeting another Welshman, he will just burst into song…the Welshman will be the one who chimes in.
So maybe some of these stereotypes are based on truth…
I stayed in Wales for three days when travelling in Europe in 1998, and when I told my landlady at my hostel I was going to Ireland next, she nodded approvingly and told me I would like there, that the Irish were like the Welsh, very welcoming.
Strangely, most of the people I met in Wales were English. I don’t know what’s up with that. I was pretty fascinated with the language. I didn’t hear very many people speaking it (just a mom yelling at her kids on the street), but the bilingual signs intrigued me.
