As a welsh-speaking welshman, I have to call complete bollocks on this. I have heard English people say this before, but I’ve never been convinced nor experienced it. After all, how do you know that they were speaking English before you entered the bar?
Or if you mean they speak English until they hear you speak, I think it’s just a selection bias. Most spoken welsh is absolutely peppered with English (especially in south wales, where people are as likely to say “ti’n moin something to drink?” as “ti’n moin rhywbeth i yfed?”. I think what’s going on is that you unconsciously assume that they are speaking English because you are picking out the odd words.
After all – suppose that someone speaks welsh well enough to pull off this stunt you descrbe. Now suppose that a whole pubfull of people does. Then it must be a welsh-speaking area. (The average anglophone Welsh person speaks about as much Welsh as the average Englishman speaks French). But in a welsh-speaking area, they are likely to be native welsh speakers, and thus more comfortable in Welsh. So why would they be speaking in English at all?
You are confusing the legal and educational system with the culture. And I don’t know what you mean about ‘part of England for a long time’ … could you go into more detail?
Interesting that a dislike of the English was mentioned. In my experience this is true, but nowhere near to the extent that the scots and the irish take it.
Well, Wales was more or less definitively conquered by England by 1282 ( or 1284 in legal terms ). A couple of briefly successful revolts followed, but nothing lasting - Owen Glendower was the last to make a decent stab at it and that was over by 1415. The final merger occurred way back in 1536.
So whether it was 728, 726, 595 or 474 years ago, it all scans as “long time ago” to your standard American ;).
I read a mystery series by Susanna Gregory, set in Cambridge in the 1350’s. One of the interesting bits of period flavor in this series is the stereotypes some of the other characters seem to have of the Welsh character, Cymric. They think he’s superstitious. He’s good with his bow and arrow and good at tracking people. The portrayal of him made me think of some present-day stereotypes of Native Americans.
Oh, and I have Welsh heritage. I’m tone-deaf and a truly terrible singer.
Having a fiercely Welsh girlfriend, I’d agree with this statement. There doesn’t seem to be much rabid anti-englishness going on, at least in South Wales. More like gentle ribbing and commiseration that you weren’t born Welsh.
As to the Brit/English thing, of course they’re not best pleased with being called English, particularly as it happens frequently overseas, where many couldn’t place Wales on a map, but I haven’t come across any dislike of being British. Far from it. My SO’s family have a saying:
“Proud to be British. Privileged to be Welsh”
Oh, and yes, they are fantastic in bed. Men and women.
So what you have shown is that Wales was conquered by England a long time ago, and no doubt there. But that is not the same as Wales being ‘part of England’ – even when it was completely under the English thumb, Wales has always been seen as something completely distinct from England.
Ironically enough, my accent in English is weird enough that I do sometimes get mistaken for an Englishman. And I have had some prejudice/abuse because of it.
I despise racism in any form, but I do actually sympathise a lot with Welsh anti-Englishism. The English might be quick to put it down to ‘jealousy’ or whatnot, but that’s not it. What tends to provoke it is a sort of sneering condescension you get on the part of the English, which ranges from refusing to believe that people really speak Welsh (you can see some of that on this thread), to mocking Welsh place names, to using ‘England’ to refer to the whole UK.
Actually it’s not England as a whole, but south-East England: they take a similar attitude to their own northern regions. There are longstanding complaints that the BBC is overly centred on London and the southeast, and to watch the BBC you might well think that the other nations and regions don’t exist. For example, they are getting better about this, but even though the health service is run at the level of each nation, the BBC would report changes in the English NHS as if they applied to the UK as a whole. Now they are a bit better, and will mention ‘the NHS in England’, but don’t say how things are different in the other places.
I think that when it comes down to it, we British are a very insular bunch. For proof, ask your average Brit about what goes on in the (fairly) prosperous, culturally very close English speaking country with which we share a land border. I’d bet no more than 5% of Brits could name the Irish president, prime minister, major political parties or any other fact about the place, beyond hackneyed stereotypes. Compare US knowledge of Canada.
Internally, this insularity is applied to the Scots, and especially the Welsh.
Actually yes the Welsh were pretty well conquered. We never mounted any resistance of any consequence in recent centuries, unlike the Irish for example.
Isn’t that stereotype pretty much common throughout the world for any people who live in rural areas with a lot of livestock? In the western U.S., for example, you hear the same things about residents of Wyoming.
Well, my father didn’t learn English until he went to school (he was born in '39), and my paternal grandparents spoke Welsh at home almost exclusively. So, at least to the Welsh, Wales has always been distinct. Well, except for Cardiff – that’s an English city inside the borders of Wales.
And, Holy Zombie Threads, batman. I was kinda shocked to see that I’d posted to this thread until I realized it was in 2003. :o
I read a book by a travel writer - it might have been Paul Theroux - about the United Kingdom, including Wales, and as I recall, he said the Welsh people were very nice, laid back, and polite. He said even the skinheads were nice, and polite.
Thats all I got. Except something about Led Zeppelin, but that’s hazy.
