So why would anyone want to learn Welsh? As we approach a new millennium, in the age of the information super-highway, where English is established as THE language with which to communicate with billions of people around the world, the language of business and popular culture, why would anyone want to learn a language that has remained relatively unchanged for two thousand years? Well, what's the alternitive? Should we all adhere to one language, allowing the rest to disappear into some historical obscurity? What a boring world that would be!
I wanted to learn Welsh for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I am proud of my Celtic heritage and want to revive something of that heritage, to speak the language of my fore-fathers, to read 'Y Gododdin' or the works of Dafydd ap Gwilym in their native tongue. Secondly, I want to, in my own small way, help to save the language from following the fate of Manx or Cornish, who are now no man's language and sit on the dusty shelves of linguists and tourist's tea-towels. Without a Welsh language, there can be no Welsh culture!
 
 

In a speech he gave to the BBC Wales Radio Lecture in 1962, entitled 'The Fate of the Language' Saunders Lewis said, 'I predict that if the present trend continues, Welsh will cease to exist as a living language towards the beginning of the twenty-first century.` Though born in Liverpool, he was a Welshman through and through. He was jailed in 1936 when he set fire to an aerodrome in North Wales thats construction had been the focus of great protest. In court he stated 'We are in this dock of our own will, not only for the sake of Wales, but also for the sake of peaceful and unviolent relations, now and in the future, between Wales and England.` Though it was not until 1967, it was through the actions of people like Lewis that the Welsh Language Act made special reference to the use of Welsh in legal proceedings and on official forms.

In 1979, the incoming Conservative government overturned a policy of the preceeding government to create a Welsh-speaking TV Channel. The importance of 'popular culture' to a language should not be overlooked, so this could have represented the death-blow to the Welsh language. Instead, due to the actions of Gwynfor Evans (who followed Gandhi's example with the threat of fasting until dead) and thousands of Welsh people (who refused to pay their TV Licence Fee, and subsequent fines, and would therefore have had to be jailed), the governmant gave way and S4C was born. Thanks to the popularity of cartoons like 'Super Ted' and 'Will Cwac Cwac', infants can watch programs in their own language. Grown-ups can watch the utterly appalling 'Pobol y Cwm', but then, they probably watch 'Coronation Street' too!     :)     The important thing is, the language is much safer now than when Saunders Lewis spoke in the 1960s.

As we rapidly approach the new millennium, pride in our heritage seems to be on the increase. As we stand looking into the future, part of us looks back to our history. It gives us more of a sense of who we are.
In modern popular music, bands like Catatonia are providing the youth with the flowering of a living Welsh culture of there own with songs sung in their native tongue. This has a long heritage, just as the Welsh ballad writers of the 18th and 19th Centuries provided a focus for their patriotic passion, so hopefully will the modern rivival.
Strange as it may seem, I don't think the future of Welsh will be saved by the Eisteddfod. It must be a 'living' language, the bread and butter, fish and chips language of everyday life. In the end it's up to Mrs Lewis selling bara-brith in the corner shop, Postfeistr Williams in the Post Office, and the countless others ordinary men and women speaking, singing, buying, selling, arguing, chatting-up and discussing the weather.