This morning the radio was full of Welsh news ... the Welsh Government has decided it wants far more people to become Welsh speakers .. apparently there are only 562,000 left.
Well well... what a surprise!
I've got about 562,000 things to say about that. ... but maybe that's a bit much. Where do you start ?
Listening to all that, loads of "stuff" went through what is left of my mind like some mad speeded-up film. All the things that aren't being done, all the things that should be done, and the sheer futility of all this hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth.
In any subject you study, there's a "Giving-Up-Moment." A moment where you say ..stuff this for a lark. Years ago it happened to me with Latin. We were half-way through volume 3 of "The Approach to Latin" and I turned a page ... and .. oh no! There before me was a whole double page full of verb ending that we had to learn .... it was the blasted subjunctive. All the verbs that I hadn't even got to grips with anyway had to be learned all over again .... well, I thought, Stuff That For A Lark ! I'd reached the Giving-Up Moment. Bang. Crash. Wallop.
Luckily I got dragged out of Latin by my (long) hair half way through the 4th year and sat outside the Latin room for the rest of my stay! Ace!
But the thing is, I think a lot of people give up on Welsh much much earlier than that.
Some give up right on page 7 when they see that table of mutations.
Some give up when they look up a simple word in the dictionary and can't find it.
Some give up when they peek into a book and find every word is completely alien to them.
Some people give up when they realise that there's thousands of mistakes to be made .
Some people give up when they come across the "bod" pages in the "Modern Welsh Dictionary." [ Page 25-26 if you want to have a look ... ]
Some people give up when they find out the very limited range of books there are to read.
Some people give up when they watch Hinterland and are shown a Wales full of dishevelled impoverished scruffs living in dismal disgusting hovels mumbling in the dark.
Some people give up when they see Welsh bands slowly but surely turning into English bands.
Some people give up when they can't find a single dual-language Welsh book to help them.
Some people give up when they buy a Welsh CD and there's no lyrics to be found.
Some people give up when they read a Welsh book and find that they use lots of English words when they don't need to..... what's all that about ?
Some people give up because they find that they can read a grown-up Spanish or French book after a few months of study.
Some people give up because outside Wales there is no Welsh language presence at all. It might as well not exist.
Some people give up when they try to use their Welsh and get ignored or waved away.
I'm tired now !