4 posts ago I was bemoaning the use of weird descriptions for all these new genres of music. You know... discofox,fidgetstyle, Black Sludge, Vegan straight edge etc. Specifically, I was wondering how the hell you could work out what they would be called in Welsh. Well... by an amazing coincidence, the i newspaper ran a whole-page article about all these strange new descriptions of music genres a couple of days ago.
It was very interesting.
For a start there is, on Spotify, a list of...wait for it ...1371 musical genres ...which you can look at here ...
https://news.spotify.com/us/2009/03/24/spotify-genres-the-full-listing/
and then, if you want to know what they mean, you can type genre"Deep Psychobilly" into google and it will tell you what it is! Or genre steampunk ... apparently one-word styles don't need the " ".
This gives a new dimension to the "what-would-it-be-in-Welsh" problem, because now we can go back and describe the music, listen to examples of it etc... rather than just literally translating, say, " fidgetstyle" like I've tried to do in the title up there, or, say, "steampunk." Now I can find out what it is ...here is what steampunk is ... .. ...
To me, Steampunk has always been first and foremost a literary genre, or least a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that includes social or technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam) usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion against parts of it (the punk). Unfortunately, it is a poorly defined subgenre, with plenty of disagreement about what is and is not included. For example, steampunk stories may:
- Take place in the Victorian era but include advanced machines based on 19th century technology (e.g. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling);
- Include the supernatural as well (e.g. The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger);
- Include the supernatural and forego the technology (e.g. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers, one of the works that inspired the term ‘steampunk’);
- Include the advanced machines, but take place later than the Victorian period, thereby assuming that the predomination by electricity and petroleum never happens (e.g. The Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling); or
- Take place in an another world altogether, but featuring Victorian-like technology (e.g. Mainspring by Jay Lake).
- Caitlin Kittredge
Here is a bit of steampunk that's attracted over half a million viewers ! Briwsion !
Well, what a good question. Back in the day, when educators ( and others) in Wales thought that Welsh should be suppressed, one of the main reasons they gave was that Welsh was not up to the job of expressing new ideas, new devices, new realms of knowledge...
So ... I think that debate is still to some extent, going on. When you watch, read and listen to Welsh, there is often plenty of English in there as well. I feel that writers, speakers, communicators are in some way letting the Welsh language down when they do it. Yes, I know it's rather jumped-up of me to say it, but I'm truly puzzled as to why so much straight English and so much awkward and grating Wenglish pops up all the time in the flow of Welsh writing and speech. As I have mentioned recently, I've been reading several Welsh-language books about Welsh pop music, and they are awash with English ... in one of them, a quick look through showed around 90% of the pages had at least one English word or phrase in them, often many more. For nearly every instance of this, I can't help wondering why.
A few examples from various ostensibly Welsh-language books ...some unnecessary English and some horrible, grating Wenglish ...
" ar y stêj " there's a perfectly good Welsh word for a stage,
" gwd-bei " which I suppose is " good-bye"
"ond rywsut fe'i perswadiwyd" it's official, but horrible !
" y bandstand yn Aberteifi"
" lock, stock and barrel"
"drum machine " ..... even I can put that into Welsh.
"poseurs" ... dragging French in now are we ?
"mystique" .... and more
" front persons"
" demos"
"low-key"
"awkward" ... come on, you can do better than that. Even I can.
"dummy run"
" hitchhikeio"
"brilliant"
" typical"
" deal "
"fed up"
"stuck"
" bum deal"
"hidden agenda"
" definitely"
" on board"
" good start"
That about ½ % of the stuff I could quote... all this could be seen as an open admission that Welsh isn't up to the job of writing about the modern world. Non-Welsh speakers looking at this would be justified in saying " Look, they haven't got Welsh words for loads of things... they just nick our words, sometimes they even alter them a bit .... no proper language that wants to be taken seriously should be doing that."
In Travels in an Old Tongue, Pamela Petro talks about the way that the Welsh are pinned down under a blanket of English, and have been for many years. I think that puts it very well.
This old argument about whether the Welsh language can express the whole spectrum required for the modern world has not been resolved ... I'm sure it is capable of it, but it's struggling to get out from under this suffocating blanket of English....a blanket that gets wider, longer and tighter day by day. And all that stuff I quoted up there just bangs the nails in harder and harder.
Right ... I've dug a bit of a hole for myself there, maybe one I can't get out of ....so just to lighten things up, here's a little section of that massive "genre" list ...
Gospel Choir Goth Metal Goth Rock Greek Folk Gregorian Chant Grindcore Grunge Grupero
Guaguancó Guitar Virtuoso Gwo Ka Gypsy Hair Metal Halloween Happy Hardcore Hard Bop Hardcore Punk Hardcore Rap Hardcore Techno Hard Rock Harmonica Blues Harmony Vocal Group Hawaiian Pop HealingHeartland RockHeavy Metal Hebrew Highlife Hi-NRG Hip-Hop Holiday Hong Kong Pop Honky Tonk Hot Jazz Hot Rod Hot Rod Revival ...
I fancy " Hair Metal" myself ...as opposed to what? Hebrew Highlife... who knew ?
Anyway, I await the onslaught of abuse, in Welsh I hope, or the complete silence which might be even more damning.