Welsh

Fun fact about Welsh: as of 2004, only about 791,000 people speak it.  (To give some perspective, up to 1.8 billion speak English in the world).

Another fun fact: I sincerely wish that I was the 791,001^st.

who wants to give me a present?

I mean, really.  Iechyd da i chwi yn awr ac yn oesoedd means “good health to you now and forever.”  How cool is that?  What are all those c’s doing in there?  And y as a real vowel?  I have no idea how to actually pronounce this – I just looked it up on Wikipedia, to be honest – but I bet it sounds cool.

I’m pretty sure I would be about twice as awesome and interesting as I already am if I spoke Welsh.

Here’s how it plays out in my head:

I’m in Meijer by myself without a list.  Those who know me well enough know that this is always occasion for me to be mumbling to myself, trying to remember if I finished the spinach last week and calculating how many ounces of chicken broth I’ll need to double the recipe I’m planning.

Someone walks near me as I remind myself to snag some lemon juice before moving on.  They stop.  Listen carefully for a minute.  I tell myself quietly that I still have enough coffee for another couple of weeks, but it’s on sale and I’m Dutch, so I should probably pick some up now.

“Um, excuse me.”

I blink at the stranger talking to me.  “Yes?”

“Was that…were you…?”

I smile in understanding and awesomeness.  “Oh, sorry.  I always talk to myself in Welsh.”

The stranger is then amazed by how awesome and obscure this fact is.  They proceed through life thinking that I am extremely interesting and intelligent.

Or it’s the first day of class and I make my students jump through the usual first-day-of-school-getting-to-know-you hoops.  Name, favorite book, whether or not they love the Chicago Cubs as much as I do, and something interesting about themselves.  After they’ve finished being interesting, one brave student raises his hand and asks me to tell them something interesting about me.

“Oh, I don’t know.”  I blush.  “Well, I do speak Welsh.”

There is a collective gasp from the class.  Their teacher is so awesome and interesting!  “Say something in Welsh!”

“Like what?”  I blush even more.  Then I recite a famous Welsh poem.

like this one. probably. I'm taking the internet's word that it's a famous Welsh poem.

My students love me forever.

I’m pretty convinced both of these things would happen at least once in my life if I could speak Welsh.