“A eus le rag hwedhlow dyffrans?” So goes the first track on Le Kov, the second album by Welsh singer Gwenno Saunders. But it isn’t Welsh: it’s Cornish, a minority language spoken by fewer than a thousand people. The line translates as “is there room for different stories?” – and this is the question at the heart of her record, which celebrates variance in language, culture and identity. Continue reading “Welsh singer Gwenno’s new album is in Cornish. It’s one of many ‘lost’ languages being reborn”
Tag: Welsh
Why Welsh language pop is music to our ears
It may be a native tongue of our landmass, but for many in Britain the Welsh language sounds pure tongue-twister. That sing-song tone, that Celtic lilt; the spittle-flecking double-Ls and guttural back-of-throat vowels… And yet Welsh also holds a real fascination – especially when married to that universal language: music. Continue reading “Why Welsh language pop is music to our ears”
Review: I Saw a Man, Owen Sheers
“The event that changed all their lives happened on a Saturday afternoon in June.” That’s the opening line of Owen Sheers’s new novel; what exactly that event was, you’ll have to read 170 pages to discover. The Welsh writer’s second novel, I Saw a Man is billed as a thriller, a new departure for him. Continue reading “Review: I Saw a Man, Owen Sheers”