“Goodonya, lil yella fellas”*
Please trust me on this, but Welsh is the most useless language invented in the world ever bar none. & if you do not believe me, find a welsh speaker & ask them to talk about computers – I guarantee you that in under a minute you will be drenched in phlegm as your tame taffy struggles with “presiliyog un mewen aram microprocessor – o – goch – o goch”. If you are trying this at home, whatever you do children, only use one Welshman – if you use more than that you run the risk, that as soon as they are in close proximity, that they will achieve critical mass , drink their not inconsiderable combined weight in beer & form a male voice choir … keeping you up all night as they sing songs in very very close harmony… about kitchen utensils.
Second in the stupid language stakes & it is only just second, is French & lets not mince our English here – “le weekend” “le car parking” – use your own damn language & stop pinching ours … & stop trying to convince me that because you garlic munchers have inflicted generations of Pernod abuse upon the entire population of Britain’s future nuclear weapons range, that a car park can have a gender. It just doesn’t, OK?
But this morning dear readers, we must pay tribute to Tokyo Governor, Shintaro Ishihara who as strained Franco-Japanese relations (do they have them?) with his well chosen words at a gathering last October, in support of a new university in Tokyo. It seems that a few expat surrender monkeys have been whipped into a state of Gallic self righteous indignation over Ishihara san’s very reasonable views on the frogspeak, as he stated that French was a “failed language” … bravo, mon brave!!
According to Ishhihara san
"I have to say it is no surprise that French is disqualified as an international language because French is a language which cannot count numbers.”
Far be from any one as lingually challenged as your humble correspondent to p*ss on any body else’s soufflés, but I can’t help feeling that French does have deficiencies in the number department, among others. Lets be honest, seventy is seventy. It isn’t sixty plus ten. Eighty just isn’t four twenties.
None of this hasn’t stopped outraged little Napoleons … sorry,21 plaintiffs many of whom run language schools or teach French, announcing that Ishihara's remarks had “disgraced” them. Cue a lot of shrugging of shoulders. So papers have been filed at the Tokyo District Court demanding a written apology in a newspaper & half a million yen each in compensation (no surprises there).
According to because according to plaintiff Brendan Marcus (who teaches at a private French school in Tokyo)
"For someone of his public stance, it's quite unacceptable. When you know how many French scientists and mathematicians throughout history have made important contributions, (his remarks are) not appropriate."
Regardless of any of the ‘achievements’ of French scientists / mathematicians it doesn’t alter the fact that as a language, French has been singularly unsuccessful, which is why it is spoken in France & errrrrrrr Corsica & ummmmmmmm - see what I mean? Now English however … now there is a proper language, spoken everywhere. In fact, if you can speak English & Mandarin Chinese, you have got the majority of the globe covered. Mind you, that wont stop the perfidious French worrying about whether it is le or la globe.
So well done Jap & if I could, I would buy Ishhihara san a drink, if for no other reason to canvas his views on the Welsh (les sheepshaggers)
*widely attributed to that bastion of Australian culture & one of my personal heros, Sir Les Patterson
Comments
Er, English and Manadarin Chinese will be bugger all use in some parts of Wales. So there are some parts of the world that are still safe from Mr FM.
he he
Posted by: nbc | July 18, 2005 10:41 AM
Bore da, a croeso o Gymru!
Totally agree with you re. Welsh & computing (and most scientific or technical subjects). The language has not evolved to cope with modern technology, and in common with many non-English languages borrows technical words & terms from English to make up for this lack. Some work has been done to remedy this, but (as with French) the results can be ludricous or complex or both.
Welsh in its pure form is a rural language, and its structure can make expressing technical concepts difficult without reference to English.
It does horrify the purists, but it is common to hear a discussion in Welsh with English words used for the sake of simplicity and clearer understanding!
Pob hwyl o Ynys Mon (sheepshagger HQ)!
Posted by: BMS | July 19, 2005 2:19 AM
the face that zillions of Brits are leaving their little island which is bursting at the seams to set up home in France might have something to do with your unhappy demise and your lack of coordiality towards your gallic spitting neighbours. The language is in fact spat in many a clime and 4 x 20 is in fact 80. Bonne Blog. Bon Blog, your choice.
Posted by: frog blog | July 20, 2005 10:51 AM
and I suppose you will also boycott hospitals and restaurants - after all we can't be supporting these froggy words can we?
Posted by: ian | July 20, 2005 6:06 PM
There is one dumb pseudo lingo that you missed, try cornish, ressurected from the 1800s and as a mix of existing written, welsh and breton and gets taxpayers money????
Posted by: chris edwards | July 20, 2005 10:33 PM
The welsh language was origainally used as a code between perverted welsh farmers who like anal sex with pigs and performing oral on horses.
Posted by: capitan | June 14, 2006 4:37 PM