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There was a mild flutter of interest recently in reports that a Welsh language TV show has been left red-faced after viewing figures showed that not a single person tuned in to watch it. Sgorio, a late night soccer show on Channel S4C, attracted an audience of zero people when it aired at 11:30pm on December 14. The episode of Sgorio covered highlights of the week for the German, Italian and Spanish football leagues, something of apparently little appeal to Welsh audiences. What interested us, however, was that word "Sgorio", meaning "Score". We have written before about the Welsh and their ridiculous made-up language. "Parcio" means parking, "beicio" means bicycles, a chapel is "capel", windows are "ffenestri", a church is "eglwys", a castle is "castell" and a shallow valley or coombe is "cwm". A bridge is "pont", a cupboard is "cwpwrdd", your garage is "garej", the car you keep in it is "car", and when it breaks down you have to take the "bws". To while away the journey you'll probably read a "bwcio", and no doubt you'll be wearing "trowsus" or a "sgert". See what we mean? Nor are the Welsh the only ones to have realised that all you have to do is cobble together a few words from other languages, spell them wrong and then claim you have a minority language and demand that everyone else respect your unique cultural identity. They're doing it in Cornwall, though typically they can't agree among themselves just what the language is, and keep inventing new versions. And in parts of the Dolomites and the Alps including the Engadine in Switzerland they speak a language called "Ladin". It is, they claim, an ancient Romanse tongue descended from Latin. There are several regional variations. Here's a bit of Ladin ... "La via ais stipa Mo pur passai Ed in Dieu as Fidai" It means, as many of you will already have guessed, "the road is steep" (yes, really!), "but you have to go along it and trust in God". Ai rwst mai caes. either on this site or on the World Wide Web. Copyright © 2010 The GOS |
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