The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Heh
Found on MeWe:
How do you say "Excuse me, sir, but your xenophobia is showing," in Welsh?
If we rely on Wikipedia (dubious I know) for census data Wales has somewhere around 70,000 Muslims and 540,000 Welsh speakers total.
Given that the adherent was supposedly wearing a niqab that would imply a stricter expression of modesty than a hijab and speaking Welsh to her son instead of English implying they'd likely be Welsh as first-language speaker meaning almost certainly natively Welsh and frankly the odds of a native Welsh speaking convert seems vanishingly small.
Couple that with them ending up next to one of very few people living in Wales who would somehow mistake Welsh for Arabic who then makes a bigoted remark about next to a reporter who wrote about it?
Well I suppose if reporters are famously unbiased you could think it possible even if implausible.
Living in Wales, I've heard and read multiple versions of this story in the last few years. Whilst there may be some truth in a proto-version of this (possibly mistaking Welsh for Polish), it generally has all the authority of an urban legend.
No bird preens itself more self-contentedly than the Cuckoo.
The Migratory Cuckoo (Chickenusrunnus Joburgiensis) is further distinguished by its inability to learn from past experience and may easily be tracked by the Boerewor-like deposits of just-so stories it leaves in its wake. It is theorised that the bird's tendency to lap up anything which it thinks will make it appear more righteous and attractive to other species is a major contributing factor to this peculiarity.,
Eh, possible, that area is kind of weird like that.
One of my uncles spent quite some time in that area a few decades ago with his family, and my youngest cousin didn't speak English much yet when they moved there. (Wasn't literate in our native language yet either, IIRC.) Didn't get organized lessons in English but did get in Welsh, even though that area is 90+% English-speaking...
Cousin's probably forgotten most of that by now anyway.
Like many, i've seen this story in several variations before. And like many, I find the likelihood of it transpiring as described (or at all) to be low. But:
• Even if the Niqāb-wearing woman was actually speaking Arabic or any other language, it is still a hilarious rejoinder to such a rude man in that circumstance.
• I know several people who speak languages one wouldn't expect, often a weird immersion-school opportunity because of a local expat concentration, or else they were born and spent young childhood in a culture quite different from their own because of their parents being diplomats/missionaries/sent-abroad-by-head-office sorts.
England for the English. Wales for the Welsh. Scotland for the Scots.
ReplyDeleteXenophilia is cultural suicide.
This.
DeleteThey have a Welsh translation 7of the Koran?
ReplyDeleteHonestly I don't believe this happened.
ReplyDeleteIf we rely on Wikipedia (dubious I know) for census data Wales has somewhere around 70,000 Muslims and 540,000 Welsh speakers total.
Given that the adherent was supposedly wearing a niqab that would imply a stricter expression of modesty than a hijab and speaking Welsh to her son instead of English implying they'd likely be Welsh as first-language speaker meaning almost certainly natively Welsh and frankly the odds of a native Welsh speaking convert seems vanishingly small.
Couple that with them ending up next to one of very few people living in Wales who would somehow mistake Welsh for Arabic who then makes a bigoted remark about next to a reporter who wrote about it?
Well I suppose if reporters are famously unbiased you could think it possible even if implausible.
Living in Wales, I've heard and read multiple versions of this story in the last few years. Whilst there may be some truth in a proto-version of this (possibly mistaking Welsh for Polish), it generally has all the authority of an urban legend.
DeleteYep, questionable...
ReplyDeleteBeekeepers speak Welsh?
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd
No bird preens itself more self-contentedly than the Cuckoo.
ReplyDeleteThe Migratory Cuckoo (Chickenusrunnus Joburgiensis) is further distinguished by its inability to learn from past experience and may easily be tracked by the Boerewor-like deposits of just-so stories it leaves in its wake. It is theorised that the bird's tendency to lap up anything which it thinks will make it appear more righteous and attractive to other species is a major contributing factor to this peculiarity.,
Eh, possible, that area is kind of weird like that.
ReplyDeleteOne of my uncles spent quite some time in that area a few decades ago with his family, and my youngest cousin didn't speak English much yet when they moved there. (Wasn't literate in our native language yet either, IIRC.) Didn't get organized lessons in English but did get in Welsh, even though that area is 90+% English-speaking...
Cousin's probably forgotten most of that by now anyway.
Bigots ! This actually happened in some leftoids dream.
ReplyDeleteProbably not
ReplyDelete"nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7702913.stm
Like many, i've seen this story in several variations before. And like many, I find the likelihood of it transpiring as described (or at all) to be low. But:
ReplyDelete• Even if the Niqāb-wearing woman was actually speaking Arabic or any other language, it is still a hilarious rejoinder to such a rude man in that circumstance.
• I know several people who speak languages one wouldn't expect, often a weird immersion-school opportunity because of a local expat concentration, or else they were born and spent young childhood in a culture quite different from their own because of their parents being diplomats/missionaries/sent-abroad-by-head-office sorts.