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My main aim with this journal is to share my thoughts, experiences, and interesting things I've learned while I do my Celtic Studies degree. Celtic Studies is the study of Celtic languages, both modern and extinct, with focus on the six Celtic languages spoken today (Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Breton, Manx, and Cornish) and their associated histories, literatures, cultures, folklores, politics, etc.

A map of the six Celtic nations: Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany

A map of the six Celtic nations: Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany

As well as my Celtic Studies BA, I am also working on a Certificate of Higher Education in Modern Languages. I'm one of the Cornish Language Officers for the Association of Celtic Students. At the moment I'm planning on doing an MA in anthropology or historical linguistics or a related field, and I'd like to do a PhD in something eventually!

I've been interested in Celtic languages and Celtic nations my whole life, although I only started to seriously learn the languages/history/etc when I was a teenager. I'm from Wales, one side of my family is Cornish, and the other side is Scottish and Irish, so the Celtic nations and languages have always been very near and dear to my heart. I'm a second-language Welsh speaker, and I grew up with a little bit of Cornish, Irish, and Scots (the Germanic language) from my family.

I would also like to try and aid in combatting the misinformation, ignorance, and bigotry against the Celtic nations, both online and in my daily life. I'd love to read comments and talk, as long as you're not looking for an argument or a "debate". I'm very aware that the Celtic Studies sphere can attract all sorts of alt-right/white supremacist types looking to distort and use our cultures and peoples to fuel their own bigoted agendas, and I will not tolerate that at all here.

I'm also transgender, multiply disabled, a multimedia artist, and a musician, so those are also likely to make themselves known in this journal from time to time.

Images are hosted on Postimages.

Languages I know:( Read more... )

I want to learn:( Read more... )

My long-term language-learning goals are to:( Read more... )

Current Mood: welcoming

Ok I'm going to be brave and e-mail the Middle Welsh and Early Modern Irish lecturers.... when it's not midnight anymore....

...

Rational part of my brain: the worst thing they can do is say ''no''

Stupid part of my brain that unfortunately is louder: the worst thing they can do is kill me with lightning

Current Mood: anxious

I wonder if they'd let me sit in on the Middle Welsh class. I don't know why I feel so nervous about asking. I missed the introduction class last semester so I'm worried they might go ''oh you haven't studied it before so we won't let you''. Which I guess is fair enough. But if I'm just there unofficially and not for credits then it's different right?? I just want to see how much I can understand from my Modern Welsh.

Also they do Early Modern Irish at this university but it's not available to exchange students, but I wonder if they'd let me sit in on the classes unofficially..... I want to do Early Modern Irish sooo badly. They used to do it at my home university but then the lecturer who taught it left :(

Current Mood: curious

Had my first ever dream (partially) in Irish just now which was cool, but also so incredibly stressful because in the dream I was supposed to be taking an oral exam and I just could not understand what was going on, the questions were in English and didn't make sense, and half of them were about stuff I did for my Welsh A Level, and there were a bunch of random children playing and some adults talking in one corner, so it was really noisy and I couldn't hear the questions well, and when the examiner made them all leave it turned out there were still like 7 examiners, one of whom was one of my Cornish tutors, so it turned out it was supposed to be a Cornish oral exam and I was there talking in Irish about stuff I did in a Welsh class. And then the noisy groups of children and adults came back in again.

I hate oral exams, if you couldn't tell...

Current Mood: amused

Speaking Irish here is good for me because back home I get lazy, because everyone I know who speaks Irish there is also a Welsh speaker so I substitute my Irish with a lot of Welsh, but no one here knows Welsh (except the other person from my home university) so it's forcing me to actually speak Irish properly and not like... Cymraeilge... Gaeilgraeg...

I will frequently insert Welsh into my Irish or Cornish or [insert other language I'm dabbling in here], but weirdly I never put Modern Irish into my Old Irish or vice versa, which seems to be a problem that everyone else I've met who's studied both periods of Irish has.

My Irish is not that heavily supplemented with Welsh. I think my wording in this entry makes it sound worse than it actually is, but I am used to just saying things in Welsh if I forget the Irish which maybe is not a great habit.

Current Mood: determined

Will the real St Brigid please stand up? - Niamh Wycherley, www.rte.ie

Analysis: here's the evidence which indicates that the Kildare woman was real - and why this is worth emphasising today

Irish-language sports romance inspired by Heated Rivalry to air on TG4 - www.her.ie

The new Irish-language short film, entitled Ár gCluiche Féin (Our Own Game), will centre around a pair of GAA players struggling with their romantic feelings for one another.

Current Mood: sleepy

I think figuring out where to put my conlang is the most important first step? Because it's location is going to effect what languages it's near/been influenced by/etc. I'm thinking I'll put it somewhere in the Old North (à la Cumbric or Pictish), or I'm making a new island and sticking it somewhere in the Atlantic or the North Sea or perhaps between Britain and Ireland (à la the Island of Sodor from Thomas the Tank Engine). Or perhaps stick it somewhere on the continent, but still be an insular Celtic language not a continental one (à la Breton)

Current Mood: excited

Táim ag dul ag tabhairt cuairte ar mo theaghlach amárach :) Tá orm dul ar an dtraein... nílim láidir go leor :(

Current Mood: anxious

Thaitin an rang Gaeilge liom, ach cheap mé go bhfuil an gramadach ró-éasca agus go bhfuil an cluastuiscint ródheacair :') Is í gramadach an chuid is fearr liom foghlaim teangacha.

Current Mood: content

Every archaeology class I've done so far, the lecturer has been like "real archaeology is NOT like Indiana Jones" so I don't get to beat up Nazis ?? :(

Hopefully going to take the TEG B1 exam before i go back to Wales :) I'm looking at the example papers and the B2 one looks ok too to be honest...?? Maybe I haven't looked at it properly though. Anyway, I'm signed up for a B1 class so I'll stick with that. I've read CEFR level descriptors and I really don't think I'm B2.

Current Mood: excited

Should have brought my oboe over instead of my flute. Desperately e-mailing places to see if there's an oboe available to borrow/rent so I don't have to travel back to Wales just to get mine. Kicking myself a bit, because I remember thinking ''oh I should take my oboe because the band is less likely to have one'' and then I took my flute instead. Oh well. There must be an oboe somewhere in the county I can rent....

Current Mood: annoyed

The trad music in the pub last night makes me want to get involved, but I'm a classically trained musician so I don't understand what's going on. How do they just do that. With no sheet music. It's at least inspired me to try and play at a trad session in the future. Maybe when I'm back at my home university.

Current Mood: thoughtful

I feel like I'm in my first year again. Just moved to a new place. Don't know anyone. Don't know where anything is on campus. Don't know where anything is in town. Confused about how everything works. So confused and lost.

Well, actually I know one person from my home university, so that's more people than the amount I knew when I started my degree.

Current Mood: confused

A lot of this semester abroad so far has involved telling Americans that Cornish exists.

Current Mood: hopeful

I've reached a point with my Irish where i feel like I need to get rid of everything I know in it and start again from scratch. Does anyone else ever feel like this? I remember a couple of years ago i felt like this with Welsh, but I don't remember what I did to get over it. I guess this is just how I feel once I get to the B1 stage in language-learning...? I feel like there's so much I know and I keep forgetting it all. There's so many grammatical things and idioms that I keep learning and keep forgetting, and it all feels hopelessly complicated in my head. Frustrating. I don't think it helps that I've been feeling low in regards to language-learning in general recently.

Current Mood: frustrated

Tynnes i'r llun gwaetha yn y byd o'r Fari Lwyd heno.... a babi Mari Lwyd

I think sometimes the use of the word "Celtic" makes people try to find connections where there aren't really any, or I guess it's more like they only focus on the connections between "Celtic" cultures and ignore how those things actually link in with other European cultures, and also cultures in Asia and Africa. Because people hear the word "Celtic" in "Celtic studies" or "Celtic nations" and I think it can sort of subconsciously force people to think of some things as being uniquely Celtic, when there isn't really anything unique to Celtic nations except a Celtic language. but the fact that we call our nations "Celtic nations" and our field "Celtic studies" makes people assume certain things and only focus on how we're linked to each other, instead of to other cultures around us.

Maybe the word "Celtic" just has connotations that annoy me, especially when it's used by people outside of Celtic studies academia, but what else are we supposed to call our languages/ourselves.

It is sort of fascinating (and extremely frustrating) to me how some people just can't seem to conceive of Cornish people just like existing...? Multiple times I've had someone go "Oh you're learning Cornish? Wow that's niche, how on earth did you ever learn that Cornish existed in the first place?" like my father is literally from Cornwall, there was never a single moment when I learned that Cornish existed because it has always had a presence in my life (even though no one in my family is fluent). It's just a normal thing to me and plenty of other people, and not a strange, niche, "exotic" thing. Some of us have known about these "niche minority cultures" our whole lives because our literal family who raised us are from them. Even in Celtic studies spaces people forget about Cornwall and act like this. What's going on!!!

Current Mood: annoyed

There's pretty much no mutual intelligibility between Brythonic and Goidelic languages, unless you're into historical linguistics, but sometimes something like "Gaeleg yr Alban/Gaeilge na hAlban" pops up and it's like yaaayyyyyy both Celtic branches understand that we're talking about Scottish Gaelic :) No idea what else is going on though.

Current Mood: amused

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S.H.M. Mac Giolla Íosa Gilbert

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Supposedly some sort of Celtic Studies blog

Recent Entries

Sticky: About this journal

MW and EMI... 2

MW and EMI

Brionglóid sa Ghaeilge

Cymraeilge.... Gaeilgraeg....

Link round-up #9

Brythonic conlang

Thoughts 3

Rang oíche Gaeilge

Archaeology

TEG B1 exam

Oboe

Trad session

Thoughts 2

Spreading my propaganda

Frustrating point in language learning

Y Marïau Llwyd

"Celtic"

Cornish

Goidelic and Brythonic mutual intelligibility