Travel
Driving to Wales and Wondering About Languages
Road signs in Wales led to interesting musings
I was born in Wales some 40 years ago. Plus change.
The last time I’d visited was on a lark in 2006, when my husband and I had decided to drive down spontaneously from the north of England, during our carefree, child-free days.
Funny story — we didn’t stop to think that it was a bank holiday weekend (a long weekend resulting in Monday being a holiday) and every single hotel on the way was fully booked.
We desperately tried all kinds of accommodation (hotels, random B&Bs, service stations/rest area lodgings). One inn (a pub with rooms upstairs) could only offer a tiny room with a single bed. Aaarghh! In hindsight though, we should have taken it!
Exhausted but still amused at our immature folly, we drove back to the north, clocking in a 10-hour drive in one day.
I do remember seeing wild horses galloping in a meadow in the Brecon Beacons as our car drove down a desolate road. I’ll never forget that magical scene.
We were a bit more mature this time around (or so I’d like to think) and were really looking forward to this trip. Even though I haven’t spent that much time in Wales (I was 3 when my folks moved across the border to England) apart from a few visits here and there, I felt and still feel a pull towards the land of my birth. Don’t we all?
It was a partly cloudy day when we left London. The driving conditions were perfect and our GPS told us that we had around 4 hours to our destination. It was a vacation within a vacation, and I couldn’t be more excited.
As we drove along listening to local radio and munching crisps (chips in the US), I tried to memorize every scene around me. Large, rolling hills with grazing cows and sheep, other cars in holiday mode (multiple bikes and canoes tethered to their rooftops), and white fluffy clouds coyly kissing hilltops beneath them.
I took these photos just so I wouldn’t forget the start of this memorable journey.
Before we knew it, we had entered Wales, greeted by the sign below.
The immediate change anyone sees while being in Wales is that all the road signage is in both English and Welsh. Looking at the sign above, you can work out which word means ‘Welcome’ and which means ‘Wales’.
I felt even more excitement as we neared our destination. It was funny to think I was born here so many years ago, that life chose this place for me to start my existence in.
As we drove along, I was mesmerized by the landscape of rolling hills and animals. Time moves differently in the Welsh valley. Everything seems so peaceful and calm.
Speaking of road signs in Welsh, check out the board below. Isn’t it fascinating? Look at the eye-opening differences between the Welsh and English names for the same destination.
On a very simplistic level, the differences arise because the languages and the people belong to different groups. Welsh is a Celtic language while English is Germanic, and Welsh pre-dates the Roman occupation of Britain. If you’re from Wales or have expertise in this area, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
The distinct differences between Welsh and English made me think of the staggering differences between North Indian and South Indian languages, which also have no relation to each other, in script, sound, or origin.
While there is commonality between the North Indian languages because they hail from the Indo-European language group, the South Indian languages belong to a completely different language group, namely Dravidian.
Linguistics is so interesting — I do wish I had majored in it!
Anyway, I’m digressing as usual. I’m hoping to create more pieces for my travels in Wales as part of a series, similar to what I did for my travels in Iceland. Stay tuned.
Have you been to Wales? Do you enjoy road trips as much as I do? Perhaps you know more about Welsh than me. Tell me about your stories in the ‘Comments’ and look forward to more stories from Wales.