Wedi bod yn pori trwy archifau cylchgronau Americanaidd ar-lein am erthyglau diddorol.

Dyma un: erthygl am ddatganoli gan Pamela Petro, awdur Travels in an Old Tongue:

Are the Welsh afraid of freedom? When James Callaghan’s Labour government put the issue of limited self-rule to Wales, in 1979, voters trounced it by a ratio of four to one. Even the Welsh cited as reasons a historical strain of national timidity and a lack of self-confidence bred into the country through centuries of subservience. A visiting African journalist told a local reporter in 1997, “The colonial mentality is more firmly entrenched in your country than in any other I have been to.”

Un arall o’r un cylchgrawn: Should English be the Law?:

We have known race riots, draft riots, labor violence, secession, anti-war protests, and a whiskey rebellion, but one kind of trouble we’ve never had: a language riot. Language riot? It sounds like a joke. The very idea of language as a political forceY¥– as something that might threaten to split a country wide apartY¥– is alien to our way of thinking and to our cultural traditions.

A dyma cyflwyniad at waith a bywyd John Cowper Powys:

To some readers, John Cowper Powys is a long-winded, bombastic bore and an almost pathological celebrant of oddball sex and chthonic realms. To most, he is an unknown quantity. His name seldom comes up in discussions of that dreary academic figment known as The Novel, and a number of well-read people of my acquaintance have never heard of him.

Beth am erthygl am ddwyieithrwydd, sy’n sôn am broblemau dysgwyr ail-iaith:

However determined their study of an adoptive language, however thorough their immersion in it, they eventually reach a plateau. At a dinner party conducted in the nonnative tongue, for instance, they may contribute to the table talk, but the best they can aspire to be is a bore. In such situations, as Evelyn Waugh observed, “there is no platitude so trite that a highly educated foreigner will not bring it out with pride.”

Rhywbeth bach yn wahanol, ac o ddiddordeb i fi achos daeth fy nghyn-wraig o’r dre yn y stori yw hanes arwyddion tafarndai yn Dedham, Massachusetts:

Tavern signs advertised the availability of food, drink, and lodging, but they were also meant to entertain and, sometimes, to broadcast the tavern owner’s political sympathies. The use of tavern signs to display political alliances accelerated during and after the Revolution. But in Dedham, Massachusetts, in the late 1740s, tavern owner, almanac writer, physician, and common lawyer Nathaniel Ames used his sign to skewer five of the province’s most powerful politicians: the justices sitting on the Superior Court of Judicature, Massachusetts’ highest court of law.

A dyma un sy’n f’atgoffa o’m dyddiau coleg (nid mod i’n hen hipi, ond wnes i sgwennu fy nhraetawd terfynol ar y Yippies), hanes Abbie Hoffman:

If you wanted to change society, you weren’t going to do it by lecturing people -Û you would do it by employing the artillery of pop culture itself to puncture the lumbering, humorless establishment, by using anarchic, prankish, lysergic humor to radicalize the hippies and humanize the radicals.

Does dim sgiliau Photoshop gwallgo ’da fi, ond ’swn i’n gallu wneud pethau fel hyn, fyddwn i ddim. Achos mod i’n berson da.

Postiwyd yn Heb gategori | Tagiwyd

Ces i lythyr y bore ’ma gan Gymdeithas Adeiladu yr Ecoleg:

Dear Mr Davies,

I note that your last cheque for £2.00 was written in Welsh. Our bank has agreed to accept it on this occassion, however I would point out that this could cause problemss if future cheques are sent in Welsh, especially if they are for larger amounts. I hope this does not cause you too much inconvenience.

Dw i wedi hala e-bost atyn nhw, heb dderbyn ymateb hyd yn hyn.

[16/2/02] Maen nhw wedi ymddirheuro. Popeth yn iawn.

Dw i wedi dod ar draws trafodrefn sy’n cynnig fersiwn Ïyn eich iaith eich hunanÓ, YACCS. Bydd rhaid i mi gyfieithu yr interface, dw i’n aros iddyn nhw anfon y cyfeiriadau ataf.

Bydd y rhai ohonoch â llygaid barcud wedi sylwi newidiadau bach yn ffurf y nodiadau ’ma. Yr holl “Postwyd gan…” ac yn y blaen. Y cynllun yw i gael mwy o bobl sy’n gallu postio i’r weflog, ac i symud tuag at greu gweflog gymunedol. Beth dych chi’n ei feddwl? Ydy’r byd yn barod am Metafilter Gymraeg?

(Gall adael neges yn y blwch isod, neu fy ebostio gyda’ch sylwadau.)

Saesneg, Saesneg, ym mhobman

Erkidjuk, an Iqaluit resident, speaks and reads Inuktitut. He’s picked up tidbits of English words during his 72 years. But he can’t read it.

The English words on food labels, business signs and household appliances are just letters to him: he doesn’t know what they mean.

In the bright, open kitchen in his Iqaluit apartment, caribou meat sits in a pot on the stove and there are pieces of bannock on the counter. Next to the bannock, thereÌs a white microwave.

Erkidjuk gestures to the appliance, focusing on the English words: “defrost,” “entrees,” “popcorn,” he points out. “In some ways, it’s difficult not to read English. There are some items that don’t have Inuktitut words on them,” he says.

O’r Nunatsiaq News – mwy o erthyglau am “Wythnos yr Ieithoedd” ar eu tudalen flaen ac yn yr adroddiad radio hwn.

SIMNASHO – Michael and Cecelia Collins watch closely as Suzie Slockish writes on a marker board the words – kusi, kusi kusi, lakas, pinaq’inut’awas. Horse, dog, mouse, window.

The Sahaptin words are the gateway to a language of their ancestors – a language that could die out in a generation if young people don’t begin speaking it in their everyday lives.

“It was our children who got us motivated to trying the classes,” said Michael Collins, an accountant who lives with his wife and family on the sprawling sage and juniper-dotted Warm Springs Reservation. “Our little daughter at 2 1/2 knew more of the language than we did.”

O’r Register Guard, Oregon, UDA.

Bydd rôl i bobl frodorol Utah yn seromoni agoriadol y Gemau Gaeafol Olympaidd. Fel yn Sydney 2000, bydd rôl yr indiaid i roi bach o liw amlddiwylliannol ar gyfer gwylwyr teledu ac ymwelwyr yn Salt Lake City, ond i beidio codi stwr am dir ac iaith a phethau felly.

Hmm, pryd daw’r cystadleuaeth golff mawr i Gymru, eto?

Y Ty Crwn

Braf i weld gwefan newydd Tony a Jane sy’n byw yn y ty crwn, rhan o gymuned Brithdir Mawr. Mae Parc Genedlaethol Arfordir Penfro am dynnu eu ty i lawr, er fod neb yn gallu ei weld o’r heol, dyn nhw wedi ei adeiladu gan ddefnyddio nwyddau lleol (costodd yr holl peth llai ’na £3,000), ac maen nhw’n dangos bod hi’n bosib i fyw bywyd ystyriol ac yn gyflawn heb dinistrio’r byd.

Mae llyfr Tony yn werth ei ddarllen, hefyd.