Bydd cyfres newydd S4C, Popeth yn Gymraeg, yn dechrau y fory, fel dych chi wedi clywed, mae’n siŵr gen i. Yn fras, y syniad yw y bydd Ifor ap Glyn yn teithio o gwmpas Cymru ac yn siarad dim ond Cymraeg, hyd yn oed pan clywith e’r anhepgor “sorry mate, don’t speak Welsh”. Ar flog y rhaglen mae Ifor yn disgrifio hyn fel “diffod y ‘radar’”, y radar arbennig hwnna sy’n dweud wrthon ni bod y person o’n blaen ni’n medru’r Gymraeg. Gan gymryd bod pawb yng Nghymru’n medru’r iaith i ryw raddau, ac eu bod nhw i gyd yn fodlon cwrdd â’r Cymro uniaith hanner ffordd, bydd y rhaglen yn arbrawf diddorol iawn ynglŷn â sut mae Cymry di-Gymraeg yn ymateb i Gymro di-Saesneg.

Mae’n syniad gwych, ac yn ôl y sôn, wedi’i wneud mewn ffordd adeiladol, llawn hiwmor. Dyw’r bwriad ddim i ddieithrio’r di-Gymraeg, ond i ddi-ddi-eithrio [sic] y rhai sydd yn medru’r iaith, ond sy wastad yn barod i droi i Saesneg er mwyn beidio codi stwr.

Y gwir yw, ’sai bob un ohonon ni yn wneud hyn fel rheol, fyddai dim rhaid i’r Blaid Lafur malu awyr am “Gymru ddwyieithog” bellach achos byddai honna yn bodoli, dros nos. Dim angen protestiadau, dim angen carcharu neb. Y peth symlaf yn y byd, ond y peth lleia tebyg i ddigwydd.

[This rest of this post will appear on the blog Rhys is setting up, for blogwyr Cymraeg who want to post English versions of some posts, but don't want to run bilingual blogs. Does that make sense? It'll make more once Rhys gets his shit together. Dere mlân Rhys. ]

Ifor ap Glyn is a Welsh language poet, who was born and brought up in London. As such, he’s more sensitive than most to the need to use one’s Welsh whenever possible. He’s the perfect choice of presenter, therefore, for a new S4C series Popeth yn Gymraeg (Everything in Welsh) which starts on Monday 28th November, and will appear every night at 9.00 for a week.

The premise of the show is simple: Ifor will travel around Wales, speaking Welsh.

Just Welsh.

When he meets someone who says “sorry mate, don’t speak Welsh” he will smile politely and continue… yn Gymraeg. According to Ifor’s blog the reactions he got were overwhelmingly positive, although these may have been mitigated somewhat by the presence of a camera crew. In this post, Ifor talks about turning off the “radar” that tells Welsh speakers whether or not it’s “safe” to siarad Cymraeg with any new person one comes across. The tendancy is to speak English with any new person, unless something tells us that that person can speak Welsh – but this “something” tells us more about our own prejudices than about the other person’s linguistic ability. As the soon to be sadly missed Welsh Language Board keeps reminding us, the only way to know if a stranger speaks Welsh is to start every conversation yn Gymraeg and see what happens. But what Ifor is doing takes the thing to a whole new, and potentially revolutionary (I don’t think that’s too strong a word) level:

There’s a difference between starting a conversation [in Welsh], and insisting on continuing a conversation in Welsh. We’re nervous as bilingual Welsh speakers… but if we were to insist on speaking Welsh, other people in our communities would have to learn. [..]

Do we still have the strength? Through protesting for the externals – official status, roadsigns, forms and so on – have we lost something of the devilishness, the strength of will, which allows people to insist on speaking Welsh?

I don’t suppose for a moment that Ifor is saying that the protesting has not been of fundamental importance, but I agree that the really revolutionary act, — and the only one necessary if only enough people would do it — is speaking Welsh, and only Welsh, at all times.

The irony of me having written more about this in English than I did in the original post isn’t lost on me, but as I said over on maes-e, it’s non-Welsh speakers who really need to see this programme, not Cymry Cymraeg. If you’ve never found yourself in the position of having to use a foreign language in your own country to make yourself understood, you’re less likely to understand how alienating that experience is, or how often Cymry Cymraeg forced to go through it.