There’s a tired old trope that some visitors to Wales invoke when they reflect on having walked into a pub or bar: “Immediately,” they say, “everyone started speaking Welsh.” This is taken as an affront, an act of rudeness, exclusion or even aggression. Never is it considered that the Welsh clientele may have been simply speaking their own language in their own country anyway, despite the fact that if you transpose the scenario to most other world nations it ceases to make any sense.
I was thinking about this during the furore about the Brecon Beacons national park reverting to its indigenous name of Bannau Brycheiniog. Note my construction. Welsh is an older language than English; it is the oldest language of these isles.
