The revival of Welsh is not without parallel in Europe — Basque has thrived in a similar fashion. But the language has attained a level of cultural cachet despite the authorities’ apathy or even hostility to it. It was only in 1988 that Margaret Thatcher’s government made Welsh a compulsory language up until the age of 14 in Welsh schools. Welsh-language films have been nominated for Oscars and rock acts sing in Welsh. What is emerging is a distinct identity: modern, multicultural, independent, outward-looking, connected to other small nations. All of which helps to explain why Netflix’s decision to buy the Welsh-language drama Dal Y Mellt is so significant.
Dal Y Mellt (it translates as Catch the Lightning) is a six-part series about a diamond heist made by the Welsh-language channel S4C and based on Iwan “Iwcs” Roberts’s 2019 novel of the same name. The series is funny, quirky, subversive, occasionally violent, at times a little too tricksy for its own good. It is also in Welsh – or, rather, mostly in Welsh. Welsh speakers use lots of bits of English too, happily switching between the two in the same sentence, and so do the characters in Dal Y Mellt. This is not classical Eisteddfod Welsh; this is, since Roberts is a north Walian, Welsh as spoken in Wrexham and north-east Wales. Welsh is a living, evolving language, and north, south and west Walians speak slightly different versions. Welsh, like Wales itself, is not a museum.
