91Èȱ¬

One of the first comments on this blog, back in the days when it hadn't even been christened Betsan's blog - cracking title that - was from a man called Philip. He must have been among the first to notice the blog when it appeared in the run up to the Assembly election in 2007. He was certainly one of the first to let rip in the comments section.

Let's just say it took a while to realise that if, sometimes, there was frustration welling up in his comments it was aimed, not at me, nor at the blog but at a country he'd not lived in for a while. It was some time later before I found out it's a country he's considering returning to. He talks about "the homeland" and a desire to come back to it. He wants work in Wales. He wants Wales to work. He doesn't want independence for Wales.

His family always spoke and still speak Welsh to each other, though living away means he's rusty. "Speaking Welsh is fine" he said in an Email a while back "but that is just conversation". Back then he was looking for a job "in a post-credit-crunch' world and ... I may well be considering moving back to the old country next year". He had a fear then that what he called "a more closed-off and isolationist approach is not really the way to help preserve the language".

He reads blogs voraciously, partly because he finds that newspapers and the radio in England as he put it "tend to be very focused indeed on life within the M25". So he's stuck with my blog because he gets something out of it he wouldn't get anywhere else and because - and you're not used to compliments I know, those of you who leave comments - but he reckons he sometimes spots "the wisdom of crowds" in what you have to say.

He hasn't found a job yet but he does keep spotting stories from all over the world that to him, say something about Wales too. He passes them on and they're worth reading. Last week he sent from the Montreal Gazette: True Bilingualism is Games' first loser.

His comment: "Pa obaith i Gymru?" or "What hope for Wales?"

Be clear about this: he's a thoughtful man who wants to see the language his family speaks preserved. He now writes, when he writes, in Welsh. He's glad his sister's children speak Welsh. He spends quite a lot of time thinking how to sustain it while grappling with his own nervousness about some who speak it.

Perhaps in Philip's honour we could have a tempered, thoughtful debate about Vancouver, the Olympics and the French language. Perhaps you'd like to think in terms of Newport, the Ryder Cup and the Welsh language? After all who knows both countries better than Sir Terry Matthews who might recently have read, , that many first-time visitors to Wales "are surprised to learn that the language still is taught in schools and commonly spoken among natives".

Go on.

The wisdom of crowds compliment alone demands it, surely?

Diolch Philip.

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