Cymraeg

It might surprise today's pupils to learn that as recently as twelve years ago Welsh was not on the curriculum at many schools.

It certainly wasn't taught to me and my classmates at Trevethin Comprehensive School.

A whole generation of us grew up knowing nothing of our country's native language apart from the words we saw on bilingual road signs.

Watching Welsh-language channel S4C, we would laugh at the unintelligible stream of consonants spewing from the mouths of the characters on Pobl y Cwm, finding it even more hilarious when suddenly the odd English word would be thrown in to the mix, such as garden shed' or dirty weekend'.

The only time I used the language was when proudly singing Mae Hen Wlad fy Naddau at school and sporting events, mispronouncing the words and not knowing what they meant.

(Apart from once at university when I pretended I was fluent in Welsh to impress a girl, not my proudest moment...) But the crucial thing is that despite our lack of language skills and our mocking contempt for the mother tongue, my contemporaries and I still considered ourselves Welsh, and were fiercely proud of the fact.

We followed the Welsh football and rugby teams, through the good times and the bad (mostly bad), we looked up to Welsh television and film stars (ok, Anthony Hopkins), listened to Welsh bands like the Manics and Stereophonics, and proudly celebrated our culture and heritage in school Eisteddfods.

But the language itself just wasn't important, and my own feelings about it were at best indifferent.

Then I returned from three years away at university in England and everything changed.

Devolution had altered the political and social makeup of Wales while I had been away, and the country I returned to was not the one I left.

Suddenly Welsh seemed to become an important issue, as the fledgling Assembly struggled to make its mark on a country and people who, like me, were largely indifferent to its creation.

The Welsh language's most noteworthy outing in political life up until that point had been Tory Welsh secretary John Redwood bumbling his way embarrassingly through the anthem, but now it was being used in politics on an equal footing with English.

Now Welsh plays a massive part in the daily life of Wales; it is taught at every school, spoken in political meetings, and written on every road sign and in every piece of literature put out by a public body.

But because I can't speak the language my views on it are mixed.

I would love to be able to speak Welsh, but I'm not sure it's worth my while to learn it now.

What if I spend time and money mastering the tongue, only to move out of Wales later in life?

Welsh is only spoken in Wales and the Patagonia region of Argentina, so opportunities for its use outside my homeland are few and far between.

Then there's the attitude of some Welsh speakers who look down on us unfortunate monoglots as inferior Welshmen, like somehow we are less Welsh because we can't speak the language.

Another thing I don't understand is why some people feel the language is such an important issue.

Welsh-language pressure groups and nationalist politicians have made it a political hot potato, constantly argued and debated over.

This annoys me greatly.

Wales has plenty of serious social problems to deal with, which are much more important than what language we speak.

When those are overcome you can debate the language until the cows come home, but until then it should be pushed way down the political agenda.

But despite all this I do think Welsh is an important part of our national identity, and I want to see it used.

I just don't want it promoted at the expense of real social change, and I don't want to be castigated for my lack of linguistic skills.

As Welsh scholar and writer Gwyn Jones said: "Welshness and the Welsh language aren't synonymous. A Welshman is a Welshman before he becomes a Welsh speaker."