|
Post by megli on Dec 6, 2007 14:21:59 GMT -1
Woodsman....
dafydd ap gwylim borrowed English 'woodward' (a royal forester) to give W. wdwart. I think it's in 'Mawl yr Haf', but can't recall. I rather like it. Caitlin Matthews pinched it back for 'the woodward' card in her Celtic shaman's wossname.
|
|
|
Post by Francis on Dec 6, 2007 14:22:19 GMT -1
The language issue is a nettle that needs to be grapsed, I feel. Personally, Language, landscape and history are all interwined for me, Yes I agree- I think its like a wonderful old rope. There are threads twisted around one another into strings, the individual strings intertwined to make cords, and the separate cords intertwined to make the rope. From my point of view Language isn't one of the threads that makes the specific "cord" of the "land" - but it is part of the final rope. I wonder if perhaps you (Heron/Megli?) see the rope as being made by all the threads being twisted around each other in one go? Perhaps my spiritual path over-emphasises the cord of the land? and for all my fusty academicness about it, my 'Paganism' and my daily work both spring from this same root. For me too, but from my life as Tyddynnwr (translates as smallholder, but that just isn't really right- a good example of one of the limits of translation you mentioned Heron?, Woodsman (this time coedwigwr won't really do) and fusty (any offers in welsh?) academic ecologist.
|
|
|
Post by Francis on Dec 6, 2007 14:59:12 GMT -1
Woodsman.... dafydd ap gwylim borrowed English 'woodward' (a royal forester) to give W. wdwart. I think it's in 'Mawl yr Haf', but can't recall. I rather like it. Caitlin Matthews pinched it back for 'the woodward' card in her Celtic shaman's wossname. Thanks Megli - although I'm not sure that's it either really! In English we understand quite different things by forester or woodsman. Although are you saying wdwart has come to be equivalent to and used to mean 'woodsman' in welsh, even though its origin of Woodward has a different specific meaning in english? I'm about to start reading Stephen Oppenheimer's "The Origins of the British". Have you heard any opinions on his review of language origins/phylogenies/migrations etc. that makes up the first bit of the book? I've heard he can be a bit of an advocate of a particular view, pick and mixing the evidence to suit.
|
|
|
Post by Francis on Dec 7, 2007 9:50:53 GMT -1
It may be convenient to regard Brythonic and Welsh as different languages but one developed into the other. Absolutely agreed. Craig wrote (I haven't worked out how to quote several people in one post yet!) This is still a very important point, and as Megli says there are lots of borrowings into Brythonic on the way to its becoming Welsh; bridge, window, church, fish etc. Megli wrote; To me, and I think Craig, this really is the point. Whilst its true that Brythonic became welsh seamlessly, and with only a minority of borrowed words from Latin and latterly english etc. Borrowed words do contribute and can become accepted. Words that 'evolved' into being elsewhere - in other lands (with vibrational qualities/ resonances rooted elsewhere). If Welsh is to be thought of as "the" medium of communication with the land/spirits (we all use different terms for this bit but you know what I mean) of Wales, then doesn't that really equate to saying there is something about the tonal or vibrational quality of the sound that has some specific resonance, or essence, that sets it apart as "right" for this land - and that somehow other languages with their different sounds and evocations evolved elsewhere just don't fit? By main point has always been that the earliest phase of Brythonic that was spoken in Wales arrived as it was ready formed elsewhere- and yes it went on to evolve here - But it's core evolved elsewhere, its roots evolved elsewhere. A powerful thought, and for all my protest I do admit my confidence in my position is shaken! From a logical point of view I can understand, and even see mechanisms for a language to evolve in sympathy with its surroundings- positively reinforced by subtle successful feedback over time from the spirits of the hills and more. But experientially I know I have deep communion with this place, and the denizens of the parts of this land that I love well. I just don't (can't/won't?!) accept they hold back on offering more to flow between me and them, even the potential for which It is suggested I am "blind" to, for want of a human language? Appreciating all your answers/thoughts on this...
|
|
|
Post by Craig on Dec 7, 2007 10:08:00 GMT -1
But experientially I know I have deep communion with this place, and the denizens of the parts of this land that I love well. I just don't (can't/won't?!) accept they hold back on offering more to flow between me and them, even the potential for which It is suggested I am "blind"; to, for want of a human language? Appreciating all your answers/thoughts on this... And this is what I also am trying to say. The Mawddach cares not about our human tongues, only that we show her respect and are prepared to listen. Welsh is a beautiful language and one I have been surrounded by my whole life, but I have no need of it, or English, to communicate with the land. Come with me in February when I hold the first Rade and learn that. Blessings,
|
|
|
Post by megli on Dec 7, 2007 10:23:50 GMT -1
Francis, you write:
'By main point has always been that the earliest phase of Brythonic that was spoken in Wales arrived as it was ready formed elsewhere- and yes it went on to evolve here - But it's core evolved elsewhere, its roots evolved elsewhere.'
So, after all, did human beings...ultimately we're all African in terms of our evolutionary origins. Similarly, really we're all from somewhere north of the Black Sea linguistically (because we all, unless there are any Finns/Basques/Israelis/Hungarians etc here, speak Indo-European languages.) How long do you have to be somewhere before you become bound into its soul?
My point would be that I look at language as a natural force, with changes and shifts and colonisations and spreads and retreats like a plant or animal species, or more like a whole ecosystem. When I wander along the seashore near my parents' house in Kent, I delight to sea yellow-horned poppy, sea-kale, restharrow and wild carrot. I know all those plants have been part of that landscape for millennia. But in the verges and scrub, I see also Alexanders, with its fleshy stems, and rabbits dart away into the dunes. It doesn't lessen my sense of a unitary soul of the place because the Romans brought over Alexanders and the Normans brought rabbits. To me, Welsh (or any deeply rooted language) is like that whole, unitary ecosystem: and, to a certain extent, mirrors it, containing whorled within it the history of a people living in that place.
In all these things, I tend to think that a sense of complexity, or layeredness and texture, is part of the answer, for me personally. (Not necessarily for anyone else.) It pleases me enormously, for example, to know that there's an Old Welsh name for Thanet (where I was born) - 'Ruim', which would be 'Rhwyf' in ModW. By the 10th century the Welsh had forgetten it. It's good to be able to slip between the layers, to hold them in your mind at once.
Sorry i'm not articulating this well. I'm not at all suggesting that what i do is appropriate more generally - it's just how I feel and view the land through polylingual lenses, as it were.
|
|
|
Post by megli on Dec 7, 2007 10:25:45 GMT -1
PS I think this is a really important discussion to be having.
|
|
|
Post by Heron on Dec 7, 2007 16:07:36 GMT -1
If Welsh is to be thought of as "the" medium of communication with the land/spirits (we all use different terms for this bit but you know what I mean) of Wales, then doesn't that really equate to saying there is something about the tonal or vibrational quality of the sound that has some specific resonance, or essence, that sets it apart as "right" for this land - and that somehow other languages with their different sounds and evocations evolved elsewhere just don't fit? Although I think I do 'know what you mean' about communicating with land sprits, I don't think about it in terems of 'medium of communication'. But these are fundamental issues about the ways we can relate to the gods. I certainly don't want to suggest that Brythonic gods or land spirits in Wales only understand Welsh. Nor do I wish to deny that the way we can 'connect' with them seems to transcend language. I'm sure if you or I or others who are part of this discussion stand in a special place and feel the presence of spirits then that comes from an empathy with the place and the land and an openness to what is there which gets a response. Do the gods emerge ready formed from this relationship or do they 'form' into the way we perceive them because of the conversations that we have with them or the names we give them? Or, to move it away from the Brythonic argument to what might be a less contentious example. Why does Woden have some characteristics which are different to Odinn? Is it the people who speak to him in the places they address him and the way that they find him in particular places and the words used to address him? I've put those points all in the form of questions and I don't pretend to have absolute answers, but perhaps you can see the drift of my feelings about this from the way I have posed the questions. I think the gods will get used to any changes whether in land formations or inhabitants. But their timescale may not be ours. So the first point to make is that the way we relate to the gods has got t be an issue here, and it is a difficult issue. The second point is easier. Culturally, over time, humans have developed ways of talking to and about the gods that contain our responses to them and what we know about them and feel about them. These are contained in language which has a life of its own. Yes we can begin to talk to and about them in a different language, but the sensisibility will change, the narrative will be perceived differently, a 'translation' of these things will have taken place. If, as reconstructionists, we wish to connect to Brythonic tradition it will obviously help if we can connect to the cultural (and therefore linguistic) context of that tradition. Building a translated version of this connection will be to build something different. I know it is all some people feel they can do. And I want, as you have already suggested, to be inclusive. But, for me, the language is important and I want to include that too. I hope that makes sense as I'm thinking it through as I go, but it does express what I intuitively feel. I would expect nothing less and don't doubt your deep communion and reach out to you in fellow feelings in this respect. I don't say you are 'blind'. That would be arrogant. But, for me, the Language helps me 'see' more clearly. Greg
|
|
|
Post by Heron on Dec 7, 2007 16:12:09 GMT -1
My point would be that I look at language as a natural force, with changes and shifts and colonisations and spreads and retreats like a plant or animal species, or more like a whole ecosystem. ... [....] To me, Welsh (or any deeply rooted language) is like that whole, unitary ecosystem: and, to a certain extent, mirrors it, containing whorled within it the history of a people living in that place. {...} Sorry i'm not articulating this well. I'm not at all suggesting that what i do is appropriate more generally - it's just how I feel and view the land through polylingual lenses, as it were. You are articulating it well enough for me Megli - that is pretty much how I feel too. Greg
|
|
|
Post by Heron on Dec 7, 2007 16:14:23 GMT -1
The Mawddach cares not about our human tongues, only that we show her respect and are prepared to listen. Welsh is a beautiful language and one I have been surrounded by my whole life, but I have no need of it, or English, to communicate with the land. Come with me in February when I hold the first Rade and learn that. Will do Craig - looking forward to it! Greg
|
|
|
Post by redraven on Dec 7, 2007 20:27:17 GMT -1
Do the Gods emerge ready formed from this relationship or do they "form" into the way we perceive them because of the conversations we have with them or the names we give them?
Or could it be that our experiences of the Gods, sorry, wrong word for me, but using it to try to articulate what I mean, form our perception, be that through language, visions or anything else used to relay the message? My own experiences were not particularly linguistic in nature, but I think that if linguistic messages relay are what are needed for that individual to understand, then that will be the medium used. Hope that made some sort of sense!
RR
|
|
|
Post by Francis on Dec 7, 2007 20:43:50 GMT -1
How long do you have to be somewhere before you become bound into its soul? Well possibly this question is the crux that lies beneath this whole discussion? I think if the answer to this was clear the other questions we're discussing here would seem trivial, their answers obvious... My point would be that I look at language as a natural force, with changes and shifts and colonisations and spreads and retreats like a plant or animal species, or more like a whole ecosystem. When I wander along the seashore near my parents' house in Kent, I delight to sea yellow-horned poppy, sea-kale, restharrow and wild carrot. I know all those plants have been part of that landscape for millennia. But in the verges and scrub, I see also Alexanders, with its fleshy stems, and rabbits dart away into the dunes. It doesn't lessen my sense of a unitary soul of the place because the Romans brought over Alexanders and the Normans brought rabbits. To me, Welsh (or any deeply rooted language) is like that whole, unitary ecosystem: and, to a certain extent, mirrors it, containing whorled within it the history of a people living in that place. In all these things, I tend to think that a sense of complexity, or layeredness and texture, is part of the answer, for me personally. (Not necessarily for anyone else.) It pleases me enormously, for example, to know that there's an Old Welsh name for Thanet (where I was born) - 'Ruim', which would be 'Rhwyf' in ModW. By the 10th century the Welsh had forgetten it. It's good to be able to slip between the layers, to hold them in your mind at once. Sorry i'm not articulating this well. I'm not at all suggesting that what i do is appropriate more generally - it's just how I feel and view the land through polylingual lenses, as it were. No you describe it very clearly, and it's a way of being and seeing things that is very familiar to me. Obviously our emphasis and the layers we have each respectively spent the greatest time exploring are not the same, but I think our approach sounds very similar.
|
|
|
Post by Francis on Dec 7, 2007 22:23:45 GMT -1
Has this thread just split into two? I see two copies of it on the forum? I would expect nothing less and don't doubt your deep communion and reach out to you in fellow feelings in this respect. Thank you for those words Greg. But, for me, the Language helps me 'see' more clearly. Put like that feels much more comfortable to me. Even my vanishingly small dash of Welsh helps me see some sorts of things more clearly - if I had more, I have no doubt there would be many other things that I could also then grasp with greater clarity. I am 'helped' to 'see' my sense of belonging in the human cultural landscape (not equivalent to community!) more clearly by language. Keeping sheep for example; Bugail for shepherd has no reference in it to sheep (dafad), but to cow (buwch), herd (buches) even pastoral (bugeiliol). Only recently (200 years or so) have sheep been all that important in Wales. Before that the fairly hardy welsh cattle (not all black back then) were king. But with enclosure the pattern of taking the cattle up into the mountains for the summer was broken, and the super hardy sheep (that could stay fairly high in the hills year round) changed the way of life of annual Mayday migrations into the hills forever. Within that word Bugail then is hidden a lost golden past, to me the memory of kind of dreamtime and a gentle melancholy for its passing. To others perhaps entombed in the word is the politics that drove the change- the theft that was enclosure and all the heartache of those times. I'm not trying to teach you to suck eggs there Greg - Just using an example to describe the sort of thing I was meaning for anyone else reading (and I appreciate that might not be the sort of thing you were really meaning anyway- I imagine for you it would be perhaps a more subtle awareness or sense of it than my explicitly reasoned out voicing of it- but that's how it works for me! ) But this sort of cultural connectivity through language is still to me very different from the sort of relationship I've been describing earlier in the thread. I agree Welsh should have a part to play (by definition) in re-connecting to a Brythonic tradition, it is one of the layers of complexity that Megli described - but I still stand by what Craig and I have been saying about its unimportance (of itself) to certain sorts of relationships!
|
|
|
Post by Heron on Dec 8, 2007 12:16:34 GMT -1
- I imagine for you it would be perhaps a more subtle awareness or sense of it than my explicitly reasoned out voicing of it- but that's how it works for me! ) But this sort of cultural connectivity through language is still to me very different from the sort of relationship I've been describing earlier in the thread. Yes it would be subtle rather than overt (unless I want to say something specific). I think, generally, we have far more in common than divides us, and, as Megli said, this is a really important discussion to be having and I can't think of too many other places where we might have it, so I think this forum has really come into its own here. Greg
|
|
|
Post by Francis on Dec 9, 2007 21:41:09 GMT -1
I think, generally, we have far more in common than divides us Yes I think so too. as Megli said, this is a really important discussion to be having and I can't think of too many other places where we might have it, so I think this forum has really come into its own here. Are we brave enough to go on and follow up Craig's point about what relevance or resonances christianity might have, or have developed within our Islands? Is it appropriate to just dismiss it out of hand whilst seeking to 'reconstruct' a Brythonic spirituality? Is it wholly desirable to be defining 'Brythonic spiritualities' by a specific period in the past? I would like to think we had the confidence to define our 'reconstructed' Brythonic spirituality, or sought for 'contemporary' Brythonic spirituality, in terms of what it is - and not negatively in terms of what it isn't? I wonder if using phrases like pre-christian in our "loose definitions" is wholly helpful? I suspect it may leave us with blindspots in our explorations as does almost always seem to be a taboo subject on pagan boards. I feel there's usually a dogmatic assumption of, at best, its irrelevance. Greg suggested there wasn't an "absolute divide between pagan and christian" Does anyone feel like swapping their views on this? (leaving out the social-control / politics of christianity and concentrating on the spirituaity at its core- however deeply buried that has been at times and often still appears to be for many today) If there are any takers perhaps they could start a new thread?
|
|
|
Post by Craig on Dec 10, 2007 7:18:43 GMT -1
Are we brave enough to go on and follow up Craig's point about what relevance or resonances christianity might have, or have developed within our Islands? I have moved this very important thread to its own home - look for Bones of Contention in the Round Table.
|
|
|
Post by littleraven on Dec 14, 2007 0:24:40 GMT -1
Coming late to this discussion, I doubt if I could add anything to it that has not been said in greater detail and more eloquently than I could hope to be.
But for my own perspective I will offer some of my own understanding through instruction in esoteric matters I received some years ago. Apologies if it’s already been said, it’s a big thread and I may have missed it.
Those of you who are Terry Pratchett fans are no doubt well aware of his approach to Gods, that they need people to believe in them to exist. As people stop believing they shrink until they are little more than a memory. What those fans are often not aware of is that Mr. Pratchett writes on such things from a standpoint of philosophical understanding. I’m told that he was a familiar figure, pre-hat, on the London pagan scene during the 1980s.
The idea that the Gods need humans to exist is a long-standing esoteric concept. As we formulate ideas and concepts this gives form to the intangible. We can share these ideas with others which in turn allows them to build their own beliefs. An auroboros of belief ever re-creating the Gods themselves. As we create Gods, we are ourselves Gods, a fundamental tenet within some streams of Luciferianism. As well as other streams of spiritual expression, as we approach Xmas ;-)
The medium of this communication between humans is obviously language. A language that is inseparable from culture and geography. As cultures we develop in a place, our words are shaped by that which is around us, we describe. The Gods are a part of that place so we give character to the Gods through our language, they are given expression through the myths we speak of.
Gods, myths, geography, language. Connecting all of these are the trivial, transitory humans that pass through so quickly. A web of connectedness, with time the spider that consumes it all. .
But that leaves the problem of those who become divorced from their identity, their language. If all is taken, language remains. The language they speak grows uniquely from their cultural belly, no others grow in such a way. The language child is of a people and place, it has roots. One of the most significant, and first acts of a conquering culture is to break the use of the native language. Consider the Blue Books in Wales in the 19th century. When people lose their language they cease to be a part of that web, their connectedness is broken, their conscious thought is no longer a result of place, culture and Gods.
I say ‘Conscious’ thought.
Most people of esoteric experience are fully aware of the concept that the Gods speak in symbols. Generations of professional augurs have made a nice living out of this. So to hear the Gods you do not *need* language. It was taught to me that language was unnecessary and in response to this I have long since stopped using language in personal ritual. I speak in strength of emotion, gesture, depth of intent. The apparel I use has symbolic meaning. I can use the names we know of the Gods to create a ‘resonance’, and take it from there.
I do this because the language of my ancestors, Welsh, was lost to my family by a grandmother intent on wiping it out after the death of my grandfather.
But in doing so I am attempting to speak in the language of the Gods themselves, not the language of mediation, of human conceptual expression.
|
|
|
Post by Craig on Dec 14, 2007 7:55:54 GMT -1
And he speaks of others eloquence...
Much to think on there young Raven, so I'll hold back my fingers from the keyboard for a while.
Thanks.
|
|
|
Post by Heron on Dec 14, 2007 15:04:49 GMT -1
The medium of this communication between humans is obviously language. A language that is inseparable from culture and geography. As cultures we develop in a place, our words are shaped by that which is around us, we describe. The Gods are a part of that place so we give character to the Gods through our language, they are given expression through the myths we speak of. {...} But that leaves the problem of those who become divorced from their identity, their language. If all is taken, language remains. The language they speak grows uniquely from their cultural belly, no others grow in such a way. The language child is of a people and place, it has roots. One of the most significant, and first acts of a conquering culture is to break the use of the native language. Consider the Blue Books in Wales in the 19th century. When people lose their language they cease to be a part of that web, their connectedness is broken, their conscious thought is no longer a result of place, culture and Gods. Yes that's it exactly. Thank you for this admitrable summary of the core issue here.
|
|