Episode 1 Ar Mo Bhealach Féin

-Croeso i Gymru, Sion - welcome to Wales.

-Diolch.

-Da iawn!

Our mission is twofold - firstly,

to pursue Seosamh Mac Grianna's hike,

try to find the places that he visited,

but equally to savour Welsh culture, tradition, heritage,

language etc, and you're the expert who's going to introduce it.

I'm not sure about that, but congratulations on coming to Wales.

You won't regret this, it's a beautiful country

as I'm sure you'll find out soon.

Now, perhaps I should start by saying

that Wales isn't called "Wales" in Welsh.

It's called Cymru, and that comes from...

If you look at the etymology of the word, two parts - kom-brogos,

which we can say means people sharing the same land, kom-brogos -

-a shared land, if you like.

-A lovely concept.

It is lovely, and it's very different from the word Wales,

which I think the Romans called all the tribes beyond -

the Celts and those areas,

and it has come to mean in the Anglo-Saxonic, Germanic languages,

Welsh has come to mean "foreign",

so that's a little bit odd, calling yourselves foreigners

in your own country, so I think Cymru

is closer to what it really means.

Regrettably, Seosamh Mac Grianna was better prepared

for his trip than I am.

He had learned a little bit of basic Welsh. I know none, Mererid.

-Please teach me a few basic survival phrases.

-Right.

Well, survival Welsh - you'll want to be polite and make friends,

I'm sure, so let's think about how you'll greet people.

-In the morning, you could say, "Bore da."

-Bore da.

Right, so "morning good" - this is the way we do it.

And then in the evening, before you go to sleep, "Nos da."

-Nos da.

-Perfect!

-And then, in south Wales, you'd say "shwmai" for "How are you?"

-Shwmai.

Well done.

But then, once you cross the middle and go towards north Wales,

that comes to "sut dach chi."

Ooh, that's tricky!

-Stay in south Wales!

-I think I might!

The trick with Welsh, if you're learning to speak Welsh

as an Englishman - I'm not sure as an Irishman -

but unless your jaw hurts by the end of the lesson,

you're not doing it right, because we do tend to use it quite a lot.

We don't close our mouths at the end, so the vowels are very open.

We commence in Caerdydd.

That's right - Caerdydd, the capital city of Wales.

Cardydd in English is Cardiff, and that "diff" is quite interesting

because that is Taf - Caer ar Daf, the fort on the river Taf,

and Taf is an interesting word,

because if you look at the other rivers in Wales -

Tywi, Tawe, Teifi -

even in London, Tafwys is the old word for Thames.

It's the same word, it's the Celtic old word for water,

maybe even a goddess.

So it just goes to show that this Celtic language was spoken once

all over these isles, and you need to find the River Taf.

That's where Seosamh Mac Grianna commenced -

on the banks of the Taf, walking north.

And I think it's that way so,

-siwrnai saff i ti. Dim o gwbl. Hwyl fawr.

-Diolch.