- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo; (Reissue) edition (16 Oct 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 000655010X
- ISBN-13: 978-0006550105
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 440,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The idiosyncratic and witty travelogue of a young Welsh-speaking woman who travels the globe in search of Welsh communities.
From the Back Cover
"Unlike most travel narratives, this is not a book about place, but a book about language. Can a language be said to describe a place, a place the language that is spoken there? Is it possible to travel to many different places and arrive, not back home, but in the terra incognita of a new language? And just where might that be?"
A young American woman of German-Hungarian descent comes to Wales, falls for the land and decides to learn the language. Why, why, ask all her friends and acquaintances. This brilliant, witty, wise book is her incontrovertible answer.
She starts, obviously, with the Welsh golfers of Oslo. Thereafter her odyssey takes her through fourteen countries on four continents in search of a language and its consequences. She practices and improves – and forgets – her Welsh with the expat cafe crowd of Paris, the TV correspondents of Brussels, the Gibbon lady of Bangkok, the students of Tokyo and the elderly of Patagonia, among others. Within the space of a week she can be found drinking sake and singing about Rugby and coalminers in Japan and then intoning Welsh Methodist hymns and imbibing mate in the Argentinean desert some six thousand miles away. There are many impediments to her progress – Welsh kitsch, slippage into English, an eisteddfod conducted in Spanish, mutation lessons, unreality endings – but the pull of the language, and its enthusiastic adherents worldwide, bring her on and through, into a sense of home.
Pamela Petro brings a rare flair for language to this stimulating, amusing and moving book about what happens when language meets identity. She flourishes her own 'Welsh' virtues – sociability, musicality, honesty – before us, and the hospitality her reader enjoys at her hands makes for something different, and sheer reading pleasure.
"'Travels in an Old Tongue' is a delightful read – a marvellous mixture of wit, nostalgia, character description and atmosphere-setting. Anyone who is Welsh, or who has connections with Wales, should read it, as should anyone who isn't, or hasn't, but who simply wants to work out what an earth is going on in the minds, hearts, and mouths of those for whom Welsh is the language of heaven."
PROFESSOR DAVID CRYSTAL
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
You don't have to be Welsh to enjoy this book. I am Welsh and have given it to friends in Wales, England and the USA who have all loved it.
Whilst she is an American learning Welsh, other people learning a different language will be able to relate to her problem of trying to understand and gain confidence in actually speaking a foreign language.
Her tales of travelling around the world and the characters she met keep the pace moving along nicely. For anyone wanting a funny travel book this is a must!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
As a Welshman who has lived overseas for a number of years I found this book really struck a chord. Petro is an American, but her ability to understand and describe the Welsh personality is extraordinary. She obviously loved her subject matter, but to take on the task of learning Welsh and then conversing in it with native speakers took no shortage of courage. In all, a very witty book, and a re-affirmation that you can take the boy out of Wales, but you can never take Wales out of the boy.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was a fun read, but does not go on any "must read" lists about Wales, Welsh culture, etc... The author spins some funny anecdotes about her travels around the world searching for the Welsh language, but the narrator should step back once in a while and let the story tell itself. Frankly, the author and her travelling companion, who has no discernable interest in the Welsh language or culture, do get on the reader's nerves tipyn bach. Petro does have a writer's talent but this is light reading that because of the novelty of its subject matter has achieved some cult following among the American Welsh and expats. By all means read it. But - for a true understanding of Welsh culture far better you read "The Matter of Wales" by Jan Morris, or "Land of My Fathers" by Gwynfor Evans.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
trite and stereotypical
want to read a wingy rant by a silly yank let loose throughout the world? want to hear someone moan about how bad they are at learning languages? Read more
Published on 8 May 2005
Brings any Welsh genes bubbling to the surface.
The very idea of touring the world chasing up Welsh speakers got my interest right from the start.
Following Pamela's plans for her travels
and the frustrations caused,... Read more
Following Pamela's plans for her travels
and the frustrations caused,... Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2002 by iain@stitt.demon.co.uk
A travel book, not a book about being or speaking welsh.
This is an excellent book. the author, an American has gained a love of Wales and "Welshness" from her time in Lampeter, learning Welsh but more importantly being in... Read more
Published on 4 May 2000 by Dennis Moore
An excellent, informative and very funny book
Essentially the story of one woman's travel round the world in search of Welsh speakers (with a view to practising the language without the corrupting influence of English), this... Read more
Published on 17 Jan 2000
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