MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Cristina Fernandez blasts media over Welsh celebrations in Patagonia
Suffering from a severe case of laryngitis which forced her to a 48 hours rest, Argentine president Cristina Fernandez nevertheless had time for a fight with the Buenos Aires media and welcome Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones who is in Argentina for the Welsh settlers in Patagonia celebrations. Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesExcuses excuses....
Jul 28th, 2015 - 06:57 am - Link - Report abuse 0She wants the limelight, and things just ain't going her way - and everyone can see it!!!
“The land of integration and dialogue”? Bahahahahaha!
Jul 28th, 2015 - 07:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0What about the Mapuche, they got genocided! Yes, the Spanish, Italians, Nazis and the Welsh settlers are integrated but the owners of the land got murdered in their thousands.
Without news media and the British Army, Navy and the RAF, what would have happened in 1982? Would the islanders have got free flights over the River Plate.?
The history of the Welsh in Argentina is fascinating. After the Mapuche they were the first real settlers and made a life in Patagonia. When the first waves of Spanish etc arrived they tried to quash the Welsh language and way of life. So it is rather against the odds and that Welsh determination that has allowed their culture to continue.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 08:10 am - Link - Report abuse 0If anyone can access BBC Wales I recommend Huw Edwards documentary 'Patagonia'.
So the Welsh (Italians, Germany, Spanish assorted Brits etc) are settlers - in someone else's native land - but the dastard Kelpers (who arrived earlier ) are still just squatting usurper colonists - 180 years on? How so, I don't get it?
Jul 28th, 2015 - 09:01 am - Link - Report abuse 0@4 FI_Frost,
Jul 28th, 2015 - 09:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0malvinista logic.
They want our land, have convinced themselves that it would be a pushover & are outraged that we have successfully resisted them.
So to save their fragile egos, they lie & make up stories(which they themselves believe).
She's a sick old lady.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 11:04 am - Link - Report abuse 0Years of Lithium overdosing is not doing her any favors...
Don't we all bless the British Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy (including the Royal Marines)? In The Dark Country, the Welsh have, for the most part, had their language and culture stripped from them. Except for isolated instances as “curiosities” and tourist attractions. In Wales, 22.7% of the population speak Cymraeg. Why is it only 3% in Patagonia?
Jul 28th, 2015 - 12:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0She could have ,at least, made her apologies in Welsh.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 12:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 08. She barely speaks Spanish. The Ks are a very low low low class family. She getting her 2nd illegitimate grandbaby in the next couple of weeks.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 12:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@7 Partly because the Argentine governments in the past refused to recognise Welsh speaking schools, thus when they graduated they could not attend university. Also, the Welsh were for quite some time made to feel inferior to Spanish speakers even though they were bilingual. So over generations the language was dropped, though it is starting to make a come back, albeit small, even amongst Argentines with no Welsh heritage.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 12:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Can anyone tell me what's so different about this Welsh culture anyway ?
Jul 28th, 2015 - 02:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It's not like they are Amish and just ride about in buggies all day and don't use computers or electricity . They all speak spanish , drive on the left , vote , pay their taxes ( well , maybe ) and have all intermarried with other settler groups and the odd mapuche , so are no different from anyone else .
So they have the odd tea shop ... We'll blow me down with a feather , Buenos Aires is full of them too .
This is a load of froth created by the government for it's own ends .
No one see the irony. The settlers travel half way around the globe to avoid having English culture forced on them and wind up getting stiffed by the Spanish instead!
Jul 28th, 2015 - 04:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Priceless!
I am a Brit living in Uruguay.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 06:52 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I hold a Uruguayo Cedula which states “Residencia Legal” and perhaps in three years I will also hold a Uruguayo Passport.
Will any of these things make me Uruguayo? Of course not.
There are no Welsh in The Dark Country, fact; unless they have recently moved there from the real Wales.
It seems there are some argies who pretend to be Welsh and hold on to what they think is the Welsh language, even though it is removed by thousands of miles from Wales itself and is subject to distortion into another version of “Welsh”.
Do these “Welsh” change from using jibber-jabber (Spanish) in the shops when another (non-Welsh argie) comes into the place and start talking in “Welsh jibber-jabber” just like the real Welsh do in North Wales (the real Wales) that is?
Priceless! One set of deluded argies who think they are in the real world to another set of argies who think they are in Wales! And BOTH couldn't be more wrong!
Ha, ha, ha.
@12
Jul 28th, 2015 - 07:46 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes-and the Wales they left has become more autonomous than they are-to preserve their Welsh identity they could move back to Wales but as Chris R points out they are Argies, and want to be- pure and simple.
What a neurotic b*tch....she can't stand not being the centre of attention....
Jul 28th, 2015 - 08:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The unthinkable, is fast becoming thinkable.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 08:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0A question, with no hidden agenda.
Jul 28th, 2015 - 10:05 pm - Link - Report abuse 0ls the Welsh spoken in Argentina exactly the same as the Welsh spoken in Wales?
Does it have a distinctive accent that the people from Wales would notice?
l ask because, once l was friendly with a woman from Namibia(which was once German territory)& she said that when at university in Germany, speaking German, no Germans could guess from where she came.
The German settlers from Namibia have only been in that country for about 130 years but thats long enough for them to develop their own dialect.
ls it the same with the Argentine Welsh?
Just curious.
@ 17 lsolde
Jul 29th, 2015 - 12:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I have no doubt that is exactly the case.
The locals around me cannot speak proper jibber-jabber to the everlasting despair of my Spanish teacher who over the years has taught them Literature (she is a high school teacher).
The argies are even worse at this in her estimation which is why I use the term “the lowest possible form of jibber-jabber” when referring to them.
@17 Watching the Huw Edwards documentary, Patagonia, there was no problem at all with Huw -from Wales and the Argentine Welsh speaking together. The whole documentary is in Welsh with sub-titles.
Jul 29th, 2015 - 02:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I don't speak Welsh but Welsh speakers tell me there is a difference between, say North Wales and South Wales. I would imagine there is an accent change.
@18 & 19,
Jul 29th, 2015 - 09:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Thank you for your replies.
I have friends in Esquel (founded by the Welsh) in Chubut province and I go there somewhat frequently since it's only a long day's drive from where I live further south. It's one of my favourite Argentine towns and I've been known to show off the trochita loco as if it were my own. I've only visited one of those phoney red-lion tourist traps in Esquel that purports to be a Welsh tea-house, and nobody there understood a word of galés. The population there does not speak Welsh. I've never seen written Welsh or heard it spoken in Esquel though I am told there are a couple of people in town who claim to know a bit of it. But “Welsh Patagonia” has pretty much disappeared and the factoid that 3 percent of the native chubutenses actually speak acceptable Welsh I am quite certain is a tourism-inspired fabrication.
Aug 03rd, 2015 - 09:25 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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