I'm here now with Simon, who we've finally managed to catch for an interview which I'm
really excited about. I would say it's nice to meet you but we've met for two days now...it
seems silly! Simon runs the website that I'm sure you will've heard of and used many times,
Omniglot. So first of all thank you for that. Yep, you're welcome!
How did that come about? Well it all started about back in 1998. Originally
I was trying to set up my own business as an online web designer and translation agency.
That didn't really work out but Omniglot kind of grew out of there. And I carried it on
as a hobby while I was working as a web designer in Brighton and eventually I was made redundant
from that job and by that time I was making a living from Omniglot. And since then I've
moved to Bangor, did an MA in Linguistics, now I'm supporting myself completely from
Omniglot. Brilliant! That's fantastic! That's truly
living the language dream, isn't it? It is!
Brilliant. And I'd like to talk - your badge - I don't know if you can see Simon's badge
from there - is very very impressive, so we've spoken a bit...you did a degree initially
in Japanese and Mandarin Chinese is that correct? That's right, yeah.
And then moved on a lot to C..I've forgotten already! Celtic or Celtic?!
Celtic! Celtic! Moved on a lot to Celtic languages.
What inspired you to begin with Celtic languages? Well my mum's family come from Wales. She
grew up in England but her parents were from South Wales, so I've always been interested
in Welsh and always had the intention to learn it. And I eventually got round to it about
12 years ago. Started learning. Oh no, it was actually, after I came back from Taiwan,
when I started Omniglot. Because one of the jobs I applied for was in Bangor, in the International
Office, and they said you have to learn Welsh to do this job if you don't already speak
it. So I started learning Welsh at that time and I got Teach Yourself Welsh and I went
through it a couple of times and went to my interview and they said "Do you speak Welsh?"
and I said "A little bit!". But I couldn't, wasn't able to have a conversation at that
time. And then I didn't do much more for a few years and then I was on holiday in Northern
Portugal doing a walking tour and there was a couple of Welsh speakers in the group! And
I thought... In Portugal?! I bet you weren't expecting
to practise your Welsh in Portugal?! Well no! But they happened to be there in
the same group and I was sharing a room with one of them and I tried to speak Welsh to
them and I soon ran out of things to say 'cause it was all a while since I'd used it and I'd
forgotten a lot and when I got home I thought, "I've learnt all these different languages
for going on holiday to places, out of interest", and I thought, "which of these do I really
want to learn the most?" and I thought, "Welsh! 'Cause it's an ancestral language. My family
used to speak it a few generations ago and I've always been interested in it. So for
the next few years I listened to Welsh language radio on the internet every day at work, all
day, at first I understood hardly anything but gradually it started to make more sense
and I got some more courses. I got Colloquial Welsh and various other courses, and I started
reading things on the Internet, and I got simple books for learners, which were kind
of much..I struggled with at first but eventually it started to make sense and then more and
more I got to the stage where I could understand it, I could read it, then I did a summer school
in Lampeter for two weeks... Wahey! Lampeter! Ashley, cameraman, who you
can't see, went to Lampeter University so..there's the link there!
Yeah, so, this was the first time I'd had proper conversations in Welsh. So at first
I struggled a bit, but after 2 weeks I was quite happy to babble away in Welsh all day.
So you almost created like, we've just come out of a talk with Alex Rawlings, who was
mentioning about if you can't go to the country physically, about creating a sort of remote
immersion - so that's pretty much what happened to you with Welsh.
Exactly, yes. That's what I did, yeah. And then what was your next language along
the way, from there? Where did you go? Did you go to Manx or Cornish or Gaelic?
Well, Irish actually. I'd learnt a little bit of Scottish Gaelic when I was in Taiwan
because I just fell in love with the music. While I was at school I started playing the
tin whistle, listening to songs like Plynad(?), Enya, and Capacaely(?) and Runry(?), and I
just love the sound of these languages, Scottish and Irish Gaelic and I just wanted to learn
them and eventually I got round to it. And I went... and I spent a year learning Irish
at home. I started with courses on Radio Ulster. They have these little courses and they're
really good 'cause they just do little bits 'cause it's a radio programme so they just
do, take you through the basics in each programme and then you learn a little bit more and they
reinforce what you've learnt already and I found that really good and I got a book that
was based on another radio series called...what's it called?..Irish On Your Own or Now You're
Talking. Ahh, I like that, Now You're Talking! That's
cool! Now You're Talking!
Now You're Talking yeah! Brilliant. It looks..I'm not sure if we have to go back in soonish
so we'd better sort of wrap it up but it's been an absolute pleasure. Is there a language
that's next on your list at all? Well recently I've been learning Serbian.
Ah ha! To come to the Polyglot Conference! Exactly! I'm not sure if I'll carry on when
I go home. I might do but I'd really like to learn Russian and Czech more. I've done
some already and I started learning Swedish earlier this year after the Polyglot Gathering
in Berlin and I've got other languages I'd like to learn but at the moment, that's enough!
Yeah, that's quite a sort of lingering list. It's nice! Brilliant! Well Simon, it's been
an absolute pleasure to meet you and I look forward to meeting you again very very soon.
Ok thank you very much! My pleasure!