The use of alien languages

Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau*

If Coco had written:
Gan nad yw rhywun yn disgwyl gweld Firenze mewn erthygl am Fflorens neu 臺北市 mewn erthygl am brifddinas y weriniaeth Tsieineaidd, pam mae disgwyl i un ddarllen Snowdon mewn erthygl Gymraeg am yr Wyddfa?

Coco is quite sure there would be much support for the view expressed, which is why Snowdon in Wales is known as, and probably ‘always’ has been known as yr Wyddfa.  I quite understand this, for if Coco were to speak in Italian, which Coco cannot, it would be intolerable to refer to Florence and not Firenze, and in French, which the French do not permit, to refer to Paris as Paris (euphonically speaking of course). 

But if Coco asks:
As one does not expect to see Firenze in an English article about Florence or 臺北市 in an English article about the capital city of the Chinese republic, why is one expected to read yr Wyddfa in an English article about Snowdon?
will Coco receive a similar response?

The editors of the BBC seem to take a different view and give more regard to those who would detract them for reasons of being PC, which you will understand is nothing to do with pure chocolate, than to their intended audience. For, when they write for an English speaking audience, then they do not write in English but introduce other tongues. If there is a need to write in another tongue, and from time to time there must be such a need, as Coco has demonstrated in the foregoing, then a translation should be provided for those who do not understand what is written. In the slightly better article from this perspective, to which we thought we had already referred, but have not so the link must be edited later, though the explanation was rather lacking in due care, at least an attempt had been made to provide an explanation. In this one* (Snowdon: Yr Wyddfa could be the first plastic-free mountain) however, whilst Yr Wyddfa is the proper name for Snowdon in the Welsh language, it is not the name for the mountain in the English language.

As a great man once said: If I come to you speaking in tongues [you do not understand] how will I benefit you? So with you, if you utter speech that is unintelligible how will anyone know what is said? You will be speaking to the air. If I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker a foreigner to me. … I would rather speak five words and be understood than ten thousand words in a language that is not, but if I must speak in another tongue, please let there be an interpreter.

With apologies for not providing a translation of the Welsh and to those who know for Google’s bad Welsh.

* Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau – The land of my fathers

* There is an appearance that since Coco first saw the article, a change has been made to make it clear that yr Wyddfa is Snowdon, but still we have Eryri National Park. Is this a location in Transylvania or near the great lake of a slightly similar English name?

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