The Cause

As the last chapter of my time spent in Wales I'll be doing a 10 day long sponsored cycle (5-15 May) round the country (approx. 1000 kilometres) to support Tŷ Hafan, a Wales based charity.

They offer comfort, care and support to life-limited children, young people and their families, helping them make the most of the time they have left together.

You can sponsor my round-trip in Wales here:

https://www.justgiving.com/jozsefracz

Wednesday 23 April 2014

Road signs = cultural maps



My first day in Wales started with a culture-shock - or an uncultured-shock, more like. 
Not that there is no culture in Wales, but I didn't know, there is an ancient language called Welsh until I got there. I thought all the road signs with lots of LLs, DDs, Ys and Ws are probably normal here and they are weird for me just as the Serbian Cyrillic would be for a British person. Then I realized that one half of the sign was always clear; most of the Ys and Ws were all on the unclear half - the Welsh version.

This old Celtic language is not in a dying state but as a small language it really needs the attention. Being able to read it everywhere on the streets with an instant English translation under (or above) is a very cool way of promoting the Welsh culture.
I would always get excited about multilingual signs wherever I saw one.
In the region (Vajdaság/Vojvodina) where I am from most of the towns have multiple names. There, you see an everyday usage of road signs that I haven't seen in Wales yet; people post "messages" about either national, political or love conflicts through traffic signs.
These (love-)vandalised signs still communicate with travellers - in their own way.



Another case in point: I once heard from fellow travellers how shocked they had been at the Russians' pride(?) in their own alphabet, putting out signs only in Cyrillic.


All these signs are brilliant, how they always lead us somewhere...


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