Just stop before you embarrass yourself, there’s no point in trying to pronounce it. Probably a little too late but I thought it’d be a good idea to explain the name of my blog ‘Y Llyfr Ddu’, firstly it’s Welsh, Wales is a part of the UK very rich culture lots of sheep and mountains (imagine New Zealand but without the Lord of the Rings), and Welsh is a form of Gaelic and sadly it’s becoming less commonly spoken especially in the south of Wales.
For about ten years I lived in Wales, my mother moved my sister and I over there when she and my dad separated, my mother above almost everything wanted us to learn the language, and so we did, in three very short months. Anyway I loathed Wales for the better part of my teen years and when I got into University in Brighton I couldn’t wait to leave the Valleys and start life in the City, as is so often the case I was too eager to move onto bigger things, and leave the past behind me. Pretty quickly I started to miss my family, my friends, and oddly enough I missed Wales, My Home, one of the things I missed most was the language. I’d taken it for granted for so long, I used welsh words in place of english ones so often that I’d forgotten there was a difference, I struggled in University at first struggled with the language barrier that shouldn’t have been.
I decided there was two plans of action I could pursue,
1. Teach everyone in England to speak Welsh (including bus drivers, Mc Donalds workers, my friends, and the cloakroom attendant at the Haunt)
or
2. Hold onto the language and make it personal, enjoy being the only one who understands it, so I started using Welsh words in my work and embraced it when people asked me what it meant (nice little power trip)
And then ‘Y Llyfr Ddu’ came about, at the time I thought it was quite witty but now I’ve come to realise I’m the only one who thinks so, It means ‘The Black Book’ my surname is Black, I’m an illustrator and work a lot in books, it just seemed fitting. So there we have it, thats the story behind the name and now I’ll leave you with another Welsh word to try and pronounce.
‘llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’
and I promise that’s real!