Welsh Keywords: Cynefin
From Planet 249
by Owen Shiers
This is the forty-fifth contribution to our Welsh Keywords series – inspired by Raymond Williams’ Keywords – which offers contemporary perspectives on contested meanings of words in Welsh and how these shifting meanings continue to shape our society. Here, Owen Shiers dives into the place-centred concept of cynefin, and asks how its ‘deep quality of relatedness’ can help us live in a shifting, fragmented world.
It’s not uncommon in gift shops in Wales these days to come across T-shirts or driftwood-clad frames bearing affable Welsh words such as cwtch or cariad. Capitalising on the USPs of our language is, perhaps, to be expected in a marginalised country which is finding its confidence, and is zealously re-discovering its cultural self through the lens of social media in the modern market economy. Easy-to-grasp words such these you could say represent the low hanging fruit of our lexicon – they are accessible and relatable, if at times branded with saccharine catchphrase charm (apparently anyone can hug but ‘only the Welsh can cwtch’).
Sign in to read moreAbout the author
Owen Shiers is a Ceredigion-based musician, composer and cultural historian from Capel Dewi in the Clettwr Valley. Best known for his ‘Cynefin’ project mapping the folk tradition in Ceredigion, he also performs in the land rights show Gafael Tir and is an active member of the ‘Llafur Ni’ heritage grain collective.
