Afrwydd. Diddorol. Cymhleth. Gwobrwyol. What do these words mean? Chances are you have no idea. But at the same time, there's a very good chance that you know instantly that they're Welsh. Maybe it's the consecutive vowels. Or perhaps it's that inimitably Welsh use of the letter "y." Whatever it is, Welsh, like Hebrew and Japanese, is instantly recognizable as soon as it is written.

Once it's spoken, however, things get a lot more complicated: The sounds and the letters don't always match. And it's a much breathier language than it appears on paper. Indeed, unless you're one of the approximately 700,000 people who speak the language, Welsh probably seems like an impenetrable tongue.

The truth, however, is rather different. With a bit of effort and a great deal of enthusiasm, you can learn this language. From classes at universities to computer language programs like Rosetta Stone, Welsh is most definitely "learnable."

The language itself is derived from Indo-European, the mother tongue of languages ranging from English to Latin to Hindi. But despite the fact that it is spoken predominantly in Wales, on the same island as England, it nonetheless has rather less relation to English than you might assume. Indeed, "Welsh is less closely related to English than are languages like French and German and the Scandinavian languages" (http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk).

But this lack of relationship to modern English doesn't mean that it's impossible to learn. It simply means that you'll have to discover new ways of thinking about the language. And that, actually, is one of the joys of learning a new language in the first place.

The other is the ability to communicate with people more effectively. In the case of Welsh, the majority of native speakers are in Wales, as would be expected, and in "a small colony in Patagonia (in the Chubut province of Argentina), although there are many speakers of Welsh elsewhere, particularly in England and Australia and the United States of America" (http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk).

Interestingly, Welsh seemed to be threatened with extinction not too long ago. For many years, it seemed as if fewer and fewer people spoke the language, and many experts predicted its ultimate disappearance from the modern world in several generations' time. But an upsurge of interest in the language (perhaps a result of some sort of nascent nationalism) lifted it out of this dire situation. Today, classes are popping up all over the world, and in its homebase of Wales, it is being taught to school children.

So now is the perfect time to learn Welsh. After all, it may be afrwydd (difficult), and it's certainly cymhleth (complex), but no one can argue that, when all is said and done, it certainly is diddorol (interesting) and gwobrwyol (rewarding).