Comic #5246: welsh

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Here's the transcription of the comic:

Panel 1: In 1567, William Salesbury created a Welsh translation of the New Testament.

Panel 2: This helped establish the orthographic standard for written Welsh.

Panel 3: Before that translation, the letter K was quite common in Welsh. Today, it's gone. It's always C instead.

Panel 4: That's because in Salesbury's New Testament, he dropped K and used C.

Panel 5: You might imagine this was for linguistic reasons, but we have a contemporary statement from him on the topic, that reads: “C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requiereth.”

Panel 6: So, modern Welsh looks more exotic than it should because a sixteenth-century printer was out of tiny metal letters.

Panel 7: I wonder what percent of "authentic" culture comes down to an arbitrary decision by a long-dead ancestor.

Panel 8: Probably lots.

Panel 9: That is so empowering!

Panel 10: We can make arbitrary choices RIGHT NOW and impose them on future people we’ll never know! We can insist hot dogs must always come with spicy sauce, and our descendants will protect it like a beloved heirloom!

Panel 11: If we play our cards right, they’ll believe the tradition is both older and more sacred than an idle conversation we had when we were kids!

Panel 12: Why do you have such a deep animus toward future people?

Panel 13: Probably because of something my ancestors did.

This transcription includes all the dialogue as depicted in the comic.