A Waterstones in Carmarthen has failed to sell a single copy of Welsh Scrabble in two years
The only person to pick up a game ironically asked if it was available in Polish
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Your support makes all the difference.A bookshop in West Wales has been left lost for words over its failure to sell any copies of the Welsh version of Scrabble.
The Carmarthen branch of Waterstones bought five copies of Scrabble un Gymraeg before Christmas 2014, but has failed to shift a single game since.
“We thought Welsh Scrabble would be a snapped up in our games section and not linger so long gathering dust – especially in Carmarthen, where we have and order so, so many Welsh books for our customers,” branch manager Emma Morris told the Wales News Service.
“But, ironically, we had one customer come to the counter with the Welsh version, only to ask if we had it in Polish.”
The branch has now cut the price of the £24.99 game in half in a last ditch attempt to sell their stock.
Scrabble yn Gymraeg was created in 2005 with the help of the Welsh Books Council. Over a million Welsh words from the University of Wales Welsh dictionary and 800,000 words from the Welsh Bible were analysed to create it.
There is no X or Z, which don’t exist in Welsh. Y and W, which are vowels, are only worth one point, but NG and RH, which appear on tiles together, are worth 10 each.
Players are not allowed to use words with mutations at the beginning (such as ‘Gymraeg’).
Mattel, the firm which manufactures Scrabble, says it has sold more than 100 million copies of the game in 29 different languages to date.
“We are sorry to hear that the Waterstones branch in Carmarthen has not been successful in selling the Welsh Scrabble,” a spokesperson said.
“We have received a very positive response to the game and the Welsh Book Council and other retail outlets in Wales have reported good sales of the game.”
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