Welsh (Cymraeg or y Gymraeg, pronounced [kəmˈrɑːɨɡ, ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]) is a member of the Brythonic The Brythonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist Sir John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael. The name Brittonic derives ultimately from the name Prettanic recorded branch of Celtic The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic", a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, having much earlier been used by Greek and Roman writers to describe tribes in central Gaul. During the 1st spoken natively in Wales Wales /ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru; pronounced /ˈkəmrɨ/ (help·info)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual, with both Welsh, in England England /ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population, while its mainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. England is bordered by Scotland to the north, Wales to the west and the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, by some along the Welsh border The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales on the island of Great Britain, in the United Kingdom and in the Welsh immigrant colony The Welsh settlement in Argentina began in 1865 and occurred mainly along the coast of Chubut province in the far southern region of Patagonia, Argentina. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Argentine government encouraged the immigration of Europeans to populate the country outside the Buenos Aires region; between 1856 and 1875 no in the Chubut Valley The Chubut River is a river in Patagonia, Southern Argentina. Its name derives from the Tehuelche word chupat, meaning "transparent", their description of the river. As this word is similar to the Spanish word chupar ("to suck" or, in slang, "to booze"), the river's name was bowdlerized — adjusted for public decorum in Argentine Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the second largest country in South America and eighth in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico, Colombia and Spain are more populous Patagonia Patagonia is a geographic region containing the southernmost portion of South America. Located in Argentina and Chile, it comprises the southernmost portion of the Andes mountains to the west and south, and plateaux and low plains to the east. The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by Magellan to describe the native people whom his.

There are speakers of Welsh throughout the world, most notably in the rest of Great Britain Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest in Europe. With a population of approximately 58.9 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Ireland is to its west, and it is surrounded by over 1000 smaller islands and islets, the United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the, Canada Canada is a country occupying most of upper North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area and shares the world's longest common border with the United States to the south and northwest, Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the mainland, which is both the world's smallest continent and the world's largest island, the island of Tasmania, and numerous other islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.N4 It is the only area of land simultaneously considered a continent, and New Zealand New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud. The Realm of New Zealand also includes the Cook.

The most recent census figures (2001) presented in "Main Statistics about Welsh"[8] by the Welsh Language Board, indicate 582,400 (20.8% of the population of Wales in households or communal establishments) were able to speak Welsh and 457,946 (16.3%) can speak, read and write it. This compares with 508,100 (18.7%) for 1991. Increasing use of the English language English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. It is had led to a decline in the numbers of Welsh speakers. Since the introduction of the Welsh Language Act 1993, giving Welsh equal status with English in the public sector in Wales, this has been slowed.

The results of the "2004 Welsh Language Use Survey" indicate that there are 611,000 Welsh speakers in Wales (21.7% of the population living in households, a lower figure of 19.7% is given in the same paper), 62% claim to speak Welsh daily, and 88% of those fluent in the language speak it daily.[8]

A greeting in Welsh is one of 55 other languages included on the Voyager Golden Record The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record included in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. It contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it. The Voyager spacecrafts are not heading chosen to be representative of Earth in NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established on July 29, 1958, by the National Aeronautics and Space Act's Voyager program The Voyager program is a series of U.S. unmanned space missions that consists of a pair of unmanned scientific probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment of the late 1970s. Although they were officially designated to study just Jupiter and Saturn, the two probes were able to launched in 1977.[9] The greetings are unique to each language, with the Welsh greeting being "Iechyd da i chwi nawr ac yn oes oesoedd" which translates into English as "Good health to you now and forever". [10]

See Welsh English Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there is a variety of accents found across Wales from the South Wales Valleys to, sometimes known as "Wenglish", for the English language English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. It is as spoken in Wales. Officially, the English and Welsh languages have equal status in Wales Wales /ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru; pronounced /ˈkəmrɨ/ (help·info)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual, with both Welsh.

Contents

History

Main article: History of the Welsh language The history of the Welsh language spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh

Welsh as a distinct language emerged in the 6th century from Brythonic The Brythonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist Sir John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael. The name Brittonic derives ultimately from the name Prettanic recorded, the common ancestor of Welsh, Cumbric Cumbric is a Brythonic Celtic language, sometimes considered to be a dialect of Welsh, spoken in the Hen Ogledd in what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently referred to as Cumbria. Place name evidence suggests Cumbric speakers may have carried it into other parts of Northern England as migrants from its core (extinct), Breton The Breton language is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany (Breizh/Bretagne), France, and Cornish The Cornish language is one of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages. The language continued to function as a community language in parts of Cornwall until the late 18th century, and a process to revive the language was started in the early 20th century, continuing to this day.

Like most languages, there are identifiable periods within the history of Welsh, although the boundaries between these are often indistinct.

Status

Bilingual road markings in Wales

The 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey shows 21.7% of the population of Wales are Welsh speakers. This is an increase from 20.5% in the 2001 census A nationwide census, commonly known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census, and from 18.5% in 1991. The 2001 census also shows that about 25% of Welsh residents were born outside Wales. The number of Welsh speakers in the rest of Britain is unknown. In 1993, S4C S4C , currently branded as S4/C, is a Welsh television channel broadcast from the capital, Cardiff. The first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience, it is (after BBC One, ITV and BBC Two) the fourth oldest British terrestrial television channel (Channel 4 was launched in the rest of the United Kingdom one day, the Welsh-language TV channel, published the results of a survey into the numbers of people who speak or understand Welsh, and this estimated that there were some 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England England /ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population, while its mainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. England is bordered by Scotland to the north, Wales to the west and the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea,, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London Greater London is the top-level administrative subdivision covering London, England. The administrative area was officially created in 1965 and covers the City of London , the City of Westminster and the other 31 London boroughs. Its area also forms the London region of England and the London European Parliament constituency. The region has by far area and border towns and villages in the Welsh Marches The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales on the island of Great Britain, in the United Kingdom such as Oswestry Oswestry is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, very close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483, and A495 roads.[11]

Historically, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh,[12] but monoglot Monoglottism or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism is the condition of being able to speak only a single language. In a different context "unilingualism" may refer to language policy which enforces an official or national language over others Welsh speakers are now virtually non-existent, at least above school age. Almost without exception, Welsh speakers in Wales also speak English (while in Chubut Province Chubut a province in the southern part of Argentina situated between the 42nd Parallel South (forming the border with the Río Negro Province) and 46th Parallel South (bordering Santa Cruz Province), the Andes range separating Argentina from Chile, and the Atlantic ocean. The province's name derives from the Tehuelche word chupat, meaning ", Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the second largest country in South America and eighth in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico, Colombia and Spain are more populous, almost all speakers can speak Spanish Spanish , sometimes called Castilian (castellano), is a Romance language that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade. It was taken most notably to the Americas, and also to Africa and Asia Pacific with the expansion of the Spanish Empire between; cf. Welsh settlement in Argentina The Welsh settlement in Argentina began in 1865 and occurred mainly along the coast of Chubut province in the far southern region of Patagonia, Argentina. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Argentine government encouraged the immigration of Europeans to populate the country outside the Buenos Aires region; between 1856 and 1875 no). However, some Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain and the social context, even within a single discourse Discourse means either "written or spoken communication or debate" or "a formal discussion or debate." The term is often used in semantics and discourse analysis (known in linguistics as code-switching Code-switching is a linguistics term denoting the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals, people who speak more than one language, sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other. Thus, code-switching is the syntactically and phonologically appropriate use of more).

Although Welsh is a minority language, support for the language grew during the second half of the 20th century, along with the rise of organisations such as the nationalist Welsh nationalism is a political and cultural movement that emerged during the nineteenth century. It generally seeks independence from the United Kingdom for Wales, an aspiration supported by around 50% the population of the country and is further defined by a desire to protect and enhance the cultural distinctiveness of Wales political party Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru is a political party in Wales. It advocates the establishment of an independent Welsh state within the European Union from 1925 and the Welsh Language Society, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, , often abbreviated to Cymdeithas or Cymdeithas yr Iaith is a pressure group in Wales campaigning for the future of the Welsh language. The current Chairperson of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg is Menna Machreth of Llanddarog, Carmarthenshire from 1962.

Welsh as a first language is largely concentrated in the less urban north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although one of the biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated. A large proportion of the population is Welsh-speaking, Conwy Conwy County Borough is a local government principal area in north Wales, Denbighshire Denbighshire is a county in north-east Wales. It is named after the historic county of Denbighshire, but has substantially different borders. Denbighshire has the distinction of being the oldest inhabited part of Wales. Pontnewydd (Bontnewydd-Llanelwy) Paleaolithic site has remains of Neanderthals from 225,000 years ago, Anglesey The Isle of Anglesey , (pronounced /ˈænɡəlsi/) an island and county off the northwest coast of Wales, with a predominantly Welsh-speaking population. It is connected to the mainland by two bridges spanning the Menai Strait: the original Menai Suspension Bridge (carrying the A5), designed by Thomas Telford in 1826; and the newer reconstructed, Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire is a unitary authority in the south west of Wales and one of thirteen historic counties. Its three largest towns are Carmarthen, Llanelli and Ammanford. The county town and administrative centre of Carmarthenshire is Carmarthen and the most populous settlement is the area in and around the town of Llanelli, north Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire is a county in the southwest of Wales, Ceredigion, parts of west Glamorgan Glamorgan or Glamorganshire is one of the thirteen historic counties and a former administrative county of Wales. It was originally an early medieval kingdom of varying names and boundaries until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three preserved counties of West Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan and South, north-west and extreme south-west Powys Powys is a local-government principal area and preserved county in Wales, although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales.

Bilingual road sign in Cardiff.

Welsh is a living language, used in conversation by thousands and seen throughout Wales. The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 provide that the Welsh and English languages should be treated equally in the public sector, so far as is reasonable and practicable. Public bodies are required to prepare for approval a Welsh Language Scheme, which indicates their commitment to the equality of treatment principle. This is sent out in draft form for public consultation for a 3 month period, whereupon comments on it may be incorporated into a final version. It requires the final approval of the Welsh Language Board (Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg). Thereafter, the public body is charged with implementing and fulfilling its obligations under the Welsh Language Scheme. The list of other public bodies which have to prepare Schemes could be added to by initially the Secretary of State for Wales, from 1993–1997, by way of Statutory Instrument. Subsequent to the forming of the National Assembly for Wales in 1997, the Government Minister responsible for the Welsh language can and has passed Statutory Instruments naming public bodies who have to prepare Schemes. Neither 1993 Act nor secondary legislation made under it cover the private sector, although some organisations, notably banks and some railway companies, provide some of their literature through the medium of Welsh.

Local councils and the National Assembly for Wales use Welsh as a quasi-official language, issuing their literature and publicity in Welsh versions (e.g. letters to parents from schools, library information, and council information) and most road signs in Wales are in English and Welsh, including the Welsh versions of placenames. However, some references to English destinations are still given in English only.

Since 2000, the teaching of Welsh has been compulsory in all schools in Wales up to age 16, and that has had a major effect in stabilising and to some extent reversing the decline in the language. It means, for example, that even the children of English monoglot migrants to Wales grow up with some knowledge of the language. However, the vast majority of people in the main population centres of South Wales do not use the language in daily life.

Although most road signs throughout Wales are bilingual, the wording on money is in English only (This is apart from the legend on Welsh pound coins dated 1985 and 1990, which are valid currency in all parts of the UK: Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad, which means, "True am I to my country"), and derives from the Welsh National Anthem. The new British coinage from 2008 will not bear any Welsh language at all, despite being designed by a resident of North Wales and being minted at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales. Although many shops employ bilingual signage, Welsh rarely appears on product packaging or instructions.

The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of Welsh.

The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel S4C in November 1982, which broadcasts 70% of Channel4's programming along with a majority of Welsh language shows[13] during peak viewing hours. Additionally, there is an all-Welsh language digital station available throughout Europe on satellite called S4C Digidol, in existence since 1998. The main evening television news provided by the BBC in Welsh is available for download.[14] There is also a Welsh language radio station, BBC Radio Cymru, which was launched in 1977.

There is, however, no daily newspaper in Welsh, the only Welsh language national newspaper Y Cymro ("The Welshman") being published once a week. A daily newspaper called Y Byd ("The World") was scheduled to be launched on 3 March 2008 but has been scrapped, owing to low sales of subscriptions and insufficient funds being made available from the Welsh Assembly Government.

Since December 2001 the British Government has planned to ensure that all immigrants know English. It remains to be seen if Welsh will be considered a separate case. At present, a knowledge of Welsh, English or Scottish Gaelic is sufficient for naturalisation purposes and it is believed that this policy will be continued in any proposed changes to the law. [15]

Vocabulary

Welsh vocabulary draws mainly from original Brythonic words (ŵy "egg", carreg "stone") and loans from Latin (ffenest "window" < Latin fenestra, gwin "wine" < Latin vinum) and English (sicr "sure" < Middle English siker, fideo "video").

Orthography

Main article: Welsh orthography

Welsh is written in a version of the Latin alphabet traditionally consisting of 28 letters, of which eight are digraphs treated as single letters for collation:

a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y

The letters "j", "k", "q", "v", "x", and "z" are used in some technical terms, like kilogram, volt, xeroser and zero, but in all cases can be, and often are, replaced by Welsh letters: cilogram, folt, seroser and sero.[16] The letter "k" was in common use until the sixteenth century, but was dropped at the time of the publication of the New Testament in Welsh, as William Salesbury explained: "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth". This change was not popular at the time.[17]

In contrast to English practice, "A", "E", "I", "O", "U", "W" & "Y" are considered vowel letters in Welsh.

The most common diacritic is the circumflex, which is used in some cases to mark a long vowel.

Grammar

Phonology

Main article: Welsh phonology
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Welsh/Pronunciation

The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are typologically rare in European languages, specifically voiceless sonorants such as the voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ], voiceless nasal consonants [ṃ] and [ṇ], and voiceless rhotic [ṛ]. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable.

Morphology

Main article: Welsh morphology

Welsh morphology has much in common with that of the other modern Insular Celtic languages, such as the use of initial consonant mutations, and the use of so-called "conjugated prepositions" (prepositions that fuse with the personal pronouns that are their object). Welsh nouns belong to one of two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, but are not inflected for case. Welsh has a variety of different endings to indicate the plural, and two endings to indicate the singular of some nouns. In spoken Welsh, verb inflection is indicated primarily by the use of auxiliary verbs, rather than by the inflection of the main verb. In literary Welsh, on the other hand, inflection of the main verb is usual.

Other features of Welsh grammar

Possessives as object pronouns

The Welsh for "I like Rhodri" is Rydw i'n hoffi Rhodri ("I am liking [of] Rhodri"), but "I like him" is Rydw i'n ei hoffi — literally, "I am his liking him" —; "I like you" is Rydw i'n dy hoffi di ("I am your liking you"), etc.

Significant use of auxiliary verbs

Non-literary Welsh inclines very strongly towards the use of auxiliaries with its verbs. In the present tense, all verbs are used with the auxiliary bod (to be), so dw i'n mynd is literally "I am going", but also means simply "I go". In the past and future tenses, there are inflected forms of all verbs (which are invariably used in the written language), but it is more common nowadays in speech to use the verbal noun (berfenw, loosely equal to the infinitive in English) together with the inflected form of gwneud (to do), so "I went" can be (mi) es i or (mi) wnes i fynd and "I will go" can be (mi) a' i or (mi) wna i fynd. There is also a future form using the auxiliary bod, giving bydda i'n mynd (perhaps best translated as "I will be going") and an imperfect tense (a continuous/habitual past tense) also using bod, with roeddwn i'n mynd meaning "I used to go/I was going".

Affirmative markers

Mi or fe is often placed before inflected verbs to show that they are declarative. In the present and imperfect of the verb bod (to be), yr is used instead. Mi is mainly restricted to colloquial Northern Welsh, with fe predominating in the South and in the formal or literary register. Such marking of the declarative is, in any case, rather less common in higher registers.

Counting system

Main article: Welsh numerals

The traditional counting system used by the Welsh language is vigesimal, which is to say it is based on twenties, as in standard French numbers 70 (soixante-dix, literally "sixty-ten") through 99 (quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, literally "four twenty nineteen"). Welsh numbers from 11 through 14 are "x on ten", 16 through 19 are "x on fifteen" (though 18 is more usually "two nines"); numbers from 21 through 39 are "1–19 on twenty", 40 is "two twenties", 60 is "three twenties", etc.

There is also a decimal counting system, which appears to be commonly used in Patagonian Welsh, where numbers are "x ten y", e.g. thirty-five in decimal is tri deg pump (three ten five) while in vigesimal it is pymtheg ar hugain (fifteen – itself "five-ten" – on twenty).

While there is only one word for "one" (un), it triggers the soft mutation (treiglad meddal) of feminine nouns, other than those beginning with "ll" and "rh". There are separate masculine and feminine forms of the numbers "two" (dau and dwy), "three" (tri and tair) and "four" (pedwar and pedair), which must agree with the grammatical gender of the objects being counted.

Dialects

Dialectal differences are very pronounced in the spoken and, to a lesser extent, the written language. A convenient, if slightly simplistic, classification is into North Walian and South Walian forms (or Gog and Hwntw based on the word for North, gogledd, and the south Wales word for 'over there'. The differences between dialects encompass vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar, although particularly in the last regard they are in fact fairly minor.

An example of the difference between North and South Walian usage would be the question "Do you want a cup (of tea)?" In the north this would typically be Dach chi isio panad? while in the south the question Dych chi moyn dishgled? would be more likely. An example of a pronunciation difference between Northern and Southern Welsh is the tendency in southern dialects to "lisp" the letter "s", e.g. mis (month), would tend to be pronounced [miːs] in the north, and [miːʃ] in the south. This normally occurs next to a high front vowel like /i/, although exceptions include the pronunciation of sut "how" as [ʃʊd] in the south (compared with northern [sɨt]).

Much more fine-grained classifications exist beyond north and south: the book Cymraeg, Cymrâg, Cymrêg: cyflwyno'r tafodieithoedd,[18] about Welsh dialects was accompanied by a cassette containing recordings of fourteen different speakers demonstrating aspects of different dialects. The book refers to the earlier Linguistic Geography of Wales[19] as describing six different regions which could be identified as having words specific to those regions. Another dialect is Patagonian Welsh, which has developed since the start of the Welsh settlement in Argentina in 1865; it includes Spanish loanwords and terms for local features, but a survey in the 1970s showed that the language in Patagonia is consistent throughout the lower Chubut valley and in the Andes.

Registers

Modern Welsh can be written in two styles — Colloquial Welsh (Cymraeg llafar) or Literary Welsh (Cymraeg llenyddol). The grammar described on this page is that of Colloquial Welsh, which is used for speech and informal writing. Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh used in the 1588 translation of the Bible and is found in official documents and other formal registers, including much literature. As a standardised form, literary Welsh shows little if any of the dialectal variation found in colloquial Welsh. Some differences include:

Literary Welsh Colloquial Welsh
Can omit subject pronouns (pro-drop) Subject pronouns rarely omitted
Extensive use of simple verb forms Extensive use of periphrastic verb forms
No distinction between simple present and future (e.g. gwelaf "I see"/"I shall see") Simple form expresses only future (e.g. gwela i "I'll see")
Subjunctive verb forms Subjunctive in fixed idioms
3rd.pl ending –nt 3rd.pl ending –n

Amongst the characteristics of the literary, as against the spoken, language are a higher dependence on inflected verb forms, a shift in the usage of some of the tenses, a reduction in the explicit use of pronouns (since the information is usually conveyed in the verb/preposition inflections) and a greatly reduced tendency to substitute English loanwords for native Welsh words. In addition, more archaic pronouns and forms of mutation may be observed in Literary Welsh.

Examples of sentences in literary and colloquial Welsh

English Literary Welsh Colloquial Welsh
I get up early every day. Codaf yn gynnar bob dydd. Dwi'n codi'n gynnar bob dydd.
I'll get up early tomorrow. Codaf yn gynnar yfory. Coda i'n gynnar fory/Na i godi'n gynnar fory
He had not stood there long. Ni safasai yno yn hir.[20] Doedd o ddim wedi sefyll yno'n hir.
They'll sleep only when there's a need. Ni chysgant ond pan fo angen. Fyddan nhw ddim ond yn cysgu pan fydd angen.

In fact, the differences between dialects of modern spoken Welsh pale into insignificance compared to the difference between the spoken and literary languages. The latter is considerably more conservative and is the language used in Welsh translations of the Bible, amongst other things (although the Beibl Cymraeg Newydd — New Welsh Bible — is significantly less formal than the traditional 1588 Bible). Gareth King, author of a Welsh grammar, observes that "The difference between these two is much greater than between the virtually identical colloquial and literary forms of English" and goes so far as to state "that there are good grounds for regarding them as separate languages". He comments that whilst colloquial Welsh is a mother tongue requiring no special learning to acquire, literary Welsh is the mother tongue of no-one, and must be taught to people.[21] A complete grammar of Literary Welsh can be found in A Grammar of Welsh (1980) by Stephen J. Williams.

Most Welsh writing, especially that found on the Internet or in magazines, is closer to the colloquial form. This is also becoming more common in artistic literature.

Welsh in education

Main article: Welsh medium education

The decade around 1840 was a period of great social upheaval in Wales, manifested in the Chartist movement, which culminated in 20,000 people marching on Newport in 1839 resulting in a riot when 20 people were killed by soldiers defending the Westgate Hotel, and the Rebecca Riots when tollbooths on turnpikes were systematically destroyed.

This unrest brought the state of education in Wales to the attention of the English establishment, as social reformers of the time considered education as a means of dealing with social ills. The Times newspaper was prominent among those who considered that the lack of education of the Welsh people was the root cause of most of the problems.

In July 1846, three commissioners, R. R. W. Lingen, Jellynger C. Symons and H. R. Vaughan Johnson, were appointed to inquire into the state of education in Wales; the Commissioners were all Anglicans, and presumed[by whom?] to be unsympathetic to the non-conformist majority in Wales.

The Commissioners presented their report to the Government on 1 July 1847 in three large blue-bound volumes. This report quickly became known as Brad y Llyfrau Gleision (The Treachery of the Blue Books)[1] as, apart from documenting the state of education in Wales, the Commissioners were also free with their comments disparaging the language, non-conformity, and the morals of the Welsh people in general. An immediate effect of the report was for a belief to take root in the minds of ordinary people that the only way for Welsh people to get on in the world was through the medium of English, and an inferiority complex developed about the Welsh language whose effects have not yet been completely eradicated. The historian Professor Kenneth O. Morgan referred to the significance of the report and its consequences as "the Glencoe and the Amritsar of Welsh history".[22]

In the later 19th century virtually all teaching in the schools of Wales was in English, even in areas where the pupils barely understood English. Some schools used the Welsh Not, a piece of wood, often bearing the letters "WN", which was hung around the neck of any pupil caught speaking Welsh. The pupil could pass it on to any schoolmate heard speaking Welsh, with the pupil wearing it at the end of the day being given a beating.

Many of the Welsh tried in vain to have the rules changed.

One of the most famous Welsh born pioneers of higher education in Wales was Sir Hugh Owen. He made great progress in the cause of education, and more especially the University College of Wales (Aberystwyth), of which he was chief founder. He was credited[by whom?] for with The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 after which several new Welsh Schools were built, the first of these being Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen in 1894.

Towards the beginning of the 20th century this policy slowly began to change, partly owing to the efforts of Owen Morgan Edwards when he became chief inspector of schools for Wales in 1907.

The Aberystwyth Welsh School (Ysgol Gymraeg Aberystwyth) was founded in 1939 by Sir Ifan ap Owen Edwards, the son of O.M. Edwards as the first Welsh Primary School. The headteacher was Norah Isaac. Ysgol Gymraeg is still a very successful school and now there are Welsh language primary schools all over the country. Ysgol Glan Clwyd was established in Rhyl in 1955 as the first Welsh language school to teach to a secondary level.

Welsh is now widely used in education, with 20% of all pupils in Wales being taught at Welsh-medium schools.[2] All Welsh universities teach some courses in Welsh (most notably Bangor University and Aberystwyth University), but are primarily English language. Under the National Curriculum, schoolchildren in Wales must study Welsh up to the age of 16 and many chose to continue with it in their A levels and college years. All Local Education Authorities in Wales have schools providing bilingual or Welsh-medium education.[23] The remainder study Welsh as a second language in English-medium schools. Specialist teachers of Welsh called Athrawon Bro support the teaching of Welsh in the National Curriculum. Welsh is also taught in adult education classes. The ability to speak Welsh or to have Welsh as a qualification is essential or desirable for certain career choices in Wales, such as teaching or customer service.

Welsh in information technology

Welsh has a presence on the Internet, ranging from formal lists of terminology in a variety of fields[24] to Welsh language interfaces for parts of Microsoft Windows XP and Vista, a variety of Linux distributions, and some online services to blogs kept in Welsh.[25]

There is a campaign for a new .cym TLD for Welsh-language websites, and websites that are of Welsh interest. A petition has been set up to gather support for the domain.[26]

Welsh in warfare

Secure communications are often difficult to achieve in wartime. Cryptography can be used to protect messages, but codes can be broken. Therefore, little-known languages are sometimes encoded, so that even if the code is broken, the message is still in a language few people know. For example, Navajo code talkers were used by the United States military during World War II. Similarly, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a Welsh regiment serving in Bosnia, used Welsh for emergency communications that needed to be secure.[27]

Use of Welsh at the European Union

In November 2008, a milestone was crossed as the Welsh language was used at a meeting of the European Union’s Council of Ministers for the first time. The Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones addressed his audience in Welsh as his words were translated into the EU’s 23 official languages. The official use of the language followed years of campaigning, while the Welsh-speaking minister representing the entire UK added to a sense of history. Jones said "In the UK we have one of the world’s major languages, English, as the mother tongue of many. But there is a diversity of languages within our islands. I am proud to be speaking to you in one of the oldest of these, Welsh, the language of Wales." He described the breakthrough as "more than [merely] symbolic" saying "Welsh might be one of the oldest languages to be used in the UK, but it remains one of the most vibrant. Our literature, our arts, our festivals, our great tradition of song all find expression through our language. And this is a powerful demonstration of how our culture, the very essence of who we are, is expressed through language." [28]

See also

Wales portal

Notes

  1. ^ 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey: the report - Welsh Language Board
  2. ^ http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/archives/welsh-l/welsh-l/1993/Mar/More-Welsh-Speakers
  3. ^ Ethnologue: Welsh
  4. ^ Ethnologue: Languages of Canada.
  5. ^ USEnglish.org PDF (89.8 KiB)
  6. ^ Cultural Table, New Zealand government (XLS).
  7. ^ Western Australia.
  8. ^ a b Main Statistics about Welsh from the Welsh Language Board
  9. ^ "Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages". NASA. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/languages.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.
  10. ^ "Welsh greetings". NASA. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/welsh.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-10.
  11. ^ Summary of 1993 S4C survey
  12. ^ Davies, Janet, The Welsh Language, University of Wales Press, Bath, 1993, p. 34
  13. ^ Welsh language provision at S4C Analogue
  14. ^ At the BBC website (Real Media).
  15. ^ Brendan Carlin (9 April 2008). "Immigrants told: it's time to learn English". Political Correspondent. Telegraph.co.uk. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1554184/Immigrants-told-it%27s-time-to-learn-English.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-19.
  16. ^ Thomas, Peter Wynn (1996) Gramadeg y Gymraeg. Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 757.
  17. ^ English and Welsh, an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien
  18. ^ Thomas, B. and Thomas, P. W. Cymraeg, Cymrâg, Cymrêg: cyflwyno'r tafodieithoedd, published by Gwasg Taf, ISBN 0-948469-14-5. Out of print
  19. ^ Thomas, A. R. 1973 Linguistic Geography of Wales
  20. ^ Klingebiel, Kathryn. 234 Welsh Verbs: Standard Literary Forms. Belmont, Massachusetts: Ford & Bailie. p. 223. ISBN 0-926689-04-5.
  21. ^ King, G. Modern Welsh: a comprehensive grammar, published by Routledge, ISBN 0-415-09269-8 p3
  22. ^ John Davies, Hanes Cymru (1993) (also in English translation as A History of Wales, Penguin, 1994, ISBN 0-1401-4581-8)
  23. ^ Welsh medium or bilingual provision, Welsh Language Board
  24. ^ The Welsh National Database of Standardised Terminology was released in March 2006.
  25. ^ Selections of Welsh-language blogs are listed on the sites Y Rhithfro and Blogiadur.
  26. ^ Petition for.cym TLD.
  27. ^ Heath, Tony (1996-08-26). "Welsh speak up for their ancient tongue". The Independent: pp. 6.
  28. ^ http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/11/21/breakthrough-as-minister-uses-welsh-at-eu-council-91466-22307749/

References

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