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 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 by branch of the Celtic languages 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. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual; Welsh and English have equal status, and bilingual signs are the, in England 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 in the United Kingdom, in the Welsh immigrant colony in the Chubut Valley The river flows through Chubut Province for approximately 800 kilometres before emptying in the Atlantic Ocean at Engaño Bay near Rawson. The main arm of the Chubut originates in Carreras in the Andes in Río Negro Province, although its basin covers a large area of the western Andean foothills between Bariloche and Esquel. It is also fed by the in Argentine Patagonia,[4] and the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The most recent figures (2004) presented in the 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey[5] by the Welsh Language Board The Welsh Language Board is a statutory body set up by the UK Government as part of the Welsh Language Act 1993. It is now an Assembly Sponsored Public Body. Its current Chief Executive is Meirion Prys Jones and Chair Meri Huws indicate 611,000 (21.7% of the population of Wales in households or communal establishments) were able to speak Welsh. This figure marks a 0.9 percentage point Consider the following hypothetical example: in 1980, 40 percent of the population smoked, and in 1990 only 30 percent smoked. We can thus say that from 1980 to 1990, the incidence of smoking decreased by 10 percentage points even though smoking did not decrease by 10 percent — percentages indicate ratios, not differences increase when compared with a figure of 20.8% from the 2001 Census. Of those 611,000 Welsh speakers, 62% claim to speak Welsh daily. This figure rises to 88% amongst those who consider themselves fluent in Welsh.[5]

A greeting in Welsh is one of 55 languages included on the Voyager Golden Record The Voyager Golden Record are phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977. They contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, who may find them. The Voyager chosen to be representative of Earth in NASA's Voyager program launched in 1977.[6] The greetings are unique to each language, with the Welsh greeting being Iechyd da i chwi yn awr ac yn oesoedd which translates into English as "Good health to you now and forever".[7]

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 Cardiff dialect to that of the, sometimes known as "Wenglish", for the English language 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. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual; Welsh and English have equal status, and bilingual signs are the.

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 that emerged in the 6th century from British British or Brythonic was an ancient P-Celtic language spoken in Britain, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton The Breton language is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany (Breizh/Bretagne), France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as an Insular Celtic, Cornish Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom, spoken in Cornwall. 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, and the extinct language known as Cumbric Cumbric was a variety of the Celtic British language spoken in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" of what is now northern England and southern Lowland Scotland, the area anciently known as Cumbria, during the Early Middle Ages. It was closely related to Old Welsh and the other Brythonic languages. Place name evidence suggests Cumbric speakers.

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

The name "Welsh" originated as an exonym An exonym is a name for a place or a personal name that differs from that used in the official or well-established language within that place or for that person by the local inhabitants, or a name for a people or language that is not native to the people or language to which it refers. The name used by the people or locals themselves is called given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons Anglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066. The Benedictine monk, Bede, identified them as the descendants of three Germanic tribes:, meaning "foreign speech". The native term for the language is Cymraeg, and Cymru for "Wales."

Status

Bilingual road markings in Cardiff Cardiff (pronounced /ˈkɑːdɪf/ , Welsh: Caerdydd (info)) is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for Wales. According to recent estimates, the, Wales

The 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey shows 21.7% of the population of Wales are Welsh speakers.[5] 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 recorded a resident population of 58,789,194, 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 has not yet been compiled for statistical purposes. 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, BBC Two and Sky1) the fifth oldest British television channel (Channel 4 was launched in the rest of the United Kingdom one day later), the Welsh language television channel, published the results of a survey into the numbers of people who spoke or understood Welsh, which estimated that there were around 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London 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 in the United Kingdom such as Oswestry Oswestry is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483, and A495 roads.[8]

Historically, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh,[9] but monoglot Welsh speakers are now virtually non-existent, except among mother tongue speakers below school age as well as small numbers of elderly people in traditional Welsh speaking regions.[citation needed] 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 the 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, almost all speakers can speak Spanish - see Welsh settlement in Argentina). However, many first language 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 of 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 refers to a nationalist stance applied to Wales or the ethnic Welsh people. It emphasizes the distinctiveness of Wales in its language, culture, and history. It is generally associated with a desire for greater self-determination for Wales or for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom 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 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 (the Welsh Language Society) from 1962.

Welsh as a first language is largely concentrated in the 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, 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 (Sir Ddinbych), Anglesey The Isle of Anglesey is 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 more recently constructed Britannia Bridge ( (Ynys Môn), 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. Carmarthenshire has its (Sir Gâr), north Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire is a county in the southwest of Wales (Sir Benfro), Ceredigion Ceredigion is a county and former kingdom in mid-west Wales. In extent it is more or less identical to the historic county of Cardiganshire (Welsh: Sir Aberteifi), created in 1282, and was reconstituted as a county under that name in 1996, reverting to Ceredigion a day later (Aberteifi), 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 boundaries known as Glywysing until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three preserved counties of West Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan and (Morgannwg), and north-west and extreme south-west Powys Powys is a local-government county and preserved county in Wales, although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales.

Bilingual road sign in Cardiff Cardiff (pronounced /ˈkɑːdɪf/ , Welsh: Caerdydd (info)) is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for Wales. According to recent estimates, the

Welsh is a living language, used in conversation by hundreds of thousands and seen throughout Wales. The Welsh Language Act 1993 The Welsh Language Act 1993 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which put the Welsh language on an equal footing with the English language in Wales with regard to the public sector and the Government of Wales Act 1998 The Government of Wales Act, 1998 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom provide that the Welsh and English languages be treated equally in the public sector, as 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 three month period, whereupon comments on it may be incorporated into a final version. It requires the final approval of the Welsh Language Board The Welsh Language Board is a statutory body set up by the UK Government as part of the Welsh Language Act 1993. It is now an Assembly Sponsored Public Body. Its current Chief Executive is Meirion Prys Jones and Chair Meri Huws (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 A Statutory Instrument is the principal form in which delegated or secondary legislation is made in Great Britain. Subsequent to the forming of the National Assembly for Wales The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs (Welsh: Aelod y Cynulliad / Aelod Seneddol). Members are elected for four year terms under an additional members system, where forty AMs represent geographical constituencies in 1997, the Government Minister responsible for the Welsh language can and has passed Statutory Instruments In law, a Statutory Instrument is a form of delegated or secondary legislation 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.[citation needed]

Local councils and the National Assembly for Wales The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs (Welsh: Aelod y Cynulliad / Aelod Seneddol). Members are elected for four year terms under an additional members system, where forty AMs represent geographical constituencies 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 placenames. However, some references to destinations in England are still given in English only, even where there are long-established Welsh names (e.g. London: Llundain; The [English] Midlands: Canolbarth Lloegr).

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 non-Welsh-speaking parents from elsewhere in the UK grow up with knowledge of or complete fluency of the language.

Although most road signs throughout Wales are bilingual, the wording on currency is in English only (This is apart from the legend on Welsh pound coins dated 1985 and 1990, which are legal tender in all parts of the UK: Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad, which means, "True am I to my country"), and derives from the Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" , usually translated as "Land of My Fathers", is, by tradition, the national anthem of Wales. The words were written by Evan James and the tune composed by his son, James James, both residents of Pontypridd, Glamorgan, in January 1856. The earliest written copy survives and is part of the collections of the, the national anthem of Wales. 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 The Royal Mint of the United Kingdom is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but has functioned since 1975 as a Trading Fund, operating in much the same way as a government-owned company. It now has executive agency status, and is currently undergoing the process of in Llantrisant, South Wales. Although many shops employ bilingual signage, Welsh still rarely appears on product packaging or instructions.[citation needed]

The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. It only applies to languages traditionally used by the nationals of the State Parties (thus excluding languages used by in respect of Welsh.[10]

A picture of a Welsh language road singe near Wrexham Wrexham is a town in Wales. It is the administrative centre of the wider Wrexham County Borough, and the largest town in North Wales, located to the east of the region. It is situated between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley close to the border with Cheshire, England. As North Wales' largest town, it is the region's main commercial, Central station in the year 2009.

The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel 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, BBC Two and Sky1) the fifth oldest British television channel (Channel 4 was launched in the rest of the United Kingdom one day later) in November 1982, which broadcasts 70% of Channel 4's programming along with a majority of Welsh language shows[11] 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. After the digital switchover Digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom encompasses over 100 television, radio and interactive services broadcast via the UK's terrestrial television network and receivable with a standard television aerial. The majority of services, including those from the existing five analogue broadcasters, are broadcast free-to-air, and a further is complete in South Wales on March 31, 2010, S4C Digidol will become the main broadcasting channel and fully in Welsh. The main evening television news provided by the BBC in Welsh is available for download.[12] 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,[13] owing to poor sales of subscriptions[citation needed] and the Welsh Assembly Government deeming the publication as not meeting the criteria necessary for the kind of public funding it needed to be rescued.[citation needed]

Since December 2001 the British Government has planned to ensure that all immigrants speak English. It remains to be seen if Welsh will be considered a separate case. At present, 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.[citation needed]

Vocabulary

Welsh vocabulary draws mainly from original Brythonic words (wy "egg", carreg "stone"), with some loans from Latin (ffenestr "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

In contrast to English practice, "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "w" and "y" are all considered vowel letters in Welsh.

The letter "j" is used in many everyday words borrowed from English, like jam, jôc "joke" and garej "garage". The letters "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.[14] 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.[15]

The most common diacritic is the circumflex, which disambiguates long vowels, most often in the case of homographs, where the vowel is short in one word and long in the other: e.g. man "place" vs mân "fine", "small".

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 [m̥], [n̥], and [ŋ̊], and voiceless rhotic [r̥]. 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 articles: Colloquial Welsh morphology and Literary 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.

Syntax

Main article: Welsh syntax

The canonical word order in Welsh is verb–subject–object.

Colloquial Welsh inclines very strongly towards the use of auxiliaries with its verbs. The present tense is constructed with bod ("to be") as an auxiliary verb, with the main verb appearing as a verbnoun (loosely equivalent to an infinitive) after the particle yn:

Mae Siân yn mynd i Lanelli
Siân is going to Llanelli.

Here mae is the third-person present form of bod, and mynd is the verb meaning "go". The imperfect tense is constructed in a similar manner, as are the periphrasitic forms of the future and conditional tenses.

In the preterite, future, and conditional tenses, there are inflected forms of all verbs (which are invariably used in the written language). However, it is more common nowadays in speech to use the verbnoun together with the inflected form of gwneud ("to do"), so "I went" can be Mi es i or Mi wnes i fynd. Mi is an example of a preverbal particle; such particles are common in Welsh.

Welsh lacks pronouns for constructing subordinate clauses; instead, preverbal particles and special verb forms are used.

Other features of Welsh grammar

Possessives as direct objects of verbal nouns

The Welsh for "I like Rhodri" is Dw i'n hoffi Rhodri ("I am in liking [of] Rhodri"), where Rhodri is in a possessive relationship to hoffi. With personal pronouns, the possessive form of the personal pronoun is used, as in "I like him" : Dw i'n ei hoffi – literally, "I am in his liking" – "I like you" is Dw i'n dy hoffi ("I am your liking").

Pronoun doubling

In colloquial Welsh, possessive pronouns, whether used in the conventional way to mean "my", "your", etc., or to indicate the direct object of a verbal noun, are commonly reinforced by the use of the corresponding personal pronoun after the noun or verbal noun: ei dŷ e "his house" (literally "his house of him"), Dw i'n dy hoffi di "I like you" ("I am [engaged in the action of] your liking of you"), etc. It should be noted that this "reinforcement" adds no emphasis to the colloquial register. While the possessive pronoun alone may be used (as is especially common in more formal registers as shown above), it is incorrect — and grammatically incomplete — to use only the personal pronoun.

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") to 99 (quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, literally "four twenty nineteen"). Welsh numbers from 11 to 14 are "x on ten", 16 to 19 are "x on fifteen" (though 18 is more usually "two nines"); numbers from 21 to 39 are "1–19 on twenty", 40 is "two twenties", 60 is "three twenties", etc.

There is also a decimal counting system, which has become relatively widely used, though less so in giving dates and ages. This system is especially in common use for larger numbers, and in Patagonian Welsh. In this system, numerals between 10 and 100 have the form "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 Tu Hwnt which means 'behind' or 'back from'). 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 Ych chi moyn dishgled? would be more likely (though in the South one would not be surprised to hear Ych chi isie paned? among other possibilities permitted by Welsh as by most living languages). An example of a pronunciation difference between Northern and Southern Welsh is the tendency in southern dialects to palatalise 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,[16] 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[17] 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 considered to fall broadly into two main styles—Colloquial Welsh (Cymraeg llafar) and Literary Welsh (Cymraeg llenyddol). The grammar described on this page is that of Colloquial Welsh, which is used in most speech and informal writing. Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh standardised by 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
More extensive use of simple verb forms More extensive use of periphrastic verb forms
No distinction between simple present and future (e.g. af "I go"/"I shall go") Simple form most often expresses only future (e.g. af i "I'll go")
Subjunctive verb forms Subjunctive in fixed idioms
3rd.pl ending and pronoun –nt hwy 3rd.pl ending and pronoun –n nhw

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. (North) Rwy'n codi'n gynnar bob dydd. (South)
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.[18] Doedd o ddim wedi sefyll yno'n hir.(North) (D)odd e ddim wedi sefyll yno'n hir. (South)
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 some forms of the spoken language and the most formal constructions of the literary. 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 popular Welsh grammar, observes that "The difference between these two is much greater than between the virtually identical colloquial and literary forms of English".[19] A grammar of Literary Welsh can be found in A Grammar of Welsh (1980) by Stephen J. Williams, or more completely in Gramadeg y Gymraeg (1998) by Peter Wynn Thomas (no comprehensive grammar of Welsh exists in English).

Most Welsh writing, especially that found on the Internet or in magazines, is closer to colloquial usage, though it is often argued that this preference results in questionable orthographical and grammatical choices.[who?] This is also becoming more common in artistic literature, where the parallel with the well-known works of Irvine Welsh or Niall Griffiths may be helpful to understand the effect, and the controversy.

Ultimately, the labels Colloquial and Literary may be no more (or less) than convenient approximations: the spoken (i.e. colloquial) language naturally permits the use of formal as well as informal registers, and written (i.e. literary) conventions are likewise flexible in use of registers.

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)[20] 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".[21]

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 tried in vain to get rid of this bigotry. 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 has been credited[by whom?] for with The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 after which several new Welsh Schools were built, the first of which was built in 1894 and named Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen.

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.[22] 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 choose 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 Welsh Assembly Government has recently set up six centres of excellence in the teaching of Welsh for Adults, with centres in North Wales (learncymraeg.org), Mid Wales, South West, Glamorgan, Gwent and Cardiff. 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.[24]

Welsh in information technology

Further information: List of Celtic language media

As with many of the worlds languages, the Welsh language has seen an increased use and presence on the internet, ranging from formal lists of terminology in a variety of fields[25] to Welsh language interfaces for Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Microsoft Office, and OpenOffice, a variety of Linux distributions, and on-line services to blogs kept in Welsh.[26] A variety of websites are also available in Welsh: the social networking site Facebook has offered a Welsh version since 2009, and Wikipedia since July 2003.[27]

Mobile phone technology

At the National Eisteddfod of Wales 2009, an announcement was published by the Welsh Language Board that the mobile phone company Samsung was to work with the network provider Orange to provide the first mobile phone in the Welsh language,[28] with the interface and the T9 dictionary on the Samsung S5600 available in the Welsh language. The model, available with the Welsh language interface, has been available since 1 September 2009, with plans to introduce it on other networks.[29]

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.[30]

Use of Welsh at the European Union

In November 2008, 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. 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." [31]

See also

Wales portal

Notes

  1. ^ 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey: the report - Welsh Language Board
  2. ^ UNHCR | Refworld | World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - United Kingdom : Welsh
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ "Taking Tea and Tortes With the Welsh In Distant Patagonia". The New York Times. 3 April 2005. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E4D7153FF930A35757C0A9639C8B63&sec=travel&spon=&pagewanted=2. Retrieved 6 April 2010.
  5. ^ a b c 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey: the report (on-line). Accessed 21 March 2010
  6. ^ "Greetings to the Universe in 55 Different Languages". NASA. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/languages.html. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
  7. ^ "Welsh greetings". NASA. http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/languages/welsh.html. Retrieved 2009-05-10.
  8. ^ Nigel Callaghan (1993). More Welsh Speakers than Previously Believed (on-line). Accessed 21 March 2010
  9. ^ Janet Davies, University of Wales Press, Bath (1993). The Welsh Language, page 34
  10. ^ List of declarations made with respect to treaty No. 148
  11. ^ Welsh language provision at S4C Analogue
  12. ^ BBC website (Real Media).
  13. ^ Daily Welsh newspaper abandoned, BBC News Online, 15 February 2008
  14. ^ Thomas, Peter Wynn (1996) Gramadeg y Gymraeg. Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 757.
  15. ^ English and Welsh, an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien
  16. ^ Thomas, B. and Thomas, P. W. Cymraeg, Cymrâg, Cymrêg: cyflwyno'r tafodieithoedd, published by Gwasg Taf, ISBN 0-948469-14-5. Out of print
  17. ^ Thomas, A. R. 1973 Linguistic Geography of Wales
  18. ^ Klingebiel, Kathryn. 234 Welsh Verbs: Standard Literary Forms. Belmont, Massachusetts: Ford & Bailie. p. 223. ISBN 0-926689-04-5.
  19. ^ King, G. Modern Welsh: A Comprehensive Grammar, published by Routledge, ISBN 0-415-09269-8 p3
  20. ^ "'Treacherous' Blue Books online", BBC News Online
  21. ^ John Davies, Hanes Cymru (1993) (also in English translation as A History of Wales, Penguin, 1994, ISBN 0-14-014581-8)
  22. ^ "Local UK languages 'taking off'", BBC News Online
  23. ^ Welsh medium or bilingual provision, Welsh Language Board
  24. ^ More information can be found at Welsh for Adults.org
  25. ^ The Welsh National Database of Standardised Terminology was released in March 2006.
  26. ^ Selections of Welsh-language blogs are listed on the sites Y Rhithfro and Blogiadur.
  27. ^ Welsh Wikipedia on Wikipedia.org
  28. ^ World's first Welsh language mobile phone launched (publish date: 25/08/2009)
  29. ^ BBC
  30. ^ Heath, Tony (1996-08-26). "Welsh speak up for their ancient tongue". The Independent: pp. 6.
  31. ^ Walesonline.co.uk

References

External links

Welsh language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Welsh language
Wikibooks has more on the topic of Welsh language

Statistical data

Dictionaries

Welsh language edition of Wiktionary, the free dictionary/thesaurus

Welsh Language Courses

Welsh linguistics
History of Welsh · Old Welsh · Middle Welsh · Modern Welsh
Grammar · Phonology · Morphology · Syntax · Numerals · Orthography
Celtic languages
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Celtic-speaking areas Gaeltachtaí · Gàidhealtachd · Y Fro Gymraeg
Immersive education Bunscoill Ghaelgagh · Diwan · Gaelic medium education · Gaelscoil · Welsh medium education
Italics indicate extinct languages.
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Celtic League definition Brittany · Cornwall · Ireland · Isle of Man · Scotland · Wales
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Languages Brythonic: Breton · Cornish · Welsh Goidelic: Irish · Manx · Scottish Gaelic Mixed: Shelta · Bungee
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Categories: Welsh language | Brythonic languages | Languages of the United Kingdom | Wales | Welsh culture

 

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A. yac ey dah thats all i know oh and a welsh song go's: och yey lan oh mine shad ill loma lay la. yes i am aware that i have probebly spelt every thing wrong! well i tried. 10 points please
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