one of the longest in Europe. It had an enviable coherence, for the
literary language was the same in old parts of Wales. It was spoken
throughout the land to the west of Offa's Dyke and in some communities
to the east of it. It was deeply rooted in the territory of the people
who spoke it. They had used it to name their churches and their
settlements, their rivers and their hills. Following the Battle of
Hastings in 1066, it came face to face with the French of the Normans.
The victory of William of Normandy led to the expropriation of the
land of England by the knew king and his followers.
French words become assimilated into Welsh (cwarel (windowpane),
palffrai (palfrey), ffiol (viol), barwn (baron), gwarant (warrant))
and Welsh literature come to be influenced by French forms and
conventions. A few places in Wales, such as Beaupry, Beaumaris, Grace
Dieu and Hay (la Haie Taillee) were given French names and Norman
French personal names - Richard, Robert and William, for example -
eventually won popularity among the Welsh.
As a result of population movements English has been the spoken
language of some communities in Wales for at least 800 years. That’s
why in Welsh appeared words from it: capan (cap), sidan (silk), berfa
(wheelbarrow), bwrdd (table), llidiart (gate). But despite the influx
of French and English speakers, Wales remained overwhelmingly Welsh-
speaking throughout the Middle Ayes and beyond. In most of the marcher
lordships - Brecоn and Abergovenny, for example - the vast majority of
the population was monoglot Welsh, and in lordships such as Кnockin
and Сlun and Huntingdon and Clifford the Welsh speaker population was
considerable.
Indicative of the growth of English influence was the adoption of
fixed surnames, after the English pattern, instead of Welsh
patronymics. Thus Richard ap Meurig ap Lleurig apliywelyn of Bodorgan
up Gwilym of Brecon become Richard Meyrick, and John ap Rhys Gwilym of
Brecon become John Price. Most of the new surnames were based upon the
father's Christian name - Jones (John), Davies (David), Powell (ap
Hywel), but some were based on a nick-name - Lloyd (Llwyd - grey),
Voyle (Moel - bald), an occupation - bought (Gof - blacksmith). The
changes had occurred among the gentry by the mid-sixteenth century and
virtually completed among all classes by the late seventeenth century,
but as late as the mid-nineteenth century there are examples of a son
taking his Father's Christian name as his surname.
From the seventeenth century, in the era of industrialisation in
Welsh language changes took place. The growth of industry allowed
Wales to sustain far more people than had been possible under the old
agricultural economy. Some of them came from beyond the borders of
Wales. In 1851, the Welsh population included 115000 people born in
England and 20000 born in Ireland. Of course they took their languages
with them, which little by little mixed with Welsh. But most of areas
were Welsh-speaking and, in colonising their own country the Welsh
brought their language from the countryside to the towns. That’s why
alone among the Celtic languages, Welsh has had a considerable degree
of success in becoming an urban tongue. By 1851, large numbers of
Welsh speakers lived in mass urban communities in which the language
could be used in a new range of activities. Also in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was widely practised in
Wales the coining of new words, which has been greatly stimulated by
the needs of modern society. Cyfrifiaduron (computers) with their
maddal medd (software) and caledwedd (hardware) are one of the many
fields in which a new Welsh terminology has been invented. Coinages
such as darllediad (broadcast), tonfedd (wave length) and orian brig
(peak hours) trip naturally off the tongues of broadcasters. Sports
commentaries lead to a wide range of neologisms, with those for rugby
(the work of Eric Davies) being particularly apt and idiomatic. Words
old and new have been collected in the most ambitions lexicographical
project yet undertaken in Wales.
Analysing all the information about Welsh-speakers I made a table
which I called "Development of Welsh-speaking population in Wales".
Development of Welsh-speaking population in Wales.
|years |welsh-speaking population |% of total population |
|1891 |910280 |54,4 |
|1901 |929824 |49,9 |
|1911 |977366 |43,5 |
|1921 |922092 |37,1 |
|1931 |909261 |36,8 |
|1951 |714686 |28,9 |
|1961 |656002 |26,0 |
|1971 |542425 |20,9 |
|1981 |508207 |18,9 |
|1991 |510920 |18,7 |
As you see from the table, the Welsh-speaking population of Wales
reduces greatly on 1931-51. The main reason of it is the Second World
War. And it also reduced greatly from 1961 till 1971. I don't know
exactly, but it seems to me the main reason from it is the problems in
the industry (mostly in coal-mining) and migration.
Also, the population of Welsh-speaking people was decreasing from
1921 to 1971, and was increasing from the beginning of the Welsh
language to 1911 and from 1981 till our days. At once the question
arises: "What happened in 1981?" There are a lot of factors which
influenced the growing of Welsh-speaking population from the 1981.
They are: development of education in Welsh, appearance of the
periodical press and books in Welsh, creation of radio and TV stations
in Welsh, appearance of "institutions" which protect the Welsh, and
the growing of national identity. Of course all this factors were
present in the 1950s and 1970s, but in 1990s they were in its heyday.
It is very interesting to say that many pupils who learn Welsh think
that Welsh is not a difficult language to learn and that it is easier
to learn than English. Unlike English, it has the inestimable
advantage of being largely phonetic; that is, the words are pronounced
as they are written, with non of the confusion which arises in English
over such words as cough, bough, through, though and thorough. While
English has several letters (g, h and k, for example) which are often
not pronounced at all, every letter in Welsh is pronounced.
The Welsh alphabet consists of twenty simple letters and eight
digraphs (two letters combining to produce a different sound, as with
ch and th), an unusual feature to include in an alphabet. Welsh has no
j, k, q, l, x or z. Most of the simple letters present no
difficulties, but it should be noted that c is always pronounced to
correspond with the English k, f with v and s with ss.
The Welsh alphabet:
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
Pronunciation of digraphs:
|ch as in loch |ll ch followed by l |
|dd as in that |ph as in pharmacy |
|ff as in fair |rh as in Rhein |
|ng as in singing |th as in thin |
In almost all Welsh words, the stress falls on the last syllable,
but one: gorymdaith; athro; ammnydifуad. In those cases where the
stress falls on the last syllable, it is usually the result of a
contraction in the word: Cymraeg was originally Cym-ra-eg, and paratoi
pa-ra-to-i. Some words borrowed from English also retain the original
accentuation: apel; polisi; paragraff.
The noun has two genders, masculine and a feminine. The "it" of
English doesn't exist.
As an French everything is either "he" or "she". Some adjectives
have masculine and feminine forms. Thus gwyn (white) is (g)wen when
following a feminine forms. Some adjectives also have singular and
plural forms. Dyn tew is a fat man, dynion tewnion fat men. Where
plurals are concerned, Welsh recognises that some things come in
pairs. Thus llaw (hand) has the plural dwylaw (two hands). To anyone
used to English plurals, with almost universal addition of s, the
variety of Welsh plural forms can appear wilfully multifarious. There
are seven ways of forming the plural.
Plural forms in Welsh:
adding a termination: afal (apple) afalau
vowel change: bran (crow) brain
adding a termination with a vowel change: mab (son) meibion
dropping a singular ending: pluen (feather) plu
dropping a singular ending with a vowel change: hwyadden (duck)
hwyaid
substituting a plural for a singular ending: cwningen (rabbit)
cwningod
substituting a plural ending for a singular with vowel change:
miaren (bramble) mieri
The numerals in Welsh also have distinctive features. Twenty is the
basic unit in counting: ugain (twenty), deugain (two twenties -
forty), trigain (three twenties - sixty), pedwar ugain (four twenties
- eighty), followed by cant (a hundred) and sometimes by chwe ugain
(six twenties - a hundred and twenty). The teens offer interesting
complications: fourteen is pedwar ar ddeg (four plus ten), and
eighteen is deunaw (two nines).
In English, the order of the words in sentence is subject, verb,
object, indirect object. (The girl gave a book to her friend) In Welsh
it is verb, subject, object, indirect object:
Rhoddodd y ferch lyfr i'w chyfaill
Gave the girl a book to her friend
This order can be varied for the sake of emphasis or to ask a
question:
Ceffyl a welodd y plentyn?
Horse saw the child (Was it a
horse the child saw?)
The adjective is almost always placed after the noun. When it is
not, the meaning may be different. Ci unig means a lonely dog, but
unig gi means the only dog; hen gyfaill means a friend of long
standing, but cyfaill hen means an aged friend.
The genitive expressed in English by an apostrophe s, is expressed
in Welsh by putting what is owned immediately before the owner: ci
Lowri - Lowri's dog; ty y dyn - the man's house.
It is very interesting to say that written Welsh and spoken Welsh
are very different. For a example, it is continued use in written
Welsh of the ending nt in the third person plural of the verb, as in
daethant (they came), which in speech becomes daethan. Another example
is hwy, which in speech becomes nhw.
“I sing” in standard written Welsh is canaf, but the usual spoken
form is yr wyf i canu (I am singing). This use of the verb to be (yr
wyr) with the verb noun (canu) may have been inherited by the incoming
Celts from the pre-Celtic population. The construction has been copied
in English to give the form “I am singing”, a construction not found
in other Germanic languages.
Although Welsh has no indefinite article. Thus, the dog is y ci, but
a dog is simply ci. This a feature Welsh shares with the other Celtic
language, as is the conjugation of prepositions and the absence of
over purpose words for years and no.
Although Welsh has absorbed words from other languages, Latin,
French and particularly English among them, its basic vocabulary is
still largely of Celtic origin. This is also true of more technical
words. Thus, while English words such as national, political,
industrial and philosophical have equivalents in French, German, and
other European languages which are very similar, Welsh uses its own
indigenous words – cenedlaethol, gwleidyddol, diwydiannol and
athronyddol. Indeed, it has a very considerable ability to coin words
from its resources, although the sloppy speech of many Welsh-speakers,
overloaded as it is with unnecessary English borrowings, can give the
contrary impression.
The Welsh language has survived at all. Since the act of union in
1536 when it was virtually banned, it has been subjected to direct and
indirect bombardment which should have demolished it once and for all.
It has been neglected and discouraged for over four hundred years yet
it is still very much alive. Today it is tolerated by many, rejected
by many. It is used by a large number of people as a natural means of
communication.
Now the scholars discussed the problem of the position of the Wales
language. It could be claimed that its position is precisely in the
centre, a point emphasised by Tom Nail in his analysis of the non-
state nationalities of Europe. Although the Welsh-speakers are by no
means among the larger groups, Welsh has a far higher status than
several of the more widely spoken languages. Although the density
factor if fairly low, Welsh-speakers live in a country, the other
inhabitants of which recognise their kinship with the language, a
bonus of immerse importance. The centrality of Welsh is interesting in
itself. It may also be important, for if Welsh can solve its problems,
other languages can hope to do so too
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Davies Janet, The Welsh language, Cardiff, 1993.
1. Green Mirinda, The Celtic World, London, 1996.
2. Williams Stephen, A Welsh grammar, Cardiff, 1995.
3. McDowall David, An illustrated history of Britain, London, 1995
4. Khimunina T.N., Customs, traditions and Festivals of Great Britain,
Moscow, 1984.
5. Zaitseva S. D., Early Britain, Moscow, 1975.
6. Discover Welsh, London, 1997.
7. Clementiyev A.G., English literature, Moscow, 1968.
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