Talk:Welsh language/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about Welsh language. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Dishgled

Is this word spelled correctly? I didn't think Welsh had the digraph "sh"... FilipeS 15:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I am hesitant to comment on proper spelling so I'll just look for sources :) A search for "dishgled -wikipedia" (to exclude mirrors of this page) gets a smallish bunch of hits: everything from the BBC's Welsh pages to blogs written in Welsh, so obviously people are happy to spell it that way. Geiriadur yr Academi says, when I look up "cup": "...(=cupful) [standard and northern bits deleted] S dysglaid (dysgleidiau) f (usu pronounded dishgled), SW occ dished (disheidiau)." So it obviously thinks that sh can happen. The Welsh Learner's Dictionary certainly spells it dishgled, (and includes not only 12 words beginning with j but 2 beginning with k, which I suspect will cause some to blink.) Telsa (talk) 17:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Being a northerner, I don't really use the word, but I think I'd spell it disgled; on the other hand, I have no problem with 'dishgled'. The sound 'sh' is a bit funny in Welsh - originally it only ever occurred as an allophone of [s] next to high front vowels, so the normal way to spell it in modern Welsh is 'si' (as in Sian). The problem is that when there's no other vowel following, such a spelling seems to imply that the 'i' is to be pronounced (think of 'disigled'). One solution is to write just 's' (think of 'wats') and let the reader make the decision - English spelling does this all the time. But I don't think we should shun 'sh' - it seems an elegant and immediately recognisable way to write the sound in 'dis(h)gled'. When it comes to representing foreign placenames in Welsh, especially where tranliteration is necessary, a spelling like 'sh' seems eminently sensible. With reference to Russia for example, I'm very much in favour of writing 'Fladifostoc' and Raspwtin in Welsh, rather than borrowing transliterations from English that don't work in Welsh; in this context Bashcir seems preferable to both Bashkir and Bascir. I have more of an issue with 'k', which I think is redundant. I write 'cilo-' for example. garik 13:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

But don't southerners pronounce "s" as [sh] by default, before consonants? Then it would be redundant to add an "h"... FilipeS 15:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of that - but yes, in that case it would be. garik 17:21, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Do they though?garik 13:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The article says they do. Search for the word "lisp". FilipeS 14:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The article says it's a tendency to change 's' to 'sh'. Thus it only happens in some words. Nobody would pronounce cysgu (to sleep) as 'cyshgu'. Gareth 19:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

In that case, the article needs to be made clearer. FilipeS 10:15, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

A good example of the southern 'lisp' is the pronunciation of, for instance, "sir" (county) as "shir" Hogyn Lleol 19:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

But of course that's not before a consonant, but an [i]. I can't think offhand of a good example of a Southern lisp before a consonant - as Gareth says, no one would say 'cyshgu'. garik 14:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't dis(h)gled be one such example? :-) FilipeS 18:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, but that's the word in question, and I think it's a special case for two reasons: first, it's related to English 'dish' - and if the pronunciation is not borrowed from that, then there's a very good chance it's heavily influenced by it; second, it's got an [i] in it (before the 's', granted, but still...) garik 09:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Old Welsh

In the chapter on Old Welsh, an Anonymus has inserted "Welsh is also among one of the oldest languages in Britain, even older than English, and French." I would like to delete this sentence. That a language is "old" or "older" than others is nothing more than a popular stereotype. This can be said about most languages. How about: Inuit is a very old language. It is even older than Basque. As to the age of Welsh, it sais in the article that the oldest documents are dated back to the 6th century. Now, Old English usually is dated back to the 5th century, which makes it older. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Unoffensive text or character (talk • contribs) 11:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought about that too, and in general saying that X is an "old language" is pretty meaningless. But in this case I think what the anon is trying to get at is the fact that Welsh has been spoken in Britain longer than English, and indeed longer than any language still spoken in Britain except Cornish. If that is what was meant, and if it's considered interesting enough to mention, then the sentence merely needs to be re-written rather than deleted. Angr 12:17, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

But then, in the article it says that Old Welsh goes back to the sixth century, while Old English, as we all know, goes back to the fifth. Which makes Old English the "older" language. The language spoken in Wales before the sixth century is obviously not documented and it seems that it is not called "Old Welsh" by linguists, but "Brythonic", which evolved into Welsh in about the same way that Latin evolved into French, Italian, etc.

If I were to rewrite the sentence (which I will not do, as I consider my English not good enough), I would say that Old Welsh evolved from Brythonic which was spoken on the island long before the Frisian, Anglian and Jutish settlers arrived, who brought with them Germanic dialects that then evolved into English.Unoffensive text or character 09:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's a good point too. Welsh isn't older in any meaningful sense than English, and it isn't attested from an earlier date than English, and saying that Brythonic languages have been spoken in Britain for longer than Germanic languages have isn't really relevant to the section on Old Welsh, so I'm just going to remove the sentence. Angr 09:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, I've seen it argued that Old English was a different language from modern English, so the "6th century" figure seems arguable, too. Here's what I think is worth mentioning in the article: Welsh, or its direct ancestor, has been in Great Britain for longer than English or its ancestors. Old English speakers arrived in the island only in the 5th century, to the best of our knowledge, whereas some ancestor of Welsh had been spoken there since before Julius Caesar's time (1st century BC), and likely for much longer than that, since the Celts migrated to the British Isles. FilipeS 11:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Any standard that makes Old English a different language from Modern English also makes Old Welsh a different language from Modern Welsh, so we're back where we started. And while it's certainly true that the ancestor language of Welsh was spoken in Britain many centuries before the ancestor language of English, I at least don't find that factoid particularly interesting or worth mentioning inthe article. Angr 12:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, it's just as interesting as when you say, for instance, that "Basque may be the descendant of the language(s) spoken in the Iberian Peninsula before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans", or that "Scots is the closest relative to English still spoken today", or that "Frisian is the closest language to English and Scots spoken in the European mainland today". Not only does it establish relations between languages, but it also tells you something about their history, where they came from, and how they got where they are. Pretty interesting and revelant, IMO. FilipeS 14:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Christopher in Welsh

I was putting the equivalents/transliterations of Christopher in different languages into alphabetical order at the Christopher article. The Welsh equivalent was listed as Llcrhifers, however when I Googled it there were only two hits both from the same article. Could anyone give the correct one, if any? Thanks. --Chris S. 22:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what it is, but I know it isn't Llcrhifers. Welsh has some weird phonology, but it certainly doesn't have the consonant cluster [ɬkr̥] at the beginnings of words. Angr 23:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's a webpage in Welsh showing a painting of "Sant Cristoffer", so I guess Cristoffer is the name you're going for. Angr 23:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Welsh in IT

It seems to have been archived away, but User:Garik raised some problems with the Welsh in IT section: the stuff about frequencies according to search engines has no source and looks like WP:OR. I tried to find out where it might have come from and failed. Does anyone see a reason to keep it? Telsa (talk) 16:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No, I'd scrap that paragraph. Gareth 18:47, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

ap/map

Hello! I seek advise. When did the contraction map become ap? Someone suggested the whole line of Welsh leaders need to be changed... thus Llywelyn Map Gruffudd. I am weary of this idea but have no sources to say that it is incorrect useage for a 12th cenutry Welsh patronomic. Any assistance will be appreciated!

Thanks!Drachenfyre 14:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know when the loss of the initial consonant took place, but it was certainly a [v], not an [m], that was lost, since nouns in apposition undergo Soft Mutation in Welsh. —An gr 14:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Colloquial Welsh = Cymraeg Byw?

This is in regard to the use of "Cymraeg Byw" as a Welsh gloss for "Colloquial Welsh" both in this article and Welsh morphology. Every time I've encountered the term Cymraeg Byw it's in reference to the specific form of (somewhat) colloquial, standardized Welsh created and promoted in the '60s and '70s for adult learners and the like. The first few pages of Google results for Cymraeg Byw (including cy:Cymraeg ysgrifenedig) use the term to describe this form of Welsh. Is Cymraeg Byw really used to mean simply "Colloquial Welsh" among Welsh speakers? And if so, should some note be made about the two possible meanings? Strad 00:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I've certainly never heard it used to mean colloquial Welsh, only that sort of somewhat artificial Welsh promoted in the 60s and 70s. To be honest though, I've never really heard the term used much at all. garik 09:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Welsh: Romance or Celtic?

Can anyone explain why Welsh is classed as a Celtic language, when its vocabulary (at least) is so obviously derived from Latin? Why is this not mentioned in the article? TharkunColl 12:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Welsh has a large number of loanwords from Latin, but its most basic vocabulary is native Celtic. Its morphology and syntax are purely Celtic. —An gr 13:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. I would add that several scholars would be happy to define English as Romano-Germanic, since its structures and vocabulary have been so heavily influenced by Latin (both directly and via French) - I believe somewhere in the region of 75% of native Germanic vocabulary has been lost (just try reading Beowulf). But the same is only true of Welsh insofar as it's true of almost all European languages. I think there's a case for acknowledging two parents of English, but taken too far, we'd be forced to class most languages with preposterously long prefixes, probably beginning "anglo-"... garik 13:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the number of Latin loanwords in Welsh is probably much greater than in most other non-Romance languages (another example being Albanian, and English if you count French words of Latin origin). And English structure (morphology and syntax) isn't particularly Romance; in English too it's really only the vocabulary that's been heavily influenced. —An gr 13:28, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes OK, Welsh is somewhat more heavily influenced than many - but don't forget there are a surprising number of Latin loans even in several of the Slavonic languages; and let's not forget how many basic German words are Latin in origin (Kaese, Mauer etc). But yes, the influence has been heavier on Welsh and English. I'd disagree with you that there's not much Romance influence on English morphology and syntax, although this is probably not the place for such a discussion. With regard to Welsh, I'm often surprised (and, I have to admit, quite pleased) to see how many native words Welsh has kept, and devised, for certain concepts that for so may other languages seem to accept as 'international' (though some, granted, have distant Latin forbears) e.g. cyfalafiaeth, rhyngrwyd, awyren, athro (for professor), not to mention military ranks like cadfridog. garik 14:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the "window of opportunity" for Welsh to borrow words from Latin ended much sooner than with other languages. Words for concepts that arose in the Renaissance are more likely to be native calques (like the ones you mentioned above), while Latin loanwords tend to be for surprisingly mundane objects and basic concepts (saeth "arrow", llaeth "milk", nifer "number"). —An gr 14:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Welsh is classed as a Celtic language because that is what it is. A large number of loan-words or influence by another language generally does not change the Celtic roots and basis of Welsh. siarach 14:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

True - English is rather a special case here (I probably wouldn't go so far as some in thinking of it as a creole, however). And it's interesting how some languages seem happy to leave these windows of opportunity open, while others seem to try to shut it firm. Angr, do you happen to know anything about the origins of llefrith? I've often wondered if it and llaeth were both developments from the same Latin source, or whether llefrith was a Celtic cognate. garik 14:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head. I'm at work right now, but I can look it up in the GPC when I get home. —An gr 14:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, according to GPC, llefrith (originally meaning "new/fresh milk" more specifically than just "milk") is dissimilated from *lleflith, which is a compound of *llef "soft" (cf. Old Irish lem) and blith "milking". Old Irish has a similar compound lemlacht with the same first element, which also underwent dissimilation to lemnacht. Both forms leamhnacht and leamhlacht "new milk" are around in Modern Irish. According to the Dictionary of the Irish Language the second element of lemlacht is the Latin loanword lacht, but I think that it (like the Welsh) could also come from *lemo-mlixti-, in which case the entire compound would go back at least to Proto-Insular Celtic. —An gr 18:49, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

English certainly has a massive number of French (and therefore mostly ultimately Latin) words, but interestingly something like 90 percent of the words used in every day, informal conversations are of Germanic origin. Furthermore, the French derived words tend to refer to more abstact or technical concepts. As far as I can gather, the very opposite is true in Welsh. The Latin words form the bulk of every day words for mundane things such as "window", "shit" "god" "horse", days of week - and these are just picked at random. It is almost as if there was a dialect of Latin that was later overlaid with a Celtic dialect, in the same way that English was later overlaid with French. TharkunColl 14:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... ffenest "window" is a loanword from Latin, but windows are relatively new technology in human history (and German Fenster is borrowed from the same source). Cach "shit" isn't a loanword from Latin; it's from *kakka, and calling shit kakka or kaka is almost as universal as calling your mother mamma or mama. Duw "God" isn't a loanword from Latin either; it's cognate to Deus but not derived from it. Ceffyl "horse" is a loanword from Latin, but for some reason European languages are fond of replacing that word with others (practically no single modern European language's word for horse is derived from *h₁ekwos). The idea of a 7-day week with each day having a name spread throughout Europe with the Romans; even in the Germanic languages the names are simply translations of the Latin. I don't think it's true that the vast majority of words used in everyday Welsh are of Latin origin, though a hefty chunk of them are. —An gr 15:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

So Latin has influenced Welsh in a similar matter to English? Interesting. Makes sense though. Angr, excuse my ignorance but is *h₁ekwos the ancestor of Latin equus?Cameron Nedland 15:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd say Latin has influenced Welsh in a similar manner to how French has influenced English. Yes, *h₁ekwos is the ancestor of Latin equus, and a bunch of other words for horse in other early IE languages, almost all of which have since been replaced by unrelated words. —An gr 15:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info bro.Cameron Nedland 20:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Diglossia: Literary vs. Colloquial Welsh

Some examples of sentences with roughly the same meaning written in the two registers would be very informative TheVenerableBede 10:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. I hope people approve of the examples chosen. garik 12:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Vocab Question

Since Welsh 'c' is always hard like a 'k', are Latin loanwords with a 'c' always 'hard'? Is 'centre' pronounced something like 'kentro'?Cameron Nedland 15:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, c is always /k/, even in Latin loanwords, but the Welsh word for "centre" is canol and isn't borrowed from Latin. —An gr 15:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I mean are there any Latin words where we have an 's' sound that is orthographically a 'c' that Welsh pronounces 'k'?Cameron Nedland 20:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The factoid I have heard about Latin words in Welsh is that sometimes 's' changes to 'h': sal (salt) becomes halen and Sabrina (the Severn) becomes the Hafren. (with a b->v sound too, I suppose). Erm. Well. I have heard it about those two words, at least. :) Telsa (talk) 23:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

True, although these aren't loanwords as such, but cognates - haul/sol, hen/senex are other examples. It's interesting to compare Greek, which has Helios for sun and (I think) halas for salt. Though I think I'm right in saying that the /h/ is no longer pronounced in modern Greek. The other one I've always found interesting with regard to Welsh is Greek agora - an open space. Hafren/Sabrina, on the other hand, is thought to come from a pre-Celtic name. On the other side of things, Latin borrowed a Celtic word for beer cervisia, represented in Welsh by cwrw. The word car is also ultimately of Celtic origin, though I've never been able to discover if Welsh borrowed the modern word from English (which got it from Latin via French) or inherited it from its own ancestors. The plural form implies to me that it inherited it, but I'm still not so sure. garik 00:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ancient Greek 'h' often co-incides with Latin 's', look at 'hyper' and 'super'. 'Halas' for salt makes sense, considering Halogen. However, the 'h' is not pronounced in Greek anymore.01:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Precisely. garik 02:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

But back to my original question, are there Latin roots in Welsh with a hard 'c' where most other languages have softened them?Cameron Nedland 14:21, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

How about cell "cell", which is pronounced /kɛɬ/? There's also cinio "dinner" (/kɪnjɔ/), which is presumably from Latin cena, and cedr "cedars" (/kɛdɛr/). I can't come up with any other Latin borrowings that have -ce- or -ci- offhand. However, the only words I can think of in Welsh where "c" does not always represent /k/ are centimedr/centimetr and centilitr. Most people I know tend to pronounce these with /s/, but some do say /k/ (and mutate it where necessary). On the other hand, I've also seen sentimedr/sentimedr written, though this is fairly rare. Of course these are French, not Latin, words, so the French (and English) influence is still strong. garik 15:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks cell is interesting. Cedr reminds me of Russian Kedr which also means Cedar. I also have a bad tendency to lump French, Norman, and Latin words into one group (Latinish?), sorry about that.Cameron Nedland 20:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Cenedl heb raith iaith, cenedl heb galon

Does this belong in the article anywhere? I personally like the phrase. (A country without a language is a country without a heart.)Cameron Nedland 16:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Circumflexes

A simple question - What is the easiest way to insert letters with circumflexes when editing? (i.e. â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ) Up till now I've just copied/pasted characters from another page (as I did here!), but I assume there is an easier way of inserting characters. Hogyn Lleol 09:36, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

They're all in the character insertion box below where it says Do not copy text from other websites without permission. It will be deleted below the edit box. Just click on the character you want to insert. —An gr 10:31, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. Yes, I must have seen that a thousand times, of course, yet successfully seem to ignore it! Hogyn Lleol 11:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Welsh a lot closer to French than to English

After I made that edit, my wife pointed out that "fenest" is not so different from the German "fenster", and therefore not a good example.

However, I'm pretty sure I'm right, Welsh is a long way from English, and much closer to French. Both in vocabulary and grammar.

And it's important to make this distinction, since some people assume Welsh is rather like "Scouse" or "Geordie".

PS - it may be that my contributions belong in a different place, but I couldn't see a better place for it to go.

PPS - "Loan words" are another facet of the discussion that must be introduced somewhere, since there are so many and some people assume that the Welsh copy the English, when it's the other way round!

TomRawlinson 12:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Both ffenest and Fenster are loan words from Latin fenestra. Welsh isn't close to French or English, because it's a Celtic language. It has many loanwords from Latin, many loanwords from English, and probably several from French, but that doesn't make it "close" in any linguistically meaningful sense to any of those languages. When linguists speak of languages being "close", they mean that the languages descended from a common ancestor. In this sense, Welsh is closest to Breton and Cornish, and then not quite so close to the Goidelic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. It is important to discuss loanwords when discussing a language's vocabulary, but it is also important not to be confused by loanwords into thinking a language is closely related to another when in fact it has only borrowed from the other. Navajo has borrowed words from English and Spanish, but it isn't "close" to either of them. And incidentally, "vicar" isn't a loanword from Welsh either; it's from Latin vicarius. —An gr 13:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Unless you've got in the back of your mind the Italo-Celtic hypothesis? Were that correct, then Welsh (and other Celtic languages) and French (and other Romance languages) would be descended from a common branch less far back up the evolutionary Indo-European tree than the branching off of the Germanic languages. But since it probably isn't correct, they probably aren't. Man vyi 14:29, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

As Angr pointed out, Welsh isn't particularly close to French or English; it's closest to the other Brythonic languages with which it shares a myriad of grammatical features. Strad 17:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I would add that not all linguists see closeness purely as a matter of descent - language family trees are much messier than is normally pretended. English, for example, has been more heavily influenced by French than Swedish. It would therefore be quite reasonable to say that English is in some respects closer to French than Swedish is. Of course, this depends on what aspects of the language we're talking about, and reasons may be found to argue that Swedish is closer. The point is that a language can be close in some sense to another language not in the same family, owing to contact (think Sprachbuende). The other problem is how to measure relatively closeness in any dimension - though there is a highly interesting project underway at Edinburgh concerned with quantifying phonetic closeness. garik 21:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The nicest way to describe the situation is that Welsh is a sister language of Breton and Cornish, and a cousin of Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic. It has borrowed heavily from French and Latin, not unlike English, which is still a Germanic language. --MacRusgail 20:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Subjunctive?

Quick question on the table in the Diglossia section. It seems to indicate that the subjunctive is used in literary Welsh, but is not used in colloquial Welsh except in fixed expressions. Is that correct? It seems to me that that's a major point, perhaps worthy of a sentence later in the grammar section. | Mr. Darcy talk 20:07, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I am confident at least in saying that in colloquial Welsh the subjunctive only pops up in fixed expressions like da boch chi [may you be well = goodbye]. Literary Welsh grammar books talk about a subjunctive and give conjugated forms for it, but as to how frequently it's used I'm not sure. Strad 00:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. If someone has a good grammar of modern Welsh that addresses the subject, it would be great to get a cited sentence or two in this article on how common that mood's use is in the language today. Since the subjunctive barely exists as a distinct mood in English (it may be there but rarely requires any change to the verb), it's often a big stumbling block for native English speakers looking to learn languages that employ it. | Mr. Darcy talk 17:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is all correct, namely that in spoken Welsh the use of the subj. is restricted to set phrases & proverbs, and most common is the subjunctive form of 'bod' (to be)

Examples include-

Hidiwch be' fo! (never mind!)
Lle bo angen (where need be)
Pan fo angen (as and when needed)
Lle bynnag y bo (wherever it may be)
Gorau po gyntaf (the sooner the better)
Pawb at y peth y bo (each to hisown)
Cyn bo hir (before long)
A fo ben, bid bont ("He who would be a leader, let him be a bridge")
Doed a ddelo (come what may)
Costied a gostio (at all costs)

Hogyn Lleol 17:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Orthography and numerals - vocab section needed

I've moved orthography and the counting system out of the grammar section - they're not really a part of grammar. Ideally we'd have a vocabulary section under which the numerals would form a subsection. This would also be a valuable addition to the article in general. garik 00:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I notice phonology's been moved out too. Now, in modern linguistics, phonology is considered an area of grammar. But I suppose it depends how you look at it; and in the traditional sense of grammar as being syntax and morphology, phonology is clearly something different. I do think we should set up a vocab section though; apart from putting the numerals there, we could have a section on borrowing and other such things. I'll see what I can do later. garik 22:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, phonology is definitely part of grammar. I've moved it back. —An gr 06:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Standard forms and variation

I'm afraid I disagree with Puellanivis's edit summary that standardised language does not show variation 'by definition'. What about English? Of course there is much less variation than in the colloquial language. This is to be expected, and one of the aims of standardisation is to reduce variation, but this seldom succeeds, and variation certainly exists in standard English: think of differences between American and British standards. Or the Scottish use of 'outwith' for 'outside'. This obviously raises issues of what constitutes a language or a dialect or a speech community etc etc, but that's just as much a problem for colloquial forms.

Admittedly I can't think of an example of variation in literary Welsh, but I'll have a think! garik 00:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I suppose efe vs efô might be an example, but the second is rare. In any case, pronunciation varies when reading literary Welsh. Sorry, I'm getting obsessive now, trying to think of an example... garik 00:18, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

No need to feel bad about disagreeing with me. You raise a good point, there are two forms of standardized English. I much prefer your charactarization of the statement over mine. :) Good work! --Puellanivis 02:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC) P.S. I totally wanted to give you kudos for a good edit, but didn't want to obstruct WP processes in anyway. Thanks for providing me a good place to put my kudos! :)

Thanks! :) If anyone can think of a nice example of variation in literary Welsh, I'd be very pleased. It would be nice to put it in. garik 11:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Pembrokeshire and Welsh

The article "Little England beyond Wales" is a bit one sided, and I have added my own comments on the talk page of it. I would be grateful if some clued up Welsh language experts would look at this and the article on the Landsker Line.

Diolch yn fawr. --MacRusgail 20:49, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Welsh for Wikitravel

I know this isn't really a subject that belongs on the Welsh language discussion page in Wikipedia but I thought I might as well go ahead and add it anyway as it's more likely to be noticed here than on the Wikitravel Welsh phrasebook discussion page. Could someone please (if possible) help in creating a Welsh language phrasebook in wikitravel. I don't know a word of Welsh and I know most (if not all) people in Wales speak English as well, but I think it would be very much appreciated if there was a place in Wikitravel to learn daily phrases and such in Welsh that may help you.

I know I may be very much out of line by posting this here, but there are greater numbers who will notice this "plea for help" here than within Wikitravel itself. Furthermore there are likely more Welsh speakers know of Wikipedia than Wikitravel. The phrasebook can be found here [1] ready to start. If anyone can help, please do.

Thanks.

Pronunciation

Hi, I added http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/rg/guide/Wales17.asp#language_and_languages as a link in the external links section as it quite nicely (in my opinion) details how certain letters should be pronounced. For anyone who has time, please feel free to merge this information into the article if you think it's appropriate. Thanks, --Rebroad 11:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it should be merged into this article. I find it rather frustrating that so many language articles lack pronunciation sections that laymen can decipher, like this article as of June 2007. You would *never* find such inaccessible pronunciation instructions in a book for learners of Welsh since most people don't have the inclination to learn about the phonetic alphabet or "labiovelars".

A book for learners of Welsh wouldn't have the ability to create hyperlinks to technical terms; also, this is an encyclopedia article, not a textbook. —Angr 20:19, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Welsh in popular culture?

Just noticed this Welsh language#Welsh in popular culture section when the Doctor Who stuff was added to it. Is it just me, or is this a really weird subsection to have? What's popular culture? English-language television? That's the way it looks at the moment. Do we really want a "list of occasions when Welsh was used on television other than S4C"? Telsa (talk) 08:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. If we wanted to we could list hundreds of them, like the newspaper salesman who says Nadolig Llawen in the third episode of the new Doctor Who, or that episode of Neighbours where one of the characters offers another a cup of tea in Welsh.... Besides, as you imply, what about the constant use of the Welsh language in... er... Welsh popular culture? garik 10:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I must admit that I dislike nearly all the "...in popular culture" sections across Wikipedia. I really don't see that Chestnut#In popular culture, Titus Andronicus#References in popular culture, Medea#Medea in popular culture or Monoliths in popular culture add that much to the encyclopaedia. (If you doubt, just look at them.) But yes, it's the idea that it's only notable because it's mentioned in English that got me.Telsa (talk) 16:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Official status

The notion that Welsh has official status in Wales, as maintained by this article, has been thrown into doubt. Plaid Cymru's 2007 election manifesto ( http://www.plaidcymru.org/uploads/publications/264.pdf ) states that "A Plaid government will... give official status to Welsh" (p32). The Conservative manifesto ( http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=wales.news.story.page&obj_id=136067 ) states "Welsh Conservatives believe that Welsh should be given official langiage status" (p27). -86.134.12.250 22:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Under the Welsh Language Act 1993, it has equal status with English. This is not the same thing as having official status, since English itself has no official status. The Wednesday Island 00:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand that there is a subtlety between explicit "official status" and Welsh's status as a working language of the Welsh Government, in official use, equal in status to English. Despite this, I think it should be mentioned in the article that Welsh is officially-recognised in Wales. Ronline ✉ 10:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

How is a "Welsh speaker" defined in the statistics?

This page quotes numerous statistics regarding the numbers and percentages of Welsh speakers in various places and times - but what is a "Welsh speaker"? Does this include everyone who has passed a GCSE in Welsh, and everyone who knows how to order a beer and request directions to the post office? If the numbers are based on census data, and the census did not define a level of proficiency, the responses are essentially useless. It would be more interesting to know how many people speak it as a first language, or were raised bilingually from infancy. Mtford 21:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. But a cenus that asked for the first language or the current everyday language would probably show that throughout Cardigan and Carmarthen, Welsh has become the language of a small and ageing minority. And nobody would want to hear that. Unoffensive text or character 06:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

This ought to be made clear in the article somehow. Anyone unfamiliar with Wales might conclude from the map that Welsh is the dominant language spoken in northwestern counties, with fewer than 37.5% "English speakers". It seems that Wales has its own customary local definition of a "Welsh speaker", and this is not the same usage assumed elsewhere. For example, Wikipedia claims that 63.7% of Swiss people are German speakers, and this by definition excludes the 20.4% who are French speakers, even though most of the French speakers can also speak German. People writing knowledgeably about the Welsh language will inevitably have a (justified) sense of pride in Welsh heritage - however, Wikipedia is not a place for misleading statistical propaganda. If the census numbers are all we have, then we must use them, but we should be very careful to define what those numbers mean, for the benefit of non-British readers. Mtford 12:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

This is an important point. The 2001 census asked people in Wales to put themselves into one of the following groups (overall percentages for Wales as a whole given in parentheses):

"Understands spoken Welsh only" (4.93%)
"Speaks but does not read or write Welsh" (2.83%)
"Speaks and reads but does not write Welsh" (1.37%)
"Speaks reads and writes Welsh" (16.32%)
"Other combinations of skills" (2.98%)
"No knowledge of Welsh" (71.57%)

(to be more precise it sought classification for people aged 3 and over and, because forms tend to be completed by one person in each household, it was not strictly self-classification for a lot of people but classification by a close relative or friend)

For Wales as a whole the 4th category (ie. what we might term fully skilled in Welsh) represented only 16.32% of the population. Those with no knowledge of Welsh comprised 71.57% of the population - which implies 28.43% of the population had someknowledge of Welsh. There is obviously quite a range of gradations between the 28.43% with some knowledge and the 16.32% who are "fully skilled" - much more so than the census categories allow for. My own view is that many of the figures I hear in the news and in public debate are the result of dubious aggregation of figures for political ends - in particular those with a strong nationalist agenda tying to overstate the status of Welsh as a de facto national language. If one adds up the figures for those census categories that include speaking of Welsh as a skill then 20.52% of the population might be counted as Welsh speakers (not sure what the "understanding only" category actually means - seems to imply understanding but not speaking, which I guess could be applicable to young children who haven't learned to talk much yet). However any aggregation is open to challenge on a number of grounds. I am not sure that simple addition of that sort is valid in terms of the statistical methodology. In any case, any such overall figure hides a potentially large variation in fluency and frequency of use. I know many people who speak a few words of Welsh but would not consider themselves Welsh speakers (and indeed a number of them are not "ethnically" Welsh and would give English as their only or main language). I imagine there are other people who do not have a full command of the language but who nonetheless would consider themselves Welsh speakers because they are committed to the language for social or ideological reasons. I think there are probably also local variations in the way people look at their linguistic status.

It seems likely that the proportion of the population of Wales who are fully fluent in Welsh and for whom it is a regularly used language is much smaller than the figures of around 20% that are often quoted as the proportion of "Welsh speakers". In areas such as Ynys Môn and Gwynedd it might be true that most nominal Welsh speakers are actual Welsh speakers. Because of the concentration of Welsh speakers in these areas there is a much greater opportunity to use Welsh and it is genuinley a living language to which people have a deep commitment. For many younger people in the south and east, Welsh is something you are forced to learn at school, which means a significant proportion of those who nominally have some knowledge of Welsh are not really committed Welsh speakers (indeed in some border areas there is now a detectable trend of falling school rolls on the Welsh side of the border and rising ones at adjacent schools on the English side, where pupils can take another subject to GCSE instead of Welsh).

Finally, as noted by Mtford and others, it is erroneous to claim that in areas with a high proportion of Welsh speakers there is automatically a low proportion of English speakers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that even in places like the Llŷn peninsula there are very few people who don't speak English. Unfortunately the census only asked questions about Welsh and not about English so I don't have statistics to hand.

Brynycwm 12:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)Brynycwm

@Bryncwm: My guess is that those people who "understand spoken Welsh only" are people who have grown up in households where Welsh was mainly used by the parents, but not by the children. Those people would be exposed to the language a lot, as they would constantly hear their parents and relatives speak Welsh, but they would never become active speakers. Unoffensive text or character 14:39, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful here, there are various opinions being bandied about - rolls in Welsh schools are often falling, but this is in large part due to economic decline in many areas. It is also increasingly common to see Welsh language schools increasingly oversubscribed, as they are seen as superior to English language alternatives, and having a better disciplinary record. Equally, while it is true that many of my generation - i.e. growing up in 60s/70s/80s tended to lose the welsh that their parents might have had, we are increasingly seeing children now speaking more welsh than their parents, in tandem with the recovery of the language. I agree it is difficult to state the extent to which welsh is spoken, but the situation is highly dynamic, and muddied by the prevalence of english. I know people who drift in and out of both on a regular basis. I think its better to say the situation is complex, than to demand a black and white outcome one way or the other. In many parts of North Wales, you will routinely be first addressed in welsh. cheers Gavin Bl 13:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Mutations

The main article seems to have no description of (initial) consonant mutation. Not only is this a source of confusion for the learner, especially when using dictionaries naively, it's also an unusual language feature. Matt Whyndham 11:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You'll find it in one of the secondary articles, Welsh morphology. FilipeS

The Irish contention

Where are all these people coming from? The Wednesday Island 12:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I suspect "all these people" are just one person with an ax to grind. —An gr 12:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, we could probably be clearer in this article what we mean. There are probably more people in the world who know some Irish than people who know some Welsh, but Welsh is certainly, as the article states, more spoken than Irish (over 378,800 people claim to speak it daily, compared with 85,076 who speak Irish daily). I've added a footnote to clarify this. garik 13:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I wrote the following on a user's talk page, so I'm copying it here, where we should concentrate any discussion:

We need to be very clear what we're talking about here, and "most spoken" may be somewhat ambiguous. The claim in the Welsh language article actually refers to the amount Welsh is used (i.e. how many people use it daily). How many people are actually capable of speaking Welsh is a different question, and if we want to compare the number with speakers of other languages, we need to be very clear whether we include anyone with some knowledge of the language, or include only "fluent speakers". Deciding what counts as fluent is another hard problem. A further massive issue is that the sources for speaker numbers vary: censuses ask different questions; people under- and overestimate their own ability, and so on. garik 15:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The Guardian article

The North Walian term "cont" (which translates as "mate", rather than anything more Anglo-Saxon) is catching on among teenagers and twentysomethings.

Ha ha ha ha ha. :) Marnanel 20:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced statement removed

I'm removing the following statement as it has been tagged as unsourced since February:

During the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, there were stories of British soldiers speaking Welsh with captured Argentinian soldiers who were descendants of Welsh immigrants to the Chubut Valley in Patagonia.

If anyone can find and cite a source, feel free to re-add it. —Angr 16:26, 26 July 2007 (UTC)