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Wales:Struggle for independence

Survival of the Welsh Language: Part I
It is the eighth wonder of Wales that is the most wondrous of them all, the
survival of the Welsh language in the face of almost impossible odds.
Sometime in the seventh century, a Welsh Bishop heard an Englishman's voice on
the bank of the River Severn and was filled with foreboding at the sound.. He
recorded his unsettling experience thus: "For the kinsman of yonder strange-
tongued man whose voice I heard across the river. . . will obtain possession of
this place, and it will be theirs, and they will hold it in ownership."
The bishop was wrong. More than twelve centuries have passed since the strange
tongue of the Saxon was heard on the borders of Wales, centuries during which
the ancient tongue of the Bishop and his fellow Britons had every opportunity to
become extinct and yet which has stubbornly refused to die. The survival of the
native language is truly one of the great wonders of Wales, to be appreciated
and marvelled at far more than any physical feature or man-made object, and far
more than the so-called seven wonders of Wales.
It is a something of a shock when visitors travel from England west into Wales,
for, almost without warning, he may find himself in areas where not only the
dialects become incomprehensible, but where even the language itself has
changed. The roadside signs "Croeso i Gymru" (accompanied by the red dragon, the
ancient badge of Wales) let it be known that one is now entering a new
territory, inhabited by a different people, for the translation is "Welcome to
Wales" written in one of the oldest surviving vernaculars in Europe. For
amusement with the language, after getting used to names such as Pontcysyllte,
Pen y Mynydd , or Glynceiriog, one can take a little detour off the main route
through Anglesey to Ireland and visit the village with its much-photographed
sign announcing the now-closed railway station:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwyll-llantisiliogogogoch
To account for the abrupt linguistic change from English into Welsh, one must
journey far, far back into history.
It was about 1000 BC that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain, probably
introduced by small groups of migrants who became culturally dominant in their
new homelands, and whose culture formed part of a great unified Celtic "empire"
encompassing many different peoples all over Northern Europe. The Greeks called
these people, with their organized culture and developed social structure
Keltoi, the Romans called them Celtai.
In spite of the fact that they were perhaps the most powerful people in much of
Europe in 300 BC, with lands stretching from Anatolia in the East to Ireland in
the West, the Celts were unable to prevent inter tribal warfare; their total
lack of political unity, despite their fierceness in battle, ultimately led to
their defeat and subjugation by the much-better disciplined armies of Rome. The
Celtic languages on Continental Europe eventually gave way to those stemming
from Latin.
The Celts had been in Britain a long time before the first Roman invasion of the
British Isles under Julius Caesar in 55 BC which did not lead to any significant
occupation. The Roman commander, and later Emperor, had some interesting, if
biased comments concerning the native inhabitants. "All the Britons," he
wrote,"paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a bluish color and
makes them look very dreadful in battle" (De Bello Gallico). It was not until a
hundred years later, following an expedition ordered by the Emperor Claudius,
that a permanent Roman settlement of the grain-rich eastern territories of
Britain begun in earnest.
From their bases in what is now Kent, the Roman armies began a long, arduous and
perilous series of battles with the native Celtic tribes, first victorious, next
vanquished, but as on the Continent, superior military discipline and
leadership, along with a carefully organized system of forts connected by
straight roads, led to the triumph of Roman arms. In the western peninsular, in
what is now Wales, the Romans were awestruck by their first sight of the druids
(the religious leaders and teachers of the British). The historian Tacitus
described them as being "ranged in order, with their hands uplifted, invoking
the gods and pouring forth horrible imprecations" (Annales)
The terror was only short-lived; Roman arms easily defeated the native
tribesmen, and it was not long before a great number of large, prosperous villas
were established all over Britain, but especially in the Southeast and
Southwest. Despite defeats in pitched battles, the people of mountainous Wales
and Scotland were not as easily settled; their scattered settlements remained
"the frontier" -- lands where military garrisons were strategically placed to
guard the Northern and Western extremities of the Empire. The fierce resistance
of the tribes in Cambria meant that two out of the three Roman legions in
Britain were stationed on the Welsh borders. Two impressive Roman fortifications
remain to be seen in Wales: Isca Silurium (Caerleon) with its fine ampitheatre,
in Monmouthshire; and Segontium, (Caernarfon), in Gwynedd.
In Britain, at least for a few hundred years after the Roman victories on
mainland Europe, the Celts held on to much of their customs and especially to
their distinctive language which has miraculously survived until today as Welsh.
The language of most of Britain was derived from a branch of Celtic known as
Brythonic: it later gave rise to Welsh, Cornish and Breton (these differ from
the Celtic languages derived from Goidelic; namely, Irish, Scots, and Manx
Gaelic). Accompanying these languages were the Celtic religions, particularly
that of the Druids, the guardians of traditions and learning.
Though the Celtic tongue survived as the medium of everyday speech, Latin being
used mainly administrative purposes, many loan words entered the native
vocabulary, and these are still found in modern-day Welsh, though many of these
have entered at various times since the end of the Roman occupation. Today's
visitors to Wales who know some Latin are surprised to find hundreds of place
names containing Pont (bridge), while ffenest (window), pysgod (fish), milltir
(mile), melys (sweet or honey) cyllell (knife), ceffyl (horse), perygl (danger),
eglwys (church), pared (wall or partition), tarw (bull) and many others attest
to Roman or Latin influence. (The word Cerbyd, recently coined by the Ministry
of Transport for automobile for use on the new motorways, was used by Welsh poet
Henry Vaughan in the late 17th century as a term for chariot).
In 440 AD an anonymous writer penned the following:
Britain, abandoned by the Romans, passed into the power of the Saxons (Chronica
Gallica )
When the city of Rome fell to the invading Goths under Alaric, Roman Britain,
which had experienced hundreds of years of comparative peace and prosperity, was
left to its own defences under its local Romano-British leaders, one of whom may
have been a tribal chieftain named Arthur. It quickly crumbled under the
onslaught of Germanic tribes (usually collectively referred to as Anglo-Saxons)
themselves under attack from tribes to the east and wishing to settle in the
sparsely populated, but agriculturally rich lands across the narrow channel that
separated them.
More than two hundred years of fighting between the native Celts, as brave as
ever but comparatively disorganized, and the ever-increasing numbers of Germanic
tribesmen eventually resulted in Britain sorting itself out into three distinct
areas: the Britonic West, the Teutonic East, and the Gaelic North. It was these
areas that later came to be identified as Wales, England, and Scotland, all with
their very separate cultural and linguistic characteristics (Ireland, of course,
remained Gaelic: many of its peoples migrated to Scotland, taking their language
with them to replace the native Pictish).
From the momentous year 616, the date of their defeat at the hands of the Saxons
in the Battle of Chester, the Welsh people in Wales were on their own. Separated
from their fellow Celts in Cornwall and Cumbria, those who lived in the western
peninsular gradually began to think of themselves as a distinct nation in spite
of the many different rival kingdoms that developed within their borders such as
Morgannwg, Powys, Brycheinion, Dyfed and Gwynedd. It is also from this period
that we can speak of the Welsh language, as distinct from the older Brythonic.
In a poem dated 633, the word Cymry appears, referring to the country; and it
was not too long before the Britons came to be known as the Cymry, by which term
they are known today. At this point, we should point out that the word Welsh
(from Wealas) is a later word used by the Saxon invaders of the British Isles
perhaps to denote people they considered "foreign" or at least to denote people
who had been Romanized. It originally had signified a Germanic neighbor, but
eventually came to be used for those people who spoke a different language.
The Welsh people themselves still prefer to call themselves Cymry, their country
Cymru, and their language Cymraeg. It is also from this time that the Celtic
word Llan appears, signifying a church settlement and usually followed by the
name of a saint, as in Llandewi (St. David) or Llangurig (St. Curig), but
sometimes by the name of a disciple of Christ, such as Llanbedr (St. Peter) or
even a holy personage such as Llanfair (St. Mary).
It is in Wales, perhaps, that today's cultural separation of the British Isles
remains strongest, certainly linguistically, and for that, we must look to the
mid 8th Century, when a long ditch was constructed, flanking a high earthen
rampart that divided the Celts of the West from the Saxons to the East and
which, even today, marks the boundary between those who consider themselves
Welsh from those who consider themselves English. The boundary, known as "Offa's
Dyke," in memory of its builder Offa, the king of Mercia (the middle kingdom)
runs from the northeast of Wales to the southeast coast, a distance of 149
miles.
English-speaking peoples began to cross Offa's Dyke in substantial numbers when
settlements were created by Edward 1st in his ambition to unite the whole of the
island of Britain under his kingship. After a period of military conquest, the
English king forced Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd to give up most of his
lands, keeping only Gwynedd west of the River Conwy.
Edward then followed up his successes by building English strongholds around the
perimeter of what remained of Llewelyn's possessions, and strong, easily
defended castles were erected at Flint, Rhuddlan, Aberystwyth, and Builth.,
garrisoned by large detachments of English immigrants and soldiers. Some of
these towns have remained stubbornly English ever since. Urban settlement, in
any case, was entirely foreign to the Celtic way of life.
In 1294, the Statute of Rhuddlan confirmed Edward's plans regarding the
governing of Wales. The statute created the counties of Anglesey, Caernarfon,
and Merioneth, to be governed by the Justice of North Wales; Flint, to be placed
under the Justice of Chester; and the counties of Carmarthen and Cardigan were
left under the Justice of South Wales. Of the Statute, an anonymous scribe
wrote, in 1284:
The Divine Providence...has now. . .wholly and entirely transferred the land of
Wales with its inhabitants...and has annexed and united the same into the
Crown...as a member of the said body
In the year 1300, the situation seemed permanently established, when "King
Edward of England made Lord Edward his son [born at Caernarfon Castle], Prince
of Wales and Count of Chester," and ever since that date these titles have been
automatically conferred upon the first-born son of the English monarch. The
Welsh people were not consulted in the matter, although an obviously biased
entry in Historia Anglicana for the year 1300 reads:
In this year King Edward of England made Lord Edward, his son and heir, Prince
of Wales and Count of Chester. When the Welsh heard this, they were overjoyed,
thinking him their lawful master, for he was born in their lands.
Following his successes in Wales, signified by the Statute of Rhuddlan,
sometimes referred to as The Statute of Wales, Edward embarked on yet another
massive castle-building program, creating such world-heritage sites of today as
Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris in addition to the earlier not so-well
known (or well-visited) structures at Flint and Rhuddlan. Below their huge,
forbidding castle walls, additional English boroughs were created, and English
traders were invited to settle, often to the exclusion of the native Welsh, who
must have looked on in awe and despair from their lonely hills at the site of so
much building activity. Their ancestors must have felt the same sense of dismay
as they watched the Roman invaders build their heavily defended forts in
strategic points on their lands.
The Welsh were forbidden to inhabit such "boroughs" or to carry arms within
their boundaries (even today, there are laws remaining on the statute books of
Chester, a border town, that proscribe the activities of the Welsh within the
city walls). With the help of the architect Master James of St. George, and with
what must have seemed like limitless resources in manpower and materials, Edward
showed his determination to place a stranglehold on the Welsh. Occasional
rebellions were easily crushed; it was not until the death of Edward III and the
arrival of Owain Glyndwr (Shakespeare's Owen Glendower), that the people of
Wales felt confident enough to challenge their English overlords. One scribe
expressed the situation this way:
The Welsh habit of revolt against the English is a long-standing madness . . .
and this is the reason. The Welsh, formerly called the Britons, were once noble,
crowned with the whole realm of England; but they were expelled by the Saxons
and lost both name and a kingdom . . . But from the sayings of the prophet
Merlin they still hope to recover England. Hence it is they frequently rebel.
(Vita Edward Secundi I c. 1330)
Owain Glyndwr was Lord of Glyndyfrdwy (the Valley of the Dee). He seized his
opportunity in 1400 after being crowned Prince of Wales by a small group of
supporters and defying Henry IV's many attempts to dislodge him. The ancient
words of Geraldus Cambrensis could have served to inspire his followers:
The English fight for power; the Welsh for liberty; the one to procure gain, the
other to avoid loss. The English hirelings for money; the Welsh patriots for
their country
The comet that appeared in 1402 was seen by the Welsh as a sign of their
forthcoming deliverance from bondage as well as one that proclaimed the
appearance of Owain. His magnetic personality electrified and galvanized the
people of Wales, strengthening their armies and inspiring their confidence. Even
the weather was favorable. An entry in Annales Henrici Quarti of 1402 reads as
follows:
[Glyndwr] almost destroyed the King and his armies, by magic as it was thought,
for from the time they entered Wales to the time they left, never did a gentle
air breathe on them, but throughout whole days and nights, rain mixed with snow
and hail afflicted them with cold beyond endurance
The Welsh leader's early successes released the long-suppressed feelings of
thousands of Welshmen who eagerly flocked to his support from all parts of
England and the Continent. Before long, it seemed as if the long-awaited dream
of independence was fast becoming a reality: three royal expeditions against
Glyndwr failed: he held Harlech and Aberystwyth, had extended his influence as
far as Glamorgan and Gwent, was receiving support from Ireland and Scotland; and
had formed an alliance with France. Following his recognition by the leading
Welsh bishops, he summoned a parliament at Machynlleth, in mid-Wales, where he
was crowned as Prince of Wales.
It didn't seem too ambitious for Owain to believe that with suitable allies, he
could help bring about the dethronement of the English king; thus he entered
into a tripartite alliance with the Earl of Northumberland and Henry Mortimer
(who married Owain's daughter Caitrin) to divide up England and Wales between
them. After all, Henry IV's crown was seen by many Englishmen as having been
falsely obtained, and they welcomed armed rebellion against their ruler. Hoping
that The Welsh Church be made completely independent from Canterbury, and that
appointments to benefices in Wales be given only to those who could speak Welsh,
Glyndwr was ready to implement his wish to set up two universities in Wales to
train native civil servants and clergymen.
Then the dream died.
Owain's parliament was the very last to meet on Welsh soil; the last occasion
that the Welsh people had the power of acting independently of English rule.
From such a promising beginning to a national revolt came a disappointing
conclusion, even more upsetting because of the speed at which Welsh hopes
crumbled with the failure of the Tripartite Indenture. Henry Percy (Hotspur) was
killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury, and the increasing boldness and military
skills of Henry's son, the English prince of Wales and later Henry V, began to
turn the tide against Glyndwr. Like so many of his predecessors, Glyndwr was
betrayed at home. It is not too comforting for Welsh people of today to read
that one of the staunchest allies of the English king and enemy of Glyndwr was a
man of Brecon, Dafydd Gam (later killed at Agincourt, fighting for the English).
A sixth expedition into Wales undertaken by Prince Henry retook much of the land
captured by Owain, including many strategic castles. The boroughs with their
large populations of "settlers," had remained thoroughly English in any case,
and by the end of 1409, the Welsh rebellion had dwindled down to a series of
guerilla raids led by the mysterious figure of Owain, whose wife and two
daughters had been captured at Harlech and taken to London as prisoners. Owain
himself went into the mountains, becoming an outlaw. He may have suffered an
early death. for nothing is known of him either by the Welsh or the English. He
simply vanished from sight. According to an anonymous writer in 1415," Very many
say that he [Owain Glyndwr] died; the seers say that he did not" (Annals of
Owain Glyndwr). There has been much speculation as to his fate and much guessing
as to where he ended his final days and was laid to rest.
There is an expression coined in the nineteenth century that describes a
Welshman who pretends to have forgotten his Welsh or who affects the loss of his
national identity in order to succeed in English society or who wishes to be
thought well of among his friends. Such a man is known as Dic Sion Dafydd, (a
term used in a satirical 19th century poem). The term was unknown In fifteenth
century Wales, but, owing to the harsh penal legislation imposed upon them,
following the abortive rebellion, it became necessary for many Welshmmen to
petition Parliament to be "made English" so that they could enjoy privileges
restricted to Englishmen. These included the right to buy and hold land
according to English law.
Such petitions may have been distasteful to the patriotic Welsh, but for the
ambitious and socially mobile gentry rapidly emerging in Wales and on the
Marches, they were a necessary step for any chance of advancement.In the
military. At the same time, Welsh mercenaries, no longer fighting under Glyndwr
for an independent Wales, were highly sought after by the new king Henry V for
his campaigns in France. The skills of the Welsh archers in such battles as
Crecy and Agincourt is legendary.
Such examples of allegiance to their commander, the English sovereign, went a
long way in dispelling any latent thoughts of independence and helped paved the
way for the overwhelming Welsh allegiance to the Tudors (themselves of Welsh
descent) and to general acquiescence to the Acts of Union. The year 1536
produced no great trauma for the Welsh; all the ingredients for its acceptance
had been put in place long before.
The so-called Act of Union of that year, and its corrected version of 1543
seemed inevitable. More than one historian has pointed out that union with
England had really been achieved by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. It was
welcomed by many in Wales and why not? Didn't it state that "Persons born or to
be born in the said Principality . . . of Wales shall have and enjoy and inherit
all and singular Freedoms, Liberties, Rights, Privileges and Laws . . . as other
the King's subjects have, enjoy or inherit?"
Those historians who praise the Acts state that the Welsh people had now
achieved full equality before the law with their English counterparts. It opened
opportunities for individual advancement in all walks of life, and Welshmen
flocked to London to take full advantage of their chances. Yet, one of the most
important in the whole history of Wales, the document was passed without
consultation with the Welsh people.
The full title is An Act for Laws and Justices to be ministered in Wales in like
form as it is in this realm.Its preamble states: "His Highness. . . of the
singular love and favour that he bears towards his subjects of this said
dominion of Wales, and intending to reduce them to the perfect order, notice and
knowledge of the laws of this his Realm, and utterly to extirpate all and
singular the sinister usages and customs differing from the same . . . hath . .
. ordained, enacted and established that his said country or dominion of Wales
shall stand and continue for ever from henceforth incorporated, united and
annexed to and with his Realm of England."
Thus the real purpose was to incorporate, finally and for all time, the
principality of Wales into the kingdom of England. A major part of this decision
was to abolish any legal distinction between the people on either side of the
new border. From henceforth, English law would be the only law recognized by the
courts of Wales. In addition, for the placing of the administration of Wales in
the hands of the Welsh gentry, it was necessary to create a Welsh ruling class
not only fluent in English, but who would use it in all legal and civil matters.
Thus inevitably, the Welsh ruling class would be divorced from the language of
their country; as pointed out earlier, their eyes were focused on what London or
other large cities of England had to offer, not upon what remained as crumbs to
be scavenged in Wales itself, without a government of its own, without a capital
city, and without even a town large enough to attract an opportunistic urban
middle class, and saddled with a language described by Parliament as "nothing
like nor consonant to the natural mother tongue used within this realm."
From 1536 on, English was to be the only language of the courts of Wales, and
those using the Welsh language were not to receive public office in the
territories of the king:
No person or persons that use the Welsh speech or language shall have or enjoy
any manor, office or fees within the realm of England, Wales or other of the
king's dominions upon pain of forfeiting the . same offices or fees unless he or
they use and exercise the speech and language of English
It was the arrival of the Welsh Bible, however, that brought the language back
to a respected position. In 1547, Welsh scholar, William Salesbury, alarmed at
what he considered the baseness of the Welsh tongue,wrote: "And take this advice
from me; unless you save and correct and perfect the language before the
extinction of the present generation, it will be too late afterwards." (Oll
Synnwyr Pen Kembero Ygyd). Salesbury collaborated with Richard Davies, Bishop of
St. David's on a Welsh version of The Book of Common Prayer and The New
Testament, both of which were published in 1567.
The scholar John Penry of Breconshire had implored the Queen and her Parliament
that the Welsh people should be taught the scriptures (and the Prayer Book) in
their own language. He was helped by the fact that Elizabeth and her courtiers
were appalled at the slow progress of the Welsh in learning the English language
(and, more important, their slow progress in adopting Protestantism). Penry's
suggestions were welcomed by Parliament; by having Welsh translations placed
next to the English texts in church, it was believed the congregations could
learn English! The reverse happened, of course, and the Welsh language was given
status and a place of honor by being used as a medium for the holy scriptures.
Why bother with English, when there was now a perfectly acceptable Welsh in
which to worship God?
In 1588, the translation of the whole Bible itself, the climax of the whole
movement, made Welsh the language of public worship and thus much more than a
generally despised peasant tongue. Perhaps it is to this that much of the
present-day strength of the Welsh language is owed, compared to Irish (which did
not get its own Bible until 1690) and Scots Gaelic (which had to wait until
1801).
The Welsh Bible, a magnificent achievement, was completed after eight years by
William Morgan and a group of fellow scholars. In 1620 Dr John Davies of Mallwyd
and Richard Parry, Bishop of St. Asaph, produced a revision of William Morgan's
Bible. Most of the nearly one thousand copies of.the earlier book had been lost
or worn out, and this revised and corrected edition is the version that
countless generations of Welsh people have been thoroughly immersed ever since,
it has been as much a part of their lives as the Authorized Version has been to
the English-speaking peoples or Luther's Bible to the Germans.
In 1630, the Welsh Bible, in a smaller version (Y Beibl Bach), was introduced
into homes in Wales and as the only book affordable to many families, became the
one book from which the majority of the people could learn to read and write.
Other, poorer families, unable to afford the Bible, were able to share its
contents in meetings held at the homes of neighbors or in their churches or
chapels. Later on, countless generations of children were taught its contents in
Sunday School. It is in this way, therefore, that we can say the Welsh Bible
"saved" the language from possible extinction.
It has been touch and go all the way since, however, with determined efforts
coming from both sides of Offa's Dyke to stamp out the language for ever. Yet
every time the funeral bells have tolled, the language has miraculously revived
itself. As early as the 12th century, Giraldus Cambrensis gave us the famous
Welsh folk tale of the declaration of the old man of Pencader to Henry ll:
This nation, O King, may now, as in former times, be harassed, and in a great
measure weakened and destroyed by your and other powers, and it will also
prevail by its laudable exertions, but it can never be totally subdued through
the wrath of man, unless the wrath of God shall concur. Nor do I think that any
other nation than this of Wales, nor any other language, whatever may hereafter
come to pass, shall on the day of severe examination before the Supreme Judge,
answer for this corner of the earth. (John of Salisbury: recorded in Descriptio
Kambriae (1193) by Giraldus Cambrensis)
In 1753 Thomas Richards in his Thesaurus wrote:
Yet our name hath not been quite blotted out from under Heaven. We hitherto not
only enjoy the true name of our Ancestors but have preserved entire and
uncorrupted . . that primitive language, spoken as well by the ancient Gauls and
Britons some thousands of years ago
For the continued survival of the language, however, there had to be a
groundwork laid in the field of general education among the masses. There were
still too many people in Wales who could not read or write. As so often in Welsh
history, help came from outside the country itself.
In 1674, a charitable organization, the Welsh Trust, was set up in London by
Thomas Gouge to establish English schools in Wales and to publish books "in
Welsh." Over 500 books were printed in 1718 and 1721 at Trefhedyn and Carmarthen
respectively. Many of these were translations of popular English works,
Protestant tracts that encouraged private worship and prayers, but along with
the six major editions of the Bible that appeared during the same period, they
had the unpredicted effect of ensuring the survival of the language in an age
where many scholars were predicting its rapid demise. Of equal importance were
the cheap catechisms and prayer books.highly prized by rural families who read
them (along with the Beibl Cymraegd) in family groups during the long, dark
winter nights
So successful were educators, benefactors and itinerant teachers that perhaps as
many as one third or more of the population of Wales could read their scriptures
by the time of Griffith Jones' death in 1761. Jones had realized that preaching
alone was insufficient to ensure his people's salvation: they needed to read the
scriptures for themselves. Though not intended by such as Jones (the rector of
Llanddowror and therefore not a Nonconformist minister), his writings created a
substantial Welsh reading public primed and ready to receive the appeal of the
ever-growing Methodists, whose ability in such preachers as Hywel Harris was
matched by their eloquence in the pulpit, and who obviously filled a great need
among the masses.
One influential convert was Thomas Charles who joined in 1784, and who set up
the successful Sunday School movement in North Wales that had such a profound
and lasting influence on the language and culture of that region. Another
preacher of great influence was Daniel Rowland, who had converted in 1737 after
hearing a sermon by Griffith Jones. With Hywel Harris, he assumed the leadership
of the Methodist Revival. Rowland's enthusiasm along with that of his
colleagues, attracted thousands of converts, and though their initial intention
was to work within the framework of the established church, opposition from
their Bishops, all of whom had little real interest in Wales and knew nothing of
its language and culture, led finally to the schism of 1811 when an independent
union was founded.
This was the Calvinistic Methodist Church (today known as the Presbyterian
Church of Wales). Providing the excitement and fervor that the established
church had been lacking for so long, it did much to pave the way for the rapid
growth of the other non-conformist sects such as the Baptists and Independents.
The movement also was responsible for producing two names that are outstanding
in the cultural history of Wales: William Williams and Ann Griffiths (dealt with
at length in my History of Wales).
In 1841, William Jones, in The Character of the Welsh as a Nation in the Present
Age, praised the perseverance of his people in the face of almost impossible
odds:
To exist after so many and preserving attempts at their extinction, and to
retain the vernacular use of their primitive, nervous, and enchanting language,
after so many revolutions in their civil and religious circumstances, are facts
in which they will ever glory; and no good reason appears why our English
neighbours should deny us the consolation of these facts, or laugh at us, with
so much sarcastic malevolence, when the matter is discussed in their society
Jones could not have foreseen the result of the coming of heavy industry to
south Wales in the 19th century, especially its twofold effect on the language
and social life of the area. First, with so many Welsh speakers moving into the
area in search of jobs, bringing their language (and their chapels) with them, a
Welsh culture survived in many fields of valley activity.
Many historians have realized that without this immigration, Wales may have
suffered a fate similar to that of Ireland where the lack of the raw materials
for industry and the heavy reliance upon a single food crop (not to mention the
benign neglect of the English Parliament) led to famine and massive emigration.
Also unlike the Irish language (and to some extent Breton) the language of
scattered, rural communities, Welsh thrived as the medium of everyday
communication in large industrial communities (such as Merthyr). One writer in
1804, commenting on the fact that Merthyr Tydfil was now the largest town in
Wales, marvelled that :
The workers of all descriptions at these immense works {Cyfarthfa, Merthyr
Tydfil} are Welsh men. Their language is entirely Welsh. The number of English
among them is very inconsiderable. (The Scenery, Antiquities, and Biography of
South Wales
But change was inevitable. At the same time, another culture developed that owed
just as much to its non-Welsh immigrants as it did to those who retained the
language and culture of the Welsh-speaking areas from which they moved. In 1847
one writer had described the Rhondda Valley thus:
The people of this solitudinous and happy valley are a pastoral race, almost
wholly dependent on their flocks and herds for support ...The air is aromatic
with wild flowers and mountain plants, a sabbath stillness reigns
Only three years later, the celebrated English author Thomas Carlyle described
the same scene in a letter to his wife:
Ah me! 'Tis like a vision of Hell, and will never leave me, that of these poor
creatures broiling or in sweat and dirt, amid their furnaces, pits, and rolling
mills . . The Town [Merthyr] might be, and will be, one of the prettiest places
in the world. It is one of the sootiest, aqualidest and ugliest; all cinders and
dust mounds and soot. . .Nobody thinks of gardening in such a locality--all
devoted to metallic gambling
Such a heavy toll came to so many areas of the southern valleys. In the counties
of Glamorgan and Monmouth, the long, verdant valleys quickly filled up with
factories, mills, coal mines, iron smelting works (and later, steel works),
roads, railways, canals, and above all, people. Houses began to spread along the
narrow hillsides, filling every available space upon which a house could be set,
small houses, crammed together in row after row, street after street, town after
town all strung together on the valley floor. Houses separated only
spasmodically by the grocery store, the somber, grey chapel, or the public
house. Above them all loomed the blackened hillsides and the slag heaps of waste
coal or industrial refuse. And all this brought about by the discovery of coal.
In the southern valleys, an Anglo-Welsh character came into being; one that came
to dominate the political, social and literary life of Wales, and it was here
also that a new and particular kind of Welshness was forged, symbolized by the
cloth-capped, heavy drinking, strike-prone, English-speaking, rugby fanatic of
the Valleys..To such a character, and to a certain extent, to the majority of
the three large urban areas of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, the people of the
West and North, the Bible-toting, chapel-going, teetotal, parsimonious, and
above all Welsh-speaking were totally alien beings who might have come from
another planet. The repercussions are felt strongly today as only one in five of
the inhabitants of Wales use Welsh as a language of everyday affairs.
In other areas, the Welsh language had been in decline for over 100 years. In
Flintshire, so near to the large urban areas of Merseyside and Cheshire there
had long been deliberate attempts to stamp out the Welsh language: a traveller
to the area as early as 1799 described the situation:
If therefore, in the colloquial intercourse of the scholars, one of them be
detected in speaking a Welsh word, he is immediately degraded with the 'Welsh
lump,' a large piece of lead fastened to a string, and suspended round the neck
of the offender. The mark of ignominy has had the desired effect: all the
children of Flintshire speak English very well
Such drastic measures had their desired effect. By 1804 John Evans wrote that
"North Wales is becoming English." In the same year, Benjamin Heath Malkin wrote
:
The language of Radnorshire is almost universally English. In learning to
converse with their Saxon neighbours, they have forgotten the use of their
vernacular tongue
Other areas did not suffer the loss of the language. Lord Tennyson, who in a
letter to a friend in 1839 thought "it [is] remarkable how fluently little boys
and girls can speak Welsh." Tennyson's romantic views of the Welsh language,
however, were not shared by the Government in London, nor by everyone in Wales.
In a letter to The Cambrian in September 1840, one writer blamed the Welsh
language for the country's moral turpitude:
I cherish the hope that I may yet see the day when Wales, no longer the seat of
barbarity and heathenism, will herself take a fit position (from which she has
so long been excluded) in moral literature and science. It may be asked how was
Wales set aside from that past, which is the glory and pride of every other
nation? The answer is simple -- she is bound with fetters as yet indissoluble
which she seems to hug with increasing tenacity -- namely her language --The
Welshman is a fool, his language is his folly -- he prefers others to enjoy his
goods, he prefers he prefers being laughed at as a puppet in Druidic processions
and Bardic Eisteddfodau
The writer wished to see the disappearance of Welsh, "without which act, we can
never hope to be recognized otherwise than as simple, good-natured, honest
barbarians."
The letter, astonishingly enough, was written just at the time that Lady
Charlotte Guest was making known to the world some of the glories of Welsh
literature through her translations of the medieval tales known as the
Mabinogion.. Mrs. Guest (Lady Llanover), advised the mothers of Wales,". .
.speak Welsh to your children . . .it is from you, and not from their fathers,
that they will learn to love God in their own language." Others were not so
sympathetic.
Some of the letters published in The Cambrian in the mid 19th Century show an
attitude of many Englishmen towards the Welsh language that has persisted until
today. In one of them, the writer was amused by the proposal to have the infant
Prince of Wales (eldest son of Queen Victoria), instructed in the Welsh
language. He wrote that the prince, by trying to pronounce the Welsh "ll" or
"ch" would be perceived as having spasmodic affections of the bronchial tubes
"that would lead to quinsy or some terrible disease of the lungs and jugulum and
would alarm everyone."
The writer, no doubt fully amused at his own cleverness, and obviously
completely oblivious to the beauties of the Welsh language and the glories of
its culture, goes on to ask his readers to consider the roars of laughter in the
House of Commons when the budget of the day includes the following items: "Three
thousand pounds per annum for teaching His Royal Highness Welsh, making leek
broth, and the national mode of eating it." The idea, he continued. was
revolting, "like trying to cram a calf with logic: nature forbids it."
The same kind of fatuous, condescending arguments, of course, appeared in the
newspapers of Wales some one hundred and twenty years later when Charles, as the
so-called Prince of Wales, was being taught Welsh at Aberystwyth University. The
newspapers of the 1990's too, often contain similar letters and articles that
discuss the merits of continuing the Welsh language in the schools, of teaching
it to newcomers, and of its relevance in the modern world. All despite the fact
that, in the earlier period, even Queen Victoria herself, that staunch symbol of
Empire, advocated the teaching of Welsh in the schools of the principality.
By the middle of the 19th century, Victoria's views notwithstanding, the tide
was running heavily against Welsh. In 1842, a Royal Commission, looking into the
state of education in Wales, noted that some Welsh boys employed at mines in
Breconshire were learning to read English at Sunday School, but that they could
speak only Welsh. This was intolerable to the commissioners.
It was demanded in Parliament that an inquiry be conducted into the means
afforded to the laboring classes of Wales to acquire a knowledge of the English
tongue. The report of the Commissioners of Inquiry for South Wales in 1844
lamented the fact that "The people's ignorance of the English language
practically prevents the working of the laws and institutions and impedes the
administration of justice." It didn't seem to occur to the commissioners that it
was their own ignorance of the language that was obstructing justice!
The report led to another Royal Commission, conducted in 1847, which was to have
a lasting effect on the cultural and political life of Wales. The report, in
three volumes bound in blue covers, has become known as Brad y Llyfrau Gleision
(The Treachery of the Blue Books, for the three young and inexperienced lawyers
who conducted the report had no understanding of the Welsh language, nor, it
seems, did they understand non-conformity in religious matters.
Bright, intelligent and well-read Welsh-speaking children were unable to
understand the questions put to them in English, and the surveyors pig-headedly
assumed that this was due to their ignorance. Their report lamented what they
considered to be the sad state of education in Wales, the too-few schools, their
deplorable condition, the unqualified teachers, the lack of supplies and
suitable English texts, and the irregular attendance of the children. All these
were attributed, along with dirtiness, laziness, ignorance, superstition,
promiscuity and immorality: to Nonconformity, but in particular to the Welsh
language. As the report stated:
The Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales and a manifold barrier to the
moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people. It is not easy to over-
estimate its evil effects.
One result, of course, of the publication of such "facts" led to so many of its
speakers being made to feel ashamed and embarrassed. The effects of the
controversy thus stirred up has lasted up until today; it certainly did much ot
bolster the position of those who agreed with much of the report and who saw the
language as the biggest drawback to the people of Wales. One drastic remedy, the
imposition of English-only Board Schools did much to further has ten the decline
of Welsh over a great part of the country. In these schools, as in Flintshire a
half century earlier, the "Welsh Not" rule was imposed with severe penalties for
speaking Welsh, including the wearing of a wooden board, the old "Welsh lump"
around one's neck.
ТерминСписокопределенийАдресаЦитатыГотовыйIn Chambers' Edinburgh Journal (vol 2, 1849),
there is an entry that shows the prevalence of attitudes towards "native languages" in other parts of Britain as
well as Wales:
That until the middle of the nineteenth century the Celtic tongue in its varieties of Gaelic, Welsh, Irish
and Manx, should be employed as a vernacular, is a matter not less of surprise than of national
discredit . . . No thought appears to have been bestowed on the fact that large masses of the
population were isolated from general progress on account of their inability to speak English
The great Welsh industrialist David Davies of Llandinam expressed similar concerns. In a speech at the
National Eisteddfod, Aberystwyth, in 1865 (long before the all-Welsh rule was established), he said:
I am a great admirer of the Welsh language, and I have no sympathy with those who revile it. Still, I
have seen enough of the world to know that the best medium to make money is by the English
language. I want to advise everyone of my countrymen to master it perfectly; if you are content with
brown bread, you can of course, remain where you are. If you wish to enjoy the luxuries of life, with
white bread to boot, the only way to do so is by learning English well. I know what it is to eat both
In the same year, in a speech to the Congregational Union, Welshman Griffith Richards stated:
It would be an enormous advantage to the Welsh and to the English if the Welsh language became
extinct before tomorrow morning and the Welsh became absorbed into the English nation
The situation was not universally applauded; there were those such as Thomas Price, speaking before the
Congregational Union in the same year, who deplored what he saw happening to the language and to his
people:
Englishmen, English capital and enterprise, English customs, and unhappily English vices, are
rushing in upon us like mighty irresistible torrents carrying away before them our ancient language,
social habits, and even our religious customs and influence over the masses
H.L. Spring also commented wistfully on the situation:
Had the mineral wealth of the principality been discovered by the natives, and could it have been
properly put to use before they were subdued to English rule, they might have preserved their
language and have been the foremost amongst British subjects in wealth, manufactures and arts; but
as the English have, through Providence means of opening out her resources, it is plain that the
English element must universally prevail. (H.L. Spring, Lady Cambria 1867)
In Caernarfon, Gwynedd, an area still predominantly Welsh-speaking in the 1990's, there is a high school
named after Sir Hugh Owen, a pioneer in education in Wales. Owen's untiring efforts to secure a university
for Wales led to a commission to promote the idea in 1854, the university itself to be established through
voluntary contributions. Owen's pleas to the government for financial help were unheeded, and it was public
subscription that brought to fruition the old dream of Owain Glyndwr. In 1872 Aberystwyth University opened
its doors to twenty-six students in a very impressive building on the seafront designed as a hotel, but which
was fortunately vacant at the time. For the first few years of its existence, the college depended greatly on
voluntary contributions from the nonconformist chapels, but it attracted many who would come to have
profound influence on the culture of their nation. In so many areas it provided the foundations that led to the
national revival of Wales in the late 1890's.
The work of Owen M. Edwards, in a period of language decline, was crucial in this renaissance. A native of
Llanuwchllyn on the shores of Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Oxford University lecturer and later Chief inspector of
Schools of the newly-created Welsh Board of Education, Edwards did much to popularize the use of Welsh
as an everyday language. Alarmed by the decline in the language, he published a great number of Welsh
books and magazines, with particular interest in works for children. In 1898 he founded Urdd y Delyn, a
forerunner of Urdd Gobaith Cymru, the largest youth organization in Wales and one that still conducts its
activities through the medium of Welsh.
Despite the success of organizations such as Urdd, one problem has remained for the survival of Welsh ever
since the Acts of Union in the middle 1500's. The Welsh language has considered to be a great hindrance to
one's feeling of Britishness. Even before the First World War, when British soldiers from all parts of the
kingdom marched off under the Union Jack to fight the Boers in South Africa, the feeling took hold that "...side
by side with the honourable contribution which the Welsh could make to the British Empire, the Welsh
language could be considered an irrelevance..."
This idea was implanted even more firmly in the Welsh mind by the intention of the leaders of the Welsh-
speaking community to show that the peculiarities of Welsh culture were not a threat to the unity and
tranquility of the kingdom of Britain. When ideas of a separate government for the Welsh people began to
take hold in the late 19th century, once again, the idea of a British national identity found itself overwhelming
the purely local, isolated, and all too often ridiculed, aspirations of those who wished for a Welsh nationhood.
In mainly English-speaking South Wales in particular, feelings on the matter were sharply expressed. At a
crucial meeting in Newport, Monmouthshire, in January 1898 it was firmly stated (by Robert Byrd) that there
were thousands of true Liberals who would never submit "to the domination of Welsh ideas." With few
exceptions, this seems to sum up the attitude of most Welsh politicians of the next one hundred years. There
were too many in Wales whose close ties with English interests made the idea of home rule repugnant and
one to be fought against at all costs.
Welsh-speaking Lloyd George, future Prime Minister, who was howled down at the meeting, questioned if the
mass of the Welsh nation was willing to be dominated by a coalition of English capitalists who had made their
fortunes in Wales. Yet even his motives were held with suspicion as being entirely self-serving. And, as a
fluent Welsh speaker, he was mistrusted by many in the audience who looked with suspicion upon those who
could speak a language that they could not.
In 1881, the Aberdare Commission's report showed that provisions for intermediate and higher education in
Wales lagged behind those in the other parts of Britain; it suggested that there should be two new Welsh
universities, Cardiff and Bangor. It was found, however, that there was a lack of adequately trained students
for these new colleges and thus, in 1899 the Welsh Intermediate Act came into being that gave the new
county councils the power to raise a levy (to be matched by the Government) for the provision of secondary
schools.In 1896 came the Central Welsh Board to oversee these schools.
The result was that thousands of Welsh children from all levels of society were able to continue their
education at a secondary level. Another result, however, was the continued decline of the status accorded
the Welsh language, for the new secondary schools were thoroughly English, only very few even bothering to
offer Welsh lessons. An educated class of Welsh people was thus created that fostered the cultural traditions
of their country in the language of England.
ТерминСписокопределенийАдресаЦитатыГотовыйIn the meantime, in an age where radio and
movies began to play important roles in the regular everyday life of the people of Wales, the language
continued its precipitous decline. North Wales got its news from and followed the events in Liverpool; South
Wales was more tied to happenings in Bristol or even London. Links between the two areas of Wales were
practically non-existent; roads and rails went West to East, not North to South, and the flow of ideas and
language went in the same directions. Any sense of a national Welsh identity was disappearing rapidly along
with the language.
In an attempt to stop the rot, a new party came into being in 1925, Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru (The National
Party of Wales) that was fiercely devoted to purely Welsh causes such as preservation of the language and
culture. In 1926, Saunders Lewis took over the presidency, but the party received very little general support
and, in some areas of Wales, was the object of ridicule. It was to take forty years before Plaid Cymru was
taken seriously and gained its first seat in Parliament. Much had been happening until then to further erode
Welsh as a common language and the idea of the Welsh as a common, united people worthy of their own
government as part of a greater Britain.
In 1918, politician Arthur Henderson, (leader of the Labour Party), issued the following statement:
Given self-government, Wales might establish itself as a modern Utopia and develop its own
institutions, its own culture, its own ideal of democracy in politics, industry and social life, as an
example and an inspiration to the rest of the world
Henderson's views were not endorsed by the majority of members of his party. Eleven years later, in Welsh
Outlook, Saunders Lewis, at the time a non-politician, echoed the sentiment:
Give [Wales] self-government and you will give her a capital city where her writers will con- gregate
and meet artists and form a society. Give her a government and a capital and she will in time gather
an urban class which will be the basis of a new aristocracy
The views of Henderson and Lewis, as imaginative and forward-looking as they were, did not appeal to the
majority of the Welsh people' at the time, those who thought the politician and the poet were those of a very
small minority indeed. In the meantime, the process of anglicization continued unabated; more people living
in Wales considered themselves Anglo-Welsh than Welsh. Much of the blame (or for some,the praise), can
be placed on the educational system that, even before the outset of the Second World War was geared to
producing loyal Britons.
When World War ll finally arrived, there was much more unanimity of support throughout Britain than there
had been for the First World War. And there was less trauma inflicted upon the people of Wales, for this was
a crusade against Fascism and Nazism and Hitler that almost everyone could subscribe to. It was also a fight
to preserve the Empire. The heavy bombing meant a large exodus of children from the targeted larger
English cities into the more rural areas. In Wales, thousands of refugees learned Welsh, but in many areas
their English language overwhelmed the local speech.or tipped the scales against its survival.
To counter the linguistic threat to the Welsh culture at Aberystwyth, a private Welsh-medium school was
established.by Ifan ab Owen Edwards, the son of the famous educator. Apart from this little school, however,
it wasn't until Llanelli Welsh School began in 1947 that the idea of teaching children through the medium of
Welsh began to take hold in earnest. Other schools followed, so that by 1970, even Cardiff had its Ysgol
Dewi Sant (St. David's School) one of the largest primary schools in Wales, teaching through the medium of
Welsh.
The increase in the Welsh primary schools was accompanied by a demand for a Welsh secondary education,
and the first such schools opened in Flintshire, Ysgol Gyfun Glan Clwyd and Ysgol Maes Garmon in areas in
which the great majority of the parents were monolingual English. The success of these schools were
followed by Ysgol Rhydfelen in Glamorganshire in 1962 and by many others by the 1980's.
It may have taken a long while, and for many, it might have been too late, but the change in the attitude of the
Welsh people toward their language has been dramatic since 1962. Not only that, but great strides have been
made in convincing immigrants to Wales that their children would not suffer the loss of their English language
if they were to be taught through the medium of Welsh, and that a bilingual education may well be superior to
one that confines them to a single language. Many a non-Welsh speaking parent is now anxious to point with
pride at the achievement of their children in the Welsh language. It is no longer fashionable in Wales to refer
to the language as "dying," and the activities of the Eisteddfod as "the kicks of a dying nation," sentiments the
author heard at Swansea in 1964. What caused the sea-change?
One place we can start to look for the answer is the media, especially public radio. Beginning in 1922, the
BBC broadcasts in Wales were eagerly awaited. its voice, however, was one that gave prestige and authority
to its views, the voice of a public-school-educated upper-class Englishman. In addition, the majority of
broadcasts led a majority of British people to believe that a BBC accent was not only desirable, but was the
correct one, and that their own accent, dialect, or in the case of much of Wales, their language, was inferior. It
was Radio Eireann, the voice of the Irish Republic, that broadcast the only regular Welsh language material,
beginning in 1927.
At time, and for a long period afterward, incredible as it now seems, the head of the BBC station in Cardiff
ignored protests from devotees of the Welsh language who wished to hear Welsh language programs. There
were then almost one million speakers of Welsh. But aided by such attitudes of those in authority, a rapid
decline was about to begin. This was not inevitable. Perhaps the language would have even advanced, given
sufficient air time in the late 1920's and early 30's. The problem was that most Welsh listeners enjoyed their
English language programs; it was only the few who realized that their enjoyment was coming at the expense
of their cherished, native tongue
Survival of the Welsh Language: Part IX
One who did take notice, and one who provided the second place to look for the answer was Ifan ab
Owen Edwards, whose father Owen M. Edwards had founded Urdd y Delyn in 1898. The son, in his
turn, established the most influential of all youth movements in Wales, Urdd Gobaith Cymru in 1922;
the movement has involved countless thousands of Welsh boys and girls ever since, conducting
their camps, sports activities, singing festivals, eisteddfodau, etc. all through the medium of Welsh
and proving that the language was not one that should be confined to an older, chapel-going,
puritanical generation. Continued protests against the policies of the BBC, unable and in most cases
unwilling to cater to the new, younger generation eventually led to the BBC studio at Bangor
broadcasting Welsh language programs. In 1935, and in July of 1937 the Welsh Region of the BBC
finally began to broadcast on a separate wavelength. Radio Cymru, however, had to wait until 1977.
Another pivotal figure in the fight for survival of the Welsh language, and one who made good use of
the power of the radio broadcast was the poet and dramatist Saunders Lewis. Like Ifan ab Owen
Edwards, Lewis was greatly concerned that, unless something was done, and done quickly, the
Welsh language as a living entity would disappear before the end of the century. Lewis, a major
Welsh poet and dramatist, generally considered as the greatest literary figure in the Welsh language
of this century, was born in Cheshire into a Welsh family; he later became a lecturer at the newly
established University College, Swansea. Heavily influenced by events in Ireland and the struggle for
national identity in that country that took place in the political sphere, he was one of the founders of
Plaid Cymru in 1925 at the Pwllheli National Eisteddfod, becoming its president in 1926.
Lewis envisioned a new role for the people of Wales that would transform their position as a member
of the British Empire into one in which they could see themselves as one of the nations that helped
found European civilization. As he viewed it:
What then is our nationalism?...To fight not for Welsh independence but for the civilization of
Wales. To claim for Wales not independence but freedom. (Egwyddorion Cenedlaetholdeb,
1926)
Ten years later, with two companions, D.J. Williams and Lewis Valentine, Lewis deliberately set a fire
at Penyberth in the Llyn Peninsular, North Wales, a site that the military wished to use for
construction of a bombing school. The three then turned themselves in to the authorities and were
duly indicted and summoned to appear in court. The failure of the court to agree on a verdict at
Caernarfon, a town sympathetic to their cause, meant the removal of their trial to London, where they
were each sentenced to nine months imprisonment. Lewis was dismissed from his teaching post at
Swansea even before the arrival of the guilty verdict at the Old Bailey.
Leading Welsh historians agree that The fire at Penyberth should be regarded as a cause celebre in
the struggle for Welsh identity; it certainly had its impact on Welsh thinking, an impact that was not
wholly dampened by the onset of Word War ll which again focused the people of Britain on their
shared identity in the face of an enemy that threatened their survival as a nation. The pacificism of
Lewis was an affront to many, even within Plaid Cymru who saw the need to defeat as overriding any
other concern. HIs staunch support of Wales, and his willingness to suffer in her cause, however,
was significant in events some years after the war.
With the arrival of peace, the great increase in the number of people owing automobiles and the
improvements in the road system meant that many areas in Wales were easy to get to. Their beauty
and tranquility became an irresistible magnet to thousands ready to retire from the squalor and
overcrowding of the big industrial cities of northern and middle England. Welsh communities,
especially along the North Wales coast, found themselves inundated with a flood of newcomers who
were either too old to learn the language or couldn't be bothered. Many of the younger couples had
no idea that Wales had a language of its own, or when they did find out were adamant that their
children be educated through the medium of English. Far more significant was the fact that it was far
too easy to get by perfectly well in Wales without knowing a word of its language.
The whole north Wales coast, known as "the Welsh Riviera" became first a weekend playground for,
and then an extension of, Merseyside. The mid-Wales coast, similarly was transformed by a huge
influx of people from the Midlands. LIverpool accents were more common in Llandudno than Welsh;
Birmingham accents common in Borth, or even Aberystwyth. The author vividly remembers visiting a
pub in Bangor where every customer but one could speak Welsh, but all of whom used English to
defer to a monolingual Englishman (who had been in the area forty years without learning a single
word of Welsh). The same situation was found throughout much of North Wales.
The result of such massive invasions, often by retirees, certainly by those with little incentive to learn
Welsh was drastic. From almost a million Welsh speakers in 1931, the number fell to just over 500,000
in less than fifty years.despite the large increase in population. Strongholds of the language and its
attendant culture were crumbling fast, and it seemed that nothing could be done to stem the tide. In
1957 occurred an event that exemplified the situation: the Liverpool Corporation got the go-ahead
from Parliament to drown a valley in Meirionydd (Merionethshire) called Tryweryn, which housed a
strong and vibrant Welsh-speaking community. The removal of the people of Tryweryn to make way
for a source of water for an English city convinced many in Wales that the nation was on its way to
extinction. The survival of the Welsh language seemed irreversibly doomed, and no-one seemed to
care.
Then something happened; someone seemed to care after all. At Pontarddulais in 1962, at the
summer school of Plaid Cymru, a new movement began. Mainly involving a younger active post-war
Welsh generation, many of them college students, the Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language
Society) decided to take matters in their own hands to try to halt the decline of the language by
forcing the hand of the government. Saviors to many, scoundrels and troublemakers to others,
frustrated members of the Society had been galvanized into action by a talk given on the BBC by
Saunders Lewis in February, 1962.
In his talk, entitled Tynged yr Iaith (Fate of the language) Lewis asked his listeners to make it
impossible for local or central government business to be conducted without the use of the Welsh
language. This was the only way, he felt, to ensure its survival. Plaid Cymru could not help, as it was
a political party, so the banner was taken up by Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg. At narrow Trefechan
Bridge, Aberystwyth in February, 1963, members of the society sat down in the road and stopped all
traffic trying to get into town over the bridge, or trying to leave town on the same route.
ТерминСписокопределенийАдресаЦитатыГотовыйUndeterred by prison sentences for disturbing the
peace and for their subsequent destruction of government property (mostly road signs), and led by such
activists as Fred Fransis, and folk-singer Dafydd Iwan, the society began a serious campaign. In the face of
much hostility from passivist locals and prosecution from the authorities, Cymdeithas pressed for the right to
use Welsh on all government documents, from Post Office forms to television licenses, from driving licenses
to tax forms. In particular, the society engaged in surreptitious night time activities, removing English-only
sign posts and directional instructions from the highways or daubing them with green paint. All over Wales, in
early morning, motorists were faced with the green paint and daubed slogan that mysteriously had appeared
overnight. It became frustrating and expensive for local authorities and the Ministry of Transport to keep
replacing road signs.
Eventually, in 1963, faced with an ever-growing campaign, increased police and court costs, destruction of
government property, and the vociferous demands for action by an increasingly angry and frustrated national
movement, the central government decided to establish a committee to look at the legal status of Welsh. Its
report, issued two years later, recommended that the language be given "equal validity" with English, a
diluted version of which was placed into the Welsh Language Act of 1967.
There came about a new feeling in the land. The young people of Wales were answering the call of Saunders
Lewis; the older generation began to reconsider their passiveness. Dafydd Iwan and many of his
contemporaries inaugurated a whole new movement in popular Welsh music, translating English and
American pops into Welsh, or writing stirring new lyrics and music or protest. The popularity of mournful,
funereal hymns sung by male voice choirs found a competitor, the loud, heavy rhythms and rebellious music
of new bands. Groups such as Ar Log and Plethyn rediscovered ancient Welsh folk music and brought it up
to date. The National Eisteddfod entered into the spirit, each year erecting a Roc Pavilion, where such groups
could attract the younger audiences. Wales began to finally shake off the shrouds cast by the Methodist
Revival of over a century before.
Since the 1960's, in the author's birthplace Flint and in other towns in Clwyd, attempts to reintroduce the
Welsh language in the schools have been warmly welcomed by many of the townsfolk, and a whole new
generation of children who can speak, read and write Welsh may help ensure the future of the language (and
ultimately, of Plaid Cymru) in such heavily anglicized areas. Other areas, such as the Cardiff region and the
Valleys have already experienced some growth in the numbers of those able to speak Welsh.
Factors for this increase include the rise of a Welsh bureaucracy; further expansion of the Welsh-oriented
mass media; the continued activities of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, with its appeal to the young generation;
and the effects of the Welsh Language Act of 1967. Perhaps most important is the subtle change in attitude
towards the language brought about by the advantages that can be gained by its speakers in both social and
economic fields. Of crucial importance in winning the hearts and minds of the non-Welsh speakers who have
young children has been Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin (the Welsh Nursery School Movement) founded in 1971.
In the anglicized areas of Wales, we may yet again read such sentiments as that given by Sir Walter Scott, in
a letter to his son, dated December, 1820:
You hear the Welsh spoken much about you, and if you can pick it up without interfering with more
important labours, it will be worth while
In the late 1990's, as we shall see, one of the more important labors of many of the Welsh people has been to
continue the fight to preserve their language, and with it, much of the culture upon which it depends. To
preserve this language, the ancient, magnificent tongue of the British people for so many, many centuries,
will be indeed, a labor of love to make up for so much past pain.
Welsh Language Guide
The language of Wales, more properly called Cymraeg in preference to Welsh (A Germanic word
denoting "foreigner"), belongs to a branch of Celtic, an Indo-European language. The Welsh
themselves are descendants of the Galatians, to whom Paul wrote his famous letter. Their language
is a distant cousin to Irish and Scots Gaelic and a close brother to Breton. Welsh is still used by
about half a million people within Wales and possibly another few hundred thousand in England and
other areas overseas.
In most heavily populated areas of Wales, such as the Southeast (containing the large urban centers
of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea), the normal language of everyday life is English, but there are other
areas, notably in the Western and Northern regions, (Gwynedd and Dyfed particularly) where the
Welsh language remains strong and highly visible. The Welsh word for their country is Cymru
(Kumree), the land of the Comrades; the people are known as Cymry (Kumree) and the language as
Cymraeg (Kumrige). Regional differences in spoken Welsh do not make speakers in one area
unintelligible to those in another (as is so often claimed), standard Welsh is understood by Welsh
speakers everywhere.
Despite its formidable appearance to the uninitiated, Welsh is a language whose spelling is entirely
regular and phonetic, so that once you know the rules, you can learn to read it and pronounce it
without too much difficulty. For young children learning to read, Welsh provides far fewer difficulties
than does English, as the latter's many inconsistencies in spelling are not found in Welsh, in which
all letters are pronounced.
THE WELSH ALPHABET: (28 letters)
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
(Note that Welsh does not possess the letters J, K, Q, V, X or Z, though you will often come across
"borrowings" from English, such as John, Jones, Jam and Jiwbil (Jubilee); Wrexham (Wrecsam); Zw
(Zoo).
THE VOWELS: (A, E, I, U, O, W, Y)
A as in man. Welsh words: am, ac Pronounced the same as in English)
E as in bet or echo. Welsh words: gest (guest); enaid (enide)
I as in pin or queen. Welsh words: ni (nee); mi (me); lili (lily); min (meen)
U as in pita: Welsh words: ganu (ganee); cu (key); Cymru (Kumree); tu (tee); un (een)
O as in lot or moe. Welsh words: o'r (0re); don (don); dod (dode); bob (bobe)
W as in Zoo or bus. Welsh words: cwm (koom), bws (bus); yw (you); galw (galoo)
Y has two distinct sounds: the final sound in happy or the vowel sound in myrrh Welsh words: Y (uh);
Yr (ur); yn (un); fry (vree); byd (beed)
All the vowels can be lengthened by the addition of a circumflex (a), known in Welsh as "to bach"
(little roof). Welsh words: Tan (taan), lan (laan)
THE DIPHTHONGS:
Ae, Ai and Au are pronounced as English "eye": ninnau (nineye); mae (my); henaid (henide); main
(mine); craig (crige)
Eu and Ei are pronounced the same way as the English ay in pray. Welsh words: deisiau (dayshy), or
in some dialects (deeshuh); deil (dale or dile); teulu (taylee or tyelee)
Ew is more difficult to describe. It can be approximated as eh-oo or perhaps as in the word mount.
The nearest English sound is found in English midland dialect words such as the Birmingham
pronunciation of "you" (yew). Welsh words: mewn (meh-oon or moun); tew (teh-oo)
I'w and Y'w sound almost identical to the English "Ee-you." or "Yew" or "You": Welsh words: clyw
(clee-oo); byw (bee-you or b'you); menyw (menee-you or menyou)
Oe is similar to the English Oy or Oi. Welsh words: croeso (croyso); troed (troid); oen (oin)
Ow is pronounced as in the English tow, or low: Welsh word: Rhown (rhone); rho (hrow)
Wy as in English wi in win or oo-ee: Welsh words: Wy (oo-ee); wyn (win); mwyn (mooin)
Ywy is pronounced as in English Howie. Welsh words: bywyd (bowid); tywyll (towith)
Aw as in the English cow. Welsh words: mawr (mour); prynhawn (prinhown); lawr (lour)
THE CONSONANTS:
For the most part b, d, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, and t are pronounced the same as their English equivalents (h
is always pronounced, never silent). Those that differ are as follows:
C always as in cat; never as in since. Welsh words: canu (Kanee); cwm (come); cael (kile); and of
course, Cymru (Kumree)
Ch as in the Scottish loch or the German ach or noch. The sound is never as in church, but as in loch
or Docherty. Welsh words: edrychwn (edrych oon); uwch (youch ), chwi (Chee)
Dd is pronounced like the English th in the words seethe or them. Welsh words: bydd (beethe); sydd
(seethe); ddofon (thovon); ffyddlon (futh lon)
Th is like the English th in words such as think, forth, thank. Welsh words: gwaith (gwithe); byth
(beeth)
F as in the English V. Welsh words: afon (avon); fi (vee); fydd (veethe); hyfryd (huvrid); fawr (vowr),
fach (vach)
Ff as in the English f. Welsh words: ffynnon (funon); ffyrdd (furth); ffaith (fithe)
G always as in English goat, gore. Welsh words: ganu (ganee); ganaf (ganav); angau (angeye); gem
(game)
Ng as in English finger or Long Island. Ng usually occurs with an h following as a mutation of c.
Welsh words Yng Nghaerdydd (in Cardiff: pronounced ung hire deethe) or Yng Nghymru (in Wales:
pronounced ung Humree)
Ll is an aspirated L. That means you form your lips and tongue to pronounce L, but then you blow air
gently around the sides of the tongue instead of saying anything. Got it? The nearest you can get to
this sound in English is to pronounce it as an l with a th in front of it. Welsh words: llan (thlan); llawr
(thlour); llwyd (thlooid)
Rh sounds as if the h come before the r. There is a slight blowing out of air before the r is
pronounces. Welsh words: rhengau (hrengye); rhag (hrag); rhy (hree)
The most common expressions that Welsh-Americans come across are Cymanfa Ganu (Kumanva
Ganee); Eisteddfod (Aye-steth-vod); and Noson Lawen (Nosson Lowen)
PRACTICE
Read the following, written using the Welsh alphabet:
Gwd lwc. Ai hop ddat yw can ryd ddys and ddat yt meiks sens tw yw. Iff yw can ryd ddys, dden yw ar
dwing ffaen and wil haf no problems at ol yn lyrnyng awr ffaen Welsh alffabet.
Good luck: I hope that you can read this, and that it makes sense to you. If you can read this, then
you are doing fine and will have no problems at all in learning our fine Welsh alphabet.

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