Talk:Welsh language/Archive 1

Mutation and Japanese

Is the consonant mutation similar to Japanese "rendaku"?

I don't know enough Japanese yet to answer your question, but this article should help Welsh morphology --193.195.185.254 02:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

"The language of local government"

I would query whether Welsh is the "language of local government". It may be in the north and west, and I know Gwynedd used to have simultaneous translation, but I find it difficult to believe that in Gwent or Cardiff the use of Cymraeg extends beyond making welsh languge versions of documents. A minor criticism-this is a good articlejimfbleak 18:54 Apr 14, 2003 (UTC)

Welsh is at least an official language of local government throughout Wales. In practice, it is doubtful how much it gets used in many areas although I understand that technically any resident of Wales would have the legal right to Welsh language versions of official documents and possibly also to deal with a Welsh-speaking member of staff in any government institution. Magnus 11:57 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)

Breton and Cornish

I'm not convinced by the claim at the end of the article that Breton and Cornish are intelligible to Welsh speakers. Certainly there are some very clear similarities, and with my knowledge of Welsh I could have an educated guess at the meaning of written, and presumably spoken, Cornish (and probably also Breton too, though I haven't so much experience there), but I wouldn't say they are fully intelligible. It's probably a connection fairly similar to that between French, Spanish and Italian (rather than that between Norwegian and Swedish, which I understand are much more mutually intelligible). Magnus 11:57 Apr 24, 2003 (UTC)

The one time I've heard spoken Cornish, at the National Eisteddfod, I thought "I didn't think my Welsh was so poor", and I thought it was a funnily-accented Welsh but I could only understand about half of what was said. -- Arwel 15:25 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

My apologies for having edited the page without reading Talk: first. I put the comment in originally (if I recall correctly) from having seen my mother do exactly that in a Breton shop; no French was spoken (as I'd've understood that far more easily than the shameful amount of Welsh I know). I definitely get the impression they're closer to Norwegian/Swedish/Danish intelligibility than French/Italian/Spanish. I reworded it a little more along the lines of your concerns, though; feel free to revert or tweak further, if you prefer -- OwenBlacker 22:06, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

My father only used to speak Welsh, up to the age of 6 when he learned English at school. He never learned French. On a holiday in Brittany we got to know the warden of the local campsite that we stayed in. He only spoke French and Breton with no English. He and my father spent much time discussing their experiences in the second world war (the warden having been in the resistance). The warden speaking in Breton and my father in Welsh. I have, thus, to disagree in the view expressed in the article. G. Evans --200.57.216.2 22:41, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've amended the article to invert the sentence, so that it implies that people can get by across the languages, rather than mutual intelligibility per se — OwenBlacker 13:38, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

That's not true. Breton and Welsh are not mutually intelligible at all if one of the speakers hasn't learnt the language of the other. Words seem alike: names of trees, animals etc. Most verbes are very different, syntax is very different, pronounciation is different... Believe me: I speak Breton fluently, and I've studied Welsh. It's impossible to be understood: maybe, sometimes a Welsh speaker can understand a little bit what is the Breton speaker speaking about... but not so often. Mr. Evans, what you say is exaggerated: I know bith languages and I know how different they are.

Cornish is closer to Breton than Welsh is, but even Cornish speakers whould have a hard time trying to get understood by a Breton speaker. They would do better than a Welsh speaker, but they wouldn't understand most of what is said.

A Breton Wikipedian

I have to agree with the general view expressed here. Much as I would love the idea of speakers of Welsh and Breton being able to communicate, it's not the case. I know Welsh and have read quite a bit of Breton. The difference between them is definitely comparable to that of French/Spanish. They are far more different from each other than the pair of Swedish/Norwegian. Every Welsh speaker (quite a lot) agree with this view. Jonas

The wording I put in seems to me to be quite adequate — it doesn't suggest that everyone can manage fluently, it suggests that some people can manage adequately (which is evidently true, given that neither myself nor G Evans above have any reason to lie about it). For what it's worth, my mother knows neither Cornish nor Breton.

What specific problem does anyone have with the wording that was removed:

Breton and Cornish are quite closely-related languages and, whilst it would be unfair to suggest that the languages are entirely mutually intelligible, some Welsh speakers can converse adequately with a speaker of either Breton or Cornish, with both sides following the meaning of the conversation in the other language without too much problem.

It is certainly better than the somewhat orphaned phrase there now. I honestly think that the sentence is acceptable. Give me specific rewordings and I'm happy to take them, but the sentence there at the moment is just awful, as it's just hanging there looking out of place. — OwenBlacker 00:17, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

Syntax and verbs are not actually very different as the other comment implies. There are a couple of non-obvious changes (eg Cornish use of emphatic form for all statements) but the syntax is fundamentally the same. A set of tables and rules good enough to allow even a Welsh learner to read cornish with their welsh knowledge and dictionary will fit easily on an A4 sheet. AlanCox 00:05, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I just removed the following from the "dialects" section:

Breton and Cornish are quite closely-related languages.

I presume this is a vestige of the original comment about Breton and Cornish being intelligible to Welsh speakers. In this form it does not seem to belong here (neither are dialects of Welsh) and does not convey any information that's not already available via the infobox (the genetic classification bits). Hairy Dude 14:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Fun

What fun I've had editing this page today! I decided to expand the section on the history of the Welsh Language to provide more than just an external link. The first time I wrote it, something went wrong and it ended up deleting the whole page rather than adding my changes. The second and third times my browser ran out of memory and closed down just as I was about to save the page (the third time deleting the whole page again just for good measure). I've finally managed to get the stuff written by doing it a paragraph at a time.

There's probably enough now on the history of the language (but if anyone can expand a bit or correct any factual errors, it would be good). I'd quite like to say something about how the (traditionally spoken) dialects are supplanting the literary language in a lot of Welsh literature. I don't think that's an entirely new phenomenon as it's observable at least in the work of people like Kate Roberts and Caradog Prichard, if not earlier. Magnus 16:49 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

Weird characters

I found lots of weird characters in this page; I'm not sure yet just when they slipped in. But for instance, by the time of your last edit before mine, there seemed to be 76 (!) invisible characters at the end of the last item in the "Grammar" list, and there were a lot of lines that looked like just another blank line, but really had dozens of spaces in them. I'm sure those things had something to do with your difficulties, whether as cause or effect remains unclear. -- John Owens 18:10 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

Oh, and could you explain why the header "==S t a t u s==" (minus the spaces; it's replaced here, too) is always replaced by one saying "==dUmMy==" in previews and diffs? Had me really worried there; I almost thought of settling for just changing it to an <h2>, but it looks normal on the regular article page. -- John Owens 18:23 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)

I've no idea about your second question, but I think I can answer the first one. The first time I accidentally deleted the page, I didn't quite figure out how to restore the old version, so I ended up copying the text from the comparison of the then-current blank version and the previous version, pasting it and editing out most of the extraneous formatting. I obviously missed lots of extraneous characters though. The second time I was able to find a better way of copying it, by opening the previous version to edit and then copying the text from there, but it obviously still contained the dodgy invisible stuff. Our university still insists on using an old, flaky browser, alas. -- Magnus 11:37 Apr 28, 2003 (UTC)

The regions where Welsh is spoken

Interesting article! I'd love to see, one day, a map showing the regions where Welsh is spoken. --Auximines 14:33, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

These any good to you? [1] Marnanel 15:50, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

I have removed Merioneth from the list, as it has been included within Gwynedd since 1974. It is unclear what the "regions" are supposed to be. Gwynedd, Denbighshire, Carmarthenshire etc (but not Glamorgan) are current local authority areas; if this is a list of local authority areas then Conwy should be added. Rhion 14:25, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

A Ydych chi'n eisiau

Surely for formal Welsh this is incorrect ? Eisiau is a noun not a verb, as is still reflected in the modern "dych chi eisiau" (no yn) and other oddities, from the older "Mae eisiau [thing] arna". -- AlanCox 18:15, Apr 24, 2004 (UTC)

I've only ever heard "Rhydych chi'n cwp te" myself… ;o) — OwenBlacker 13:38, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

I would say "(Y)dych chi eisiau..." for "Do you want...." (colloquially dropping the y). However for something like "do you work / are you working": "Dych chi'n gweithio," with the yn present. I think a resolution can be found as eisiau does have discrete noun and verb forms. Other verbs are used with bod as verb-nouns (gerunds really yn gweithio - working). Eisiau can be conjugated as a verb, though please don't ask me to, for formal use. In the construction in question eisiau is being used as a noun and hence doesn't need the yn. I guess it's one of those irregularities that make languages so colourful. Dave C 15:49, 27 Jul 2004

The concern I have is that this is a modern irregularity Alan Cox

Immigrated?

however, it appears that about a third of the population of Wales has immigrated within the last 30 years.
emigrated or immigrants to Wales? This sentence doesn't make sense ᚣᚷᚷᛞᚱᚫᛋᛁᛚ 13:03, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I disagree, it seemed quite clear to me. I understood it to mean immigrated to Wales, otherwise it would read emigrated :o) OwenBlacker 20:55, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)

I've changed the text to use a statistic that can be verified from the 2001 Census, and made it unambiguous.--Dave63 08:48, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ñ in Welsh?

See my comments on Talk:Alphabets derived from the Latin#Ñ in Welsh?! for details, but I've just removed a claim that we use an Ñ for Ng sometimes. Please comment there, if you have anything to add. — OwenBlacker 20:48, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

Invented Welsh placenames?

The article mentions "all road signs in Wales are in English and Welsh, including the Welsh versions of place names (some of which are recent inventions based on the English names).". Does anyone have any evidence for the inventions being Welsh→English and not the other way round? The comment just feels rather POV to me, though I am aware it might just be that I'm not neutral on the subject of Yr Iaith. — OwenBlacker 13:38, Jul 17, 2004 (UTC)

The only one I'm aware of is Wrexham --> Wrecsam which definitely is a Saxon-format name. -- Arwel 14:32, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There are quite a few examples in the North East, near the border. For example Broughton (saxon, fortified home or farm) can now also be referred to as Brychdyn. This parallels with nearby Soughton --> Sychdyn, however I'm not entirely sure whether this is a Welsh approximation to the English or vice versa, as there is a possible Welsh etymology (Sych meaning dry.) Buckley-->Bwcle is another example. Buckley (as well as being a family name) possibly from the anglo-saxon boc (for beech) and lea (for clearing). There are also some names which I suppose one could call isonomic, for example Cei Connah = Connah's Quay. Interestingly? I have heard it said that wrexham is from Wraig Sam or Sam's wife, though I am pretty sure that's apocryphal. Dave C 12:48, 27 Jul 2004

I can confirm this is the case having talked to someone involved in the process of "bilingualising' for a council. Alan Cox

The majority of names have been translated from Welsh into English however, and in places like Gwynedd and Mon the vast majority of villages and towns have no English version (e.g. Bangor, Llandudno, Caernarfon (Caernarvon is never used anywhere anymore))

I can imagine that to people who aren't familiar with the particular placenames, it could get very annoying trying to work out whether a signpost with two names on it is for two different places, each one of which has only one name (e.g. Bangor, Caernarfon), or a single place with English and Welsh versions of the name.

Even more confusing when half of the names have been spray-painted out by Cymuned or other fanatics (completely POV that statement, so sue me). The only English-Welsh translation I can think of on Anglesey is Valley. There are a few explanations for why it's called Valley in the first place (it's not really in a valley), including that it's based on the Irish "bally". The Welsh translation has been given at Y Dyffryn (lit. a valley) and Y Fali. I think the latter is in use at the railway station.Dafyddyoung 12:33, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not forgetting how many times the third "C" has been spraypainted out on the signs in Criccieth. The number of cambricised English names is probably of the same order of magnitude as the anglicised Welsh names. For a guide to the reverse, look at the names of suburbs in Cardiff. Most either have only a Welsh name that none of the locals can pronounce properly (e.g. Lanshin or Trimorffer), or they have anglicised names (e.g. Llys-Faen/Lisvane Rhath/Roath). On a similar vein, I've heard some "interesting" pronunciations of Aberdulais. Chris 00:53, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that this 'invention' is a one-way process - what about Denbigh (from Dinbych), Barmouth (from Bermo < Abermaw), Cardiff (from Caerdyf - now Caerdydd)? It seems they're only 'inventions' when they're adapted to Welsh.

And what 'recent' inventions are you referring to? I think you'll find that Wrecsam for example has a long pedigree.

The way it's written just seems as if it's trying to put down the Welsh.

Self-references

There is a Welsh Wikipedia at http://cy.wikipedia.org.

Does anyone object to removing this? (c.f. Wikipedia:Avoid self-references). The fact there's a Welsh Wikipedia isn't particularly relevant to an encyclopedia article on Welsh unless it were one of the major works of literature in Welsh (which right now it isn't). — Kate | Talk 09:27, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

Most of the language articles (to my memory) tend to have a single line mentioning that there is a Wikipedia in that language. I can see your point, but I think I prefer leaving them in, in this context. — OwenBlacker 12:36, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. What about moving it to External links? — Kate | Talk 19:13, 2004 Aug 17 (UTC)

I can't say I really care. I guess the only important thing either way is that we're consistent with other languages… — OwenBlacker 19:40, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

"Searching for the Welsh-Hindi link" removed

I removed the following section:

A BBC journalist is urging helpful linguists to come forward to help solve a mystery - why the Hindi accent has so much in common with Welsh.

Sonia Mathur, a native Hindi speaker, had her interest sparked when she moved from India to work for the BBC in Wales - and found that two accents from countries 5,000 miles apart seemed to have something in common.

It has long been known that the two languages stem from Indo-European, the "mother of all languages" - but the peculiar similarities between the two accents when spoken in English are striking.

Remarkably, no-one has yet done a direct proper comparative study between the two languages to found out why this is so, says Ms Mathur.

For one thing, this has been copied word-for-word from [2], making it a copyvio.

But more to the point, Ms Mathur's amateurish speculations are unlikely to yield any useful results. If any professional linguists "come forward to help solve" this "mystery", I can predict what the results will be: Welsh and Hindi are both pitch-accent languages, resulting in superficial intonational similarities in the respective accents of English. The fact that Welsh and Hindi are both pitch-accent languages is probably coincidental, as Welsh at least does not preserve the Proto-Indo-European pitch accent (Proto-Celtic almost certainly had a stress accent). And calling Indo-European "the mother of all languages" is just absurd, and really shoddy journalism. --Angr 10:38, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Ms Mathur's own research [!] on basic words, such as the numbers one to 10, found that many were similar - "seven", for example, is "saith" in Welsh, "saat" in Hindi. [3] And sept in French, and sieben in German, etc etc etc... It is pretty shocking that this sort of rubbish can pass for news on the BBC website. A quick glance at "My First Easy Book of Linguistics" would have been all the "research" necessary, without bothering any professors. No doubt some corporate agenda is at work to do with showing how wonderfully culturally diverse this BBC is or at least would like to be. My own painstaking original research has now revealed that the whale is not a fish (nor even an insect, as E. L. Wisty claimed) -- it's actually related to the sabre-toothed tiger, which is the mother of all animals. But does the BBC give me the coverage my dramatic findings so obviously deserve? Huh! Flapdragon 18:28, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Number of Welsh speakers

According to the Wales article, 28.43% of the population of Wales have some sort of knowledge of the Welsh language. However, that adds up to 825,000. I edited the article to say speakers: 580,000-825,000. Was this correct? Anomynous South African Wikipedian 22:24, 22 March 2004 (UTC)

I have now rewritten the number of speakers as 610,000 according to the United Kingdomcensus numbers. Anomynous S. African Wikipedian.

Monoglots

I'm pretty sure 35,000 monoglots was orders of magnitude on the high side. I did come across an estimate of 3000, but even that was accompanied by the statement it was surprisingly high. More often one sees that there are "no adult monoglots" (i.e. there will be some number of pre-schoolers that are). Is there perhaps some small number of elderly monos? Another statistic that might be interesting is how many consider it their first language, use it on a daily basis, or some such formula. Alai 00:55, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Redirection

The very beginning of the article, stating "Welsh" redirects here, is wrong. I typed in "welsh", and was taken to the disambiguation page. Not sure if anyone cares, but I thought I'd mention it.

--someone new to editing

Category:Wales

According to Wikipedia:Categorization:

An article should not be in both a category and its subcategory, for example Microsoft Office is in Category:Microsoft software, so should not also be in Category:Software. Note: An exception would be an article that defines a category, and so is itself a parent article of subtopics as well as one in a series of like topics - for instance, placing Ohio in both Category:Political divisions of the United States and Category:Ohio

By the first sentence, an article in Category:Welsh culture should not also be in the parent category Category:Wales. By the noted exception, the title article of Category:Welsh language can be both there and its parent category Category:Welsh culture. The other option would be to have Category:Welsh language be a subcategory directly of Category:Wales (and not inside Category:Welsh culture), in which case this article could be in Category:Wales and Category:Welsh language, but not in Category:Welsh culture.

So... which two do we prefer? Do we want it in Category:Wales and Category:Welsh language, or do we want it in Category:Welsh culture and Category:Welsh language. By Wikipedia guidelines, it shouldn't be in all three. Another quote from WP:CG:

An article will often be in several categories. Restraint should be used, however — categories become less effective the more there are on a given article.

--Angr/_comhrá 20:19, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also from that page:

But sometimes there's a good reason to assign an article to two categories, one of which is a direct or indirect subcategory of another. For a well-argued case study, see John Lennon.

I think it should be a subcategory of all three, the language being significant enough to be in the main Wales category, and also having much importance in Welsh culture. That it should be in the Welsh language category goes without saying I think. Rls 18:11, 2005 May 1 (UTC)

Since you have declined to respond, I'm assuming you have no problems with the article being reverted. Rls 18:52, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

Link to disambig removed

Removed:

This article describes the Welsh language. For other meanings of Welsh, see Welsh.

This page has a very specific title. I can't see how anyone will arrive at it unless they are intentionally looking for information about the Welsh language.

It is entirely different from the following other two cases:

• On page Wales: "For alternate meanings, see Wales (disambiguation)"

• On page Welsh people: "This article is about the Welsh as an ethnic group. For information about residents or nationals of Wales, see demographics of Wales."

because in each of these two cases, the title of the page is such that someone could reasonably have arrived there while looking for the information contained elsewhere.

130.246.132.26 15:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I have no strong feelings either way. I only put it there because I saw the removal of the link to Wales (or to the disambig page, perhaps; I forget) and thought that it made more sense to link "for alternatives.." to Welsh than to Wales. But yes: people arriving on this page probably expected to arrive here in the first place. Telsa 15:50, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Aspirate mutation

You say "These days, the aspirate mutation is only really carried out for words beginning with C in colloquial language and in some areas it is totally unknown".

Surely it is in general use to differentiate between 'ei' "his" and 'ei' "her"? For example, "ei dad" - his father; "ei thad" - her father. "ei gaws" - his cheese; "ei chaws" - her cheese. "ei ben" - his head; "ei phen" - her head.

The article should be changed to reflect this. 10:11, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is, given that spoken Welsh uses pronouns after the noun in such cases. I can easily imagine there are dialects where the A.M. is not used in the spoken language at all, and the only way to distinguish "his father" from "her father" is ei dad e vs. ei dad hi. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 10:44, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Welsh in Education - Prifysgol Cymru, Bangor?

I don't understand why in the education section, we are told that most Welsh universities are bilingual, most notably, Bangor. What's so notable about Bangor? All the University of Wales collages are bilingual, I live in Ceredigion, and whilst Lampeter isn't the best at it's bilingual obligations, Aberystwyth are most certainly no 'less' bilingual than Bangor - the same goes for Trinity College, Carmarthen. All three have policies of translating all their documents into Welsh, and all three offer courses through the medium of Welsh. Maybe we should reword this section, unless someone knows why Bangor was picked out in the first place? Twrist 14:21, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Welsh in warfare: Bosnia

More recently, Welsh regiments serving in Bosnia used Welsh for emergency communications that needed to be secure.

Any source for this? Not doubting it, just intrigued. Flapdragon 14:40, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Someone, somewhere, must have written about this in a form we can use. The story crops up again and again. It came up on S4C the other night where in the course of vox pops someone said something along the lines of "I've forgotten all my Welsh, but I was in the army, we used it then, we had to, you know, to confuse the Germans". (Popeth yn Gymraeg: I think it was the one which visits Brecon.) I've heard it said several times before, although often with different dates/places attached. If it happened, surely it is written down somewhere. Any fans of 20th century biography or military history out there? (A cite from an autobiography with an ISBN sounds so much better than "unnamed interview subject in street" :)) --Telsa 10:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I remember clearly in 1994 or 1995 (these years are certain because I recall speaking about this incident to a girl I was seeing in those years) there was a news item concerning Welsh soldiers in the former Yugoslavia. I seem to remember that the item was broadcast by Channel 4 News. The report concerned the condition of the soldiers and, specifically, how they were using Welsh for radio communications so as to baffle evesdroppers. I saw and heard a soldier reading Welsh into a microphone, somewhat falteringly it must be said, from a piece of paper. - Sulien, a Welsh speaker.

Inaccurate map

(The following is a duplicate of comments I made here: Talk:Scottish_English#Inaccurate_map.)

The following map has been applied to the English English page, and to Scottish English:

Diagram showing the geographical locations of selected languages and dialects of the British Isles.

It appears to have one major flaw, and several quibbles:

• Where on earth is the Scots language? Its ommission seems particularly inappropriate considering the debt owed to Scots by Scottish English. Somewhat bizarrely, only one dialect of Scots is included, and that is the tiny number of Ulster Scots speakers, only about 2% of all Scots-speakers! I know that the map is titled "Selected languages", but it is baffling why the only language the auther has "selected" not to include is Scots!
• Why on earth have two distinct languages, Scottish Gaelic language and Irish language, been shown as a homogenous blob?
• Highland English is missing: another rather stark absence on this Scottish English page.
• Why are several subdivisions of English English shown, but only two of Scottish English? The differences between the Fife dialect and Aberdonian are just as big, if not bigger, than the differences between Brummie and Yorkshire dialect.
• Where on earth did Shetland go? A stunning ommission, considering that it is one of the most distictive linguistic groups in the entire British Isles?

I find it very depressing to hear that a German textbook publisher wants to use it in textbooks for 600 schools. No wonder many people grow up with a very strange perception of the language situation in the United Kingdom.--Mais oui! 10:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)