Talk:Welsh language

Spelling reformed

Is it true that the spelling of Welsh used to be something similar to that of various Gaelics, but it was reformed? Perhaps around the time y beibl came out in early 17th C. The modern spelling is pretty much completely phonetic, which is a great boon and may explain why Welsh is the strongest Celtic language. TomRawlinson (talk) 17:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's true Old Welsh and Middle Welsh spelling was more erratic than Modern Welsh spelling. I don't know anything about when or how it became regularized, though. OW/MW spelling has a little in common with Old Irish spelling, in particular the use of the letters 〈p, t, c, d〉 to stand for the sounds [b, d, g, ð] in non-initial position (a practice probably adopted by the Irish from the Welsh), but there are also differences (Irish has never used the letter 〈k〉, which was quite common in OW/MW, nor has it ever used 〈u〉 to stand for [v] or 〈g〉 to stand for [ŋ], both of which were common in OW/MW – the word [cyfwng] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "space" could have been spelled kyuwg in MW!). —Angr 19:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• "may explain why Welsh is the strongest Celtic language", I think that the "strongest" Celtic language, in terms of population who use it every day is Breton (500,000; cf Welsh at < 400,000). Pbhj (talk) 02:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Was Welsh spoken in North west England?? Furthermore, was N.W. England in wales??

• Was North-west England once part of Wales, or the Celtic lands. The are many places around North-west England with welsh names. e.g. Bryn, Parr, Ness e.t.c. There are also alot of Welsh methodist churches around the north-west. I have found many maps to prove that North-west England was in wales or the Celtic lands at some point not so long ago.[1], [2]
  • Welsh wasn't spoken in Northwest England, but the closely related Cumbrian language was. Even after it was extinct, well into the 19th century farmers in the area used words derived from Cumbrian to count sheep. Remember, all of England and Wales (and large parts of Scotland, maybe even all depending on what Pictish is) spoke Brythonic languages related to Welsh, Cornish and Breton up until the Anglo-Saxons arrived in the mid-5th century. And as your maps show, western England was still Celtic-speaking for at least a century or so afterward. (Still, I wouldn't call the 6th century AD "not so long ago"!) As for the Welsh Methodist churches, that's probably a coincidence, since Methodism wasn't invented until several centuries after Northwest England was entirely English-speaking. —Angr 16:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
    • There are chapels throughout England that still hold services in Welsh (although their numbers are dwindelling), but these were built to serve immigrant Welsh communities as opposed to a continued Welsh speaking population that pre-dated the existence of England. A lot of these are/were in Liverpool/Wirrall built around the turn of the 20th century, also in the English Midlands mid 20th century as people migrated there to work in the car building industries. A list might be interesting? --Rhyswynne (talk) 08:52, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Article becoming a portmanteau / trivialised?

This article appears to be holding a bit of excess baggage.

1. The prolog is too long, there are now 2 sections of statistics - prolog and the "status" section
2. I think it would help to separate off the linguistics from the other sections perhaps by putting the linguistics info under a major heading
3. The paragraph starting "Welsh is a living language ..." which goes into the intricacies of filing a Welsh Language Scheme and winning approval from the WLB should in my opinion be spun off to a separate article on the Welsh Language Act.
4. The notes concerning "quasi official language" are a bit hand-wavey, they should include a note that other languages are also used by the Assembly and Councils for publicity (Urdu, Mandarin, etc.) or simply be removed; in any case doesn't this sort of contradict the preceding paragraph.
5. Info about Welsh language on coinage is not really a point about the language, it's trivia in this article, put it in a "coins of the realm" article or whatever - if you have this you might as well note the use of the Prince of Wales feathers on the 2p, or mention that building in Cardiff Bay with the welsh words on the side.
6. As there's a "Welsh Medium Education" article the "Welsh in education" section should go into that and a succinct summary of the article placed here instead.
7. Popular culture section is naff, you may as well put Pobol Y Cwm and Fireman Sam in there too.
8. Ditto the Welsh in IT section it's not encyclopaedic IMHO. Pbhj (talk) 04:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Number system

The section on counting / number system claims a system based on 20's, my understanding (eg from the Usbourne Learn Welsh?? IIRC) is that the 20's system is prevalent in the North and the Chinese style one-ten-two (12, "twelve") is used more in the South. The former may be traditional, but the later is certainly used in schools, on buses and trains and in the post offices around here - never heard an actual Welsh speaker use it, but then people tend to use the international lingua franca of business in these parts. It would be interesting to note whether the National Curriculum for Wales mentions both counting systems and which it uses (particularly as the Chinese style is reportedly easier to pick up for kids) and whether this might standardise usage across the principality (I guess a similar reference for the language as a whole would be of interest). Pbhj (talk) 03:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

What you call the "Chinese" style is certainly easier to learn, but my dear departed Mam certainly regarded it as kiddies' talk and a sure sign of a dysgwr if an adult used it (this was back in the 70s). -- Arwel (talk) 00:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Please remember this is the English language Wikipedia, dysgwr means learner? Like I said it's the official method around South Wales. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pbhj (talk • contribs) 14:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

New section: Welsh for Adults?

There's a lot here about Welsh in school education, it even has a seperate article - I think there should at least be a mention about Welsh for Adults (that's the term used by the Welsh Assembly and I can't think of a better one). I'm interested in the subject myself as my wife learned Welsh as an adult through an Wlpan and then partly through work. I've recently started to teach it part-time in the evenings.

Finding current information such as numbers of dysgwyr (learners) and range of qualifications should not be too difficult, especially as there has been a re-organisation of the sector in the last 18 months by the Assembly, where Wales has been split into 6 Dedicated Language Centres in an attempt to achieve consistency. But I don't know where to start regarding historical info like where was the first courses held, either by an educational establishment or on a voluntry basis by orgnaisations like Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg or Plaid Cymru etc. Does anyone think it's a good idea, or can point me in the direction of books/studies?--Rhyswynne (talk) 15:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)