Bilingualism

(Dwyieithrwydd)

Welsh language:

Both English and Welsh are official languages. English is spoken by most of the population but 20per cent of the population spoke Welsh in the late 1990s. In recent years the language has experienced a revival in the largely anglicised, urban areas of southeastern and northeastern Wales. It’s because since 1970, Welsh has been included in the school curriculum. In 1982 Welsh is established in a television station and the Welsh culture interests more people. Now many more bilingual publications are to be found in everyday life. Nearly all road signs are in English and Welsh. In 1993 the Welsh language act gave parity to English and Welsh in government, business and the courts. All the people speak English but you can see Welsh signs everywhere and you will experience the Welsh warm welcome accompanied by the traditional greeting “Croeso”. Welsh has survived thanks to some legendary figures, such as Dafydd ap Gwilym. The Welsh language stimulates a rich cultural life. Eisteddfod a, singing, dancing, poetry festival, is organised in many towns and villages in Wales. The love of music, talk, good company make up a fundamental element of the Welsh character.

Here is a small Welsh lexicon:

Please = “Os gwelwch yn dda” (Oss-gouel-ooutch-eun za)

Thank you very much =” Diolch yn fawr” (Di-ol-eun vaour)

How are you? = “Shwmae?”(Chou mai)

Very well =”Da iawn”(Dai yauoun)

Good morning =”Bore da”(Bore-eh da)

Good afternoon =”Prynhawn da”(Proune-aoun da)

Good evening =”Noswaith dda”(Noss-ouai-z-ah)

What time is it? =”Beth ydy’r amser?”(Bez ah-dire am sere)

Welsh, called Cymraeg or Cymric (from Cymru,”Wales”) by its speakers, is the native language of Wales and the most flourishing of the Celtic languages. It is spoken in Wales (where the majority of its users also speak English) and in some communities in the United States and Argentina. Organisations such as the Society for the Welsh Language have saved the language from dying out and are working to assure its official status along with English. Several schools in Wales now use Welsh as the medium of instruction, and television and radio broadcasts are made in the language.

Like Breton, Welsh has discarded case endings for nouns; verbs, however, are elaborately inflected. The alternation of consonants, called mutation, plays a role, as in all Celtic languages. Welsh spelling is phonemic, representing unambiguously the pertinent sounds. In most cases Welsh speakers will know how to pronounce a word they have never seen before. The letter w can represent either a consonant or a vowel, however, and y stands for two vowel sounds. The consonant f has the sound of English v; ff of f; dd of th, as in then; and th of th, as in thin. Popular attempts to describe pronunciation of double l (ll) all fail. It is a voiceless lateral fricative, and facile comparison to English thl is invalid. Welsh words are accented on the next to last syllable and have a characteristic intonation.

Scholars recognise three periods of Welsh: Old (800-1100), middle (1100-1500). Old Welsh survives only in isolated words and names, plus a few lines of verse. Welsh has borrowed words throughout all these periods from Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norman French, and extensively from English, but it still has large native vocabulary of Celtic origin. Forty dialects have been identified in Wales. Standard Welsh has both a Northern and Southern variety.

Welsh nationalism:

In time, however, the Anglicisation of the gentry created a breach in Welsh society, which was further, deepened by religious differences. Slow to adopt Protestantism, the Welsh people were decidedly cool to Oliver Cromwell’s Puritanism and had to be persuaded by force. In the 18^th century they began to lean heavily toward Calvinism, and the growth of the Calvinistic Methodist Church was an assertion of Welsh nationalism; it culminated in 1920 in the disestablishment of the English Church in Wales. This turn supplied the party with one of its most forceful leaders, David Lloyd George.

Welsh nationalism has been kept alive up to the present day by the Plaid Cymru Party (founded in 1925), which has at times elected members to the British Parliament and otherwise kept pressure on the major parties to protect the special interests of Wales. In 1979 a Labour Party plan to devolve some powers to an elected assembly in Wales was voted down by the Welsh people by a margin of four to one. The Conservation Party that was elected later that year dropped any further plans for a Welsh government. In 1997 the Labour Party come into power supported the idea of devolving some of Parliament’s powers to national legislatures in Scotland and Wales. In a referendum held in September 1997 barely more than half of Welsh voters supported the creation of a Welsh assembly. Elections were held in 1999, and the Welsh assembly convened in early 2000 in Cardiff.

Welsh education:

The educational system of Wales is similar to that of England. In 1970 education was made bilingual, and in more districts instruction is given in Welsh, and English is taught as a second language.

The principal institution of higher education is the University of Wales (1893). The University is composed of the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, the University College of North Wales in Bangor, University College in Cardiff, Saint David’s University College in Lampeter, the College of Swansea, the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff, and the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology in Cardiff. In the mid-1980s the University of Wales had an annual enrolment of about 19,500 students.

Mélanie Ebelin