Language

There are many countries and nations in this book with a second or even third official language, but in all cases bar one, English is still very much the majority language and the language of everyday life. Wales is unique in the extent to which the Welsh language is used.

Welsh is very much a living lang­uage. It is used in conversation every day, and seen in Wales everywhere. Local government (including the Wel­sh Assembly) uses Welsh as its official language, public bodies issue official literature and publicity in Welsh ver­sions (e.g. letters to parents from sch­ools, library information, and council information).

All road signs in Wales are in English and Welsh, including the Welsh ver­sions of place names (although a few of these are recent inventions based on the English names).

The 2001 Census in the UK returned that 20.5 % of the Welsh (580 000 people) speak Welsh as a first language and although few are monolingual, it is believed that at least half of those are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh rather than English. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the sub­ject domain (known in linguistics as code-switching).

The earliest existing written records of a language identifiable as Welsh go back to about the 6th century, and the language of this period is known as Early Welsh. Old Welsh (9th to 11th centuries) developed as the Anglo-Saxon colonisation of Great Britain took place. The Celtic-speakers in Wales were split off from those in northern England, left speaking Cumbrian, and those in the south-west, left speak­ing what would become Cornish, and so the languages diverged.

Late Modern Welsh began with the publication of William Morgan's transla­tion of the Bible in 1588. Like its English counterpart, the King James Version, this proved to have a strong stabilising effect on the language, and indeed the language today still bears the same Late Modern label as Morgan's language. Of course, many minor changes have occurred since then.

Like most natural language, Welsh has a number of different dialects; it also has significant differences between its formal 'literary' written form and its formal 'literary' spoken form. The principal dialects are North Welsh and South Welsh. By way of an illustration, below are four translations into Welsh of "Do you want a cup of tea?".

Many websites for or about Wales are published in two editions, including those of such organisations as the BBC. To illustrate briefly the difference between the two languages, below is a news headline from the Welsh Assembly site in both languages:

Alun Pugh, Minister for Culture, Cyhoeddodd Alun Pugh, y Gwei-Welsh Language and Sport, today anno- nidog dros Ddiwylliant, y Gymraeg a unced details of a three-year stabilisation Chwaraeon heddiw fanylion rhaglen programme for the National Eisteddfod, sefydlogi tair blynedd ar gyfer yr Ei- The short-term future of the Eisteddfod steddfod Genedlaethol. Diogelir dy- is to be secured by an injection of an ad- fodol tymor byr yr Eisteddfod gyda ditional £160,000 this year from the Wei- hwb ariannol ychwanegol o £160,000 sh Assembly Government and the Welsh gan Lywodraeth y Cynulliad a Bwrdd Language Board. yr Iaith Gymraeg.

One very useful thing for a tourist visiting Wales to know is the informal National motto: Cymru am byth meaning "Wales for ever". The slogan is today available on every conceivable form of tourist souvenir; t-shirts, fridge magnets, tea towels and so on. In Victorian times, and indeed before the Second World War, the Welsh lan­guage was frowned upon if not actually banned.

Left is a subversive postcard from the early 20^th cen­tury, although it shows the 'three feathers' symbol of the Prince of Wales in order to give it legitimacy.