The Welsh Language

Abstract

AbstractMany foreign visitors to these shores are surprised, and some of them may be agreeably surprised, to find that English is not the only language spoken in this island. Some regard us in Wales as a peculiar brand of the English race, speaking a very peculiar kind of unintelligible English; and some used to think that Welsh was only another name for the broken English of the Welsh music-hall comedian with its whatever and look you and other monstrosities. It must be realised that we are a separate nation and have our own language with our own culture and literary tradition as different from that of England in many respects as the literary traditions of such countries as Russia or Lithuania. Ireland and Scotland are separate nations, but we have retained one important symbol of nationhood far better than they have, for Welsh is a living language, and is the mother tongue of hundreds of thousands of Welshmen in the year 1951. Until the middle of the last century, the vast majority of the inhabitants of...