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ALEXEI KONDRATIEV'S LOREKEEPERS
COURSE 1.0
Track Two - Section
Six
CYMRAEG
- WELSH
It is not
known exactly when speakers of the Gallo-Brittonic form of Celtic first
established themselves in Britain, but it must have been during the Iron Age, no
earlier than ca. 600 BCE and no later than ca. 200 BCE. Both Britain and Ireland
had, since the Late Neolithic, been a part of a flourishing "Atlantic" culture,
where a variety of Celtic and pre-Celtic languages had no doubt been spoken. By
the time Greek and Roman sources provide us with information on British personal
and place names, the language they reflect seems little different from the
Gaulish spoken by the Celts of the Continent, which is why it is generally
referred to nowadays as "Gallo-Brittonic". Since the same Classical sources
indicate that it was from the northern Celtic peoples known collectively as the
Belgae that the latest and most influential settlers of Britain had come, it
appears that the Belgic dialect came to predominate on the island and served as
the basis for the later development of the Brythonic, or British Celtic,
languages.
The Roman
conquest of most of Britain in the first century CE established Latin as the
language of administration and of all official business in urbanized areas, but
British remained the spoken language of the countryside and of the independent
tribal areas in the far north. When Roman rule collapsed in the mid-5th century
and English settlers from across the North Sea took over much of the island, it
was the most heavily Romanized areas in the east and the midlands that succumbed
first, and native British chieftains from areas outside direct Roman control
were able to consolidate their power in the north and the west. The language
they used was British, not Latin; even so, their speech had adopted a large
amount of Latin vocabulary from the centuries of Roman occupation, and this has
remained as part of the heritage of the Brythonic languages.
By the 6th
century British shows signs of developing in the direction of Welsh as we know
it, but our main records of Old Welsh (Hen Gymraeg) come from the period between
the 9th and the 11th centuries. The oldest ones are glosses on Latin religious
manuscripts, but there was also a flourishing poetic tradition, much of it
relating to parts of Britain far outside the present-day borders of Wales. The _Gododdin_,
attributed to the bard Aneirin, describes a doomed raid by British Celtic
tribesmen from the region of modern Edinburgh on the territories of their
English enemies in Northumbria. Taliesin, the poet about whom a rich
mythological tradition would later develop, praised and mourned his patron Urien
the ruler of Rheged, a kingdom straddling what is now the border between
Scotland and England. A strikingly beautiful cycle of poems is traditionally
attributed (although the form of the language in fact belongs to a later period)
to the 7th-century princess Heledd, mourning the death of her brother Cynddylan
the ruler of Pengwern, in what would later become Shropshire, after it was
overrun by the English. In Welsh literary history these poets are usually
referred to as the _Cynfeirdd_ or "Proto-Bards".
From the end
of the 11th century to the end of the 14th century the form of the language is
called Middle Welsh (Cymraeg Canol). This is an extremely rich and creative
period for Welsh literature. Native rulers (and, a little later, Norman
overlords) received praise from formally trained, professional poets. They are
known in Cymraeg as the _Gogynfeirdd_. Their work is very difficult to
interpret, as it is less concerned with conveying a linear meaning than with
creating impressions through sound-painting. Other, more accessible poems have
been preserved from this period as well; and this was also the golden age of the
_cyfarwyddiaid_, or professional storytellers, who (together with their
counterparts in Cornwall and Brittany) played a major role in developing the
stories that would become famous internationally as the Matter of Britain (or
the Arthurian mythos), recycling ancient mythological themes as mediaeval
entertainment. Eleven of these tales, preserved in the manuscript collections
called the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest, were published
together in the 19th century by Lady Charlotte Guest under the title _The
Mabinogion_, and are still counted among the classics of world literature. They
are only the tip of the iceberg, however, a small part of a rich narrative
tradition that is now mostly lost. The _Trioedd Ynys Prydein_ (Triads of the
Isle of Britain), a work from the same period that was intended to serve as a
mnemonic aid for _cyfarwyddiaid_ by grouping stories in triads according to
salient narrative features, contains references to many stories that are
otherwise unknown to us.
After the
violent end of native rule in 1285, a slow cultural shift occurred throughout
Wales. Cymraeg remained the everyday language of the country, and native poets
continued to praise the nobility according to traditional custom, but the
mysterious intricacies of the art of the _Gogynfeirdd_ became less and less
appropriate for an upper class with increasingly foreign connections. In the
course of the 14th and 15th centuries poets adapted their styles to the new
cultural climate, importing forms and subject-matter from other European
traditions while retaining and expanding the complex native approach to
alliteration, or _cynghanedd_. These poets are known collectively as _Beirdd yr
Uchelwyr_ (Poets of the Nobility). Dafydd ap Gwilym (ca. 1320-ca. 1380), perhaps
the greatest Welsh poet and the greatest European poet of the 14th century, was
something of a "hinge" figure, whose writings show the transition from Middle
Welsh to Modern Welsh (Cymraeg Cyfoes).
The rise of
the Welsh-descended Tudor dynasty to the English throne at the end of the 15th
century didn't lead to a higher status for Welsh language and culture. On the
contrary, the Tudors identified strongly with English as the sole language of a
centralized state, and in 1532 merged Wales with England administratively,
stripping the Welsh language of all official status. However, in their zeal for
promoting the Protestant Reformation (which the Welsh at first strongly
resisted), the Tudor government sponsored the translation of the Bible into
Welsh: published in 1588, the Morgan Bible had an impact on the Welsh language
comparable to that of the King James Bible on English. It helped create a
pattern for writing in modern Welsh -- which also received some impetus from the
work of Elizabethan Welsh "humanists" like William Salesbury. The masterworks
composed in Cymraeg over the next century and a half include Morgan Llwyd's _Llyfr
y Tri Aderyn_ (The Book of the Three Birds) and Ellis Wynne's _Gweledigaetheu y
Bardd Cwsc_ (The Visions of the Sleeping Bard).
Towards the
middle of the 18th century Bible-based literacy in Welsh helped in the spread of
the Methodist revival movement through the medium of Cymraeg. Poets like Ann
Griffith and William Williams Pantycelyn composed hymns that have remained a
beloved part of the Welsh heritage to this day. The revival also established a
Welsh-speaking "chapel culture" that dominated rural Wales until the second half
of the 20th century.
By the end of
the 1700's there were enough prosperous Welsh-speaking tradesmen both inside and
outside Wales to bring about the emergence of a Welsh-speaking middle class. As
a rule, these people were interested in their native heritage and sponsored the
publication of early literary texts and documents in Cymraeg, especially under
the auspices of fraternities like the Cymmrodorion and the Gwyneddigion. It was
at this time that an erudite stonecutter from Glamorgan, Edward Williams (who
took the bardic name Iolo Morganwg -- "Eddie from Glamorgan" --, by which he is
far better known), got involved in the antiquarian research conducted by those
societies. Iolo was a brilliant poet, but his over-fertile imagination led him
to forge a huge number of texts chronicling a fictional "Druidic" history of
Wales - accepted without reservation by his colleagues, who were dazzled by his
brilliance and learning. Iolo's forgeries and fictions continued to have a major
influence on Welsh culture throughout the 19th century. His creation of a _Gorsedd
y Beirdd_ (a sort of "Druidical College", intended as an arbiter of Welsh moral
and artistic life) and its subsequent placement at the heart of the National
Eisteddfod (an _eisteddfod_ or "session" was originally a gathering of
traditional poets who wanted to share their works and compete for prizes)
added a great deal of glamour and prestige to an event that remains one of
the principal Welsh-language institutions to this day. In general, the sense
that Cymraeg was a rich, ancient language with a romantic heritage worthy of
international respect kept it on the lips of common people even when the
Industrial Revolution uprooted many of them from their traditional rural
communities and drove them into the coal mines. There was a flourishing
Welsh-language press, and many local literary competitions and amateur
theatrical groups kept creative activity in the language alive even in
urban areas. The sweet song-lyrics of John Ceiriog Hughes were known to
everybody; and the modern Welsh novel had its beginnings with the works of
Daniel Owen.
Around the
turn of the 20th century a circle that grew up around the Oxford Welsh professor
John Morris-Jones purged Welsh scholarship of its Iolo-ist fantasies and
established it on a modern foundation. The period also saw the emergence of a
large number of poets with powerful and original talents: Thomas Gwynne Jones,
W.J. Gruffydd, Robert W. Parry, and T.H. Par ry-Williams, to name a few.
Saunders Lewis, a Liverpool Welshman and a founding member of Plaid Cymru (the
Party of Wales), shook up the establishment with his controversial outsider's
views on Welsh culture and, as a playwright, was one of the primary forces in
developing a modern Welsh-language theatre. Kate Roberts became justly famous
for her brilliant short stories on modern Welsh life.
In spite of
all this cultural creativity, however, the increased predominance of English in
all areas of public life and -- especially after World War II -- the penetration
of almost exclusively English-language mass media into every Welsh-speaking
community led to a marked erosion in the use of Cymraeg over the 20th century.
In 1962 Saunders Lewis made a famous radio speech entitled "Tynged yr Iaith"
(the Fate of the Language) in which he warned the Welsh of the imminent
extinction of their language unless they took decisive steps to preserve it.
This inspired the creation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language
Society) which, through both political lobbying and well-publicized acts of
civil disobedience, put the government on the defensive and gradually helped
improve the public status of the language. One of the culminations of this
series of campaigns was the creation of S4C, the Welsh-language BBC television
channel, in 1982 after Gwynfor Evans -- then-president of Plaid Cymru --
threatened a hunger strike unless government pledges to launch the channel were
honored. At first derided for its costliness, S4C survived its formative years
and eventually opened up vast new employment opportunities for Welsh-speakers in
the media. The 1980's also saw the rise of an indigenous Welsh-language
youth/rock culture. The Welsh publishing scene remains very active, producing
works in every literary field, from academic writing to romance novels.
Stepped-up efforts at providing Welsh-language education have also paid off: the
2001 Census showed, for the first time in over a century, an increase in the
absolute number of Welsh-speakers.
Nevertheless,
all is not well. Welsh-speaking communities are still being flooded with
English-speaking immigrants who have no interest in local culture and no
intention of acquiring the local language, and who eventually eliminate the role
of Cymraeg in local institutions. The continued erosion of the Bro Gymraeg --
the areas where Welsh is the natural language of everyday speech -- is a matter
of grave concern, with serious implications for the future of the language.
There are
marked differences between formal and colloquial styles of Cymraeg. While there
is a "classical" literary style that most educated Welsh-speakers acquire and
which is essentially the same throughout Wales, there are two major dialects of
colloquial usage: North Welsh and South Welsh, which differ considerably in
pronunciation, grammatical features, rules for contractions, and vocabulary.
Although the largest groups of natural Welsh-speakers are in the North Welsh
area, many learning materials stress South Welsh usage, since it is in South
Wales that efforts to get people to re-learn Welsh have been most intense. Both
dialects are equally prominent in the media.
By
Alexei Kondratiev
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Last Updated:
04/04/11
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