Реферат: Wales: Struggle for independence

Реферат: Wales: Struggle for independence

Survival of the Welsh Language: Part I

It is the eighth wonder of Wales that is the most wondrous of them all, the

survival of the Welsh language in the face of almost impossible odds.

Sometime in the seventh century, a Welsh Bishop heard an Englishman's voice

on the bank of the River Severn and was filled with foreboding at the sound..

He recorded his unsettling experience thus: "For the kinsman of yonder

strange-tongued man whose voice I heard across the river. . . will obtain

possession of this place, and it will be theirs, and they will hold it in

ownership."

The bishop was wrong. More than twelve centuries have passed since the

strange tongue of the Saxon was heard on the borders of Wales, centuries

during which the ancient tongue of the Bishop and his fellow Britons had

every opportunity to become extinct and yet which has stubbornly refused to

die. The survival of the native language is truly one of the great wonders of

Wales, to be appreciated and marvelled at far more than any physical feature

or man-made object, and far more than the so-called seven wonders of Wales.

It is a something of a shock when visitors travel from England west into

Wales, for, almost without warning, he may find himself in areas where not

only the dialects become incomprehensible, but where even the language itself

has changed. The roadside signs "Croeso i Gymru" (accompanied by the red

dragon, the ancient badge of Wales) let it be known that one is now entering

a new territory, inhabited by a different people, for the translation is

"Welcome to Wales" written in one of the oldest surviving vernaculars in

Europe. For amusement with the language, after getting used to names such as

Pontcysyllte, Pen y Mynydd , or Glynceiriog, one can take a little detour off

the main route through Anglesey to Ireland and visit the village with its

much-photographed sign announcing the now-closed railway station:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwyll-llantisiliogogogoch

To account for the abrupt linguistic change from English into Welsh, one must

journey far, far back into history.

It was about 1000 BC that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain, probably

introduced by small groups of migrants who became culturally dominant in

their new homelands, and whose culture formed part of a great unified Celtic

"empire" encompassing many different peoples all over Northern Europe. The

Greeks called these people, with their organized culture and developed social

structure Keltoi, the Romans called them Celtai.

In spite of the fact that they were perhaps the most powerful people in much

of Europe in 300 BC, with lands stretching from Anatolia in the East to

Ireland in the West, the Celts were unable to prevent inter tribal warfare;

their total lack of political unity, despite their fierceness in battle,

ultimately led to their defeat and subjugation by the much-better disciplined

armies of Rome. The Celtic languages on Continental Europe eventually gave

way to those stemming from Latin.

The Celts had been in Britain a long time before the first Roman invasion of

the British Isles under Julius Caesar in 55 BC which did not lead to any

significant occupation. The Roman commander, and later Emperor, had some

interesting, if biased comments concerning the native inhabitants. "All the

Britons," he wrote,"paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a

bluish color and makes them look very dreadful in battle" (De Bello Gallico).

It was not until a hundred years later, following an expedition ordered by

the Emperor Claudius, that a permanent Roman settlement of the grain-rich

eastern territories of Britain begun in earnest.

From their bases in what is now Kent, the Roman armies began a long, arduous

and perilous series of battles with the native Celtic tribes, first

victorious, next vanquished, but as on the Continent, superior military

discipline and leadership, along with a carefully organized system of forts

connected by straight roads, led to the triumph of Roman arms. In the western

peninsular, in what is now Wales, the Romans were awestruck by their first

sight of the druids (the religious leaders and teachers of the British). The

historian Tacitus described them as being "ranged in order, with their hands

uplifted, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible imprecations"

(Annales)

The terror was only short-lived; Roman arms easily defeated the native

tribesmen, and it was not long before a great number of large, prosperous

villas were established all over Britain, but especially in the Southeast and

Southwest. Despite defeats in pitched battles, the people of mountainous

Wales and Scotland were not as easily settled; their scattered settlements

remained "the frontier" -- lands where military garrisons were strategically

placed to guard the Northern and Western extremities of the Empire. The

fierce resistance of the tribes in Cambria meant that two out of the three

Roman legions in Britain were stationed on the Welsh borders. Two impressive

Roman fortifications remain to be seen in Wales: Isca Silurium (Caerleon)

with its fine ampitheatre, in Monmouthshire; and Segontium, (Caernarfon), in

Gwynedd.

In Britain, at least for a few hundred years after the Roman victories on

mainland Europe, the Celts held on to much of their customs and especially to

their distinctive language which has miraculously survived until today as

Welsh. The language of most of Britain was derived from a branch of Celtic

known as Brythonic: it later gave rise to Welsh, Cornish and Breton (these

differ from the Celtic languages derived from Goidelic; namely, Irish, Scots,

and Manx Gaelic). Accompanying these languages were the Celtic religions,

particularly that of the Druids, the guardians of traditions and learning.

Though the Celtic tongue survived as the medium of everyday speech, Latin

being used mainly administrative purposes, many loan words entered the native

vocabulary, and these are still found in modern-day Welsh, though many of

these have entered at various times since the end of the Roman occupation.

Today's visitors to Wales who know some Latin are surprised to find hundreds

of place names containing Pont (bridge), while ffenest (window), pysgod

(fish), milltir (mile), melys (sweet or honey) cyllell (knife), ceffyl

(horse), perygl (danger), eglwys (church), pared (wall or partition), tarw

(bull) and many others attest to Roman or Latin influence. (The word Cerbyd,

recently coined by the Ministry of Transport for automobile for use on the

new motorways, was used by Welsh poet Henry Vaughan in the late 17th century

as a term for chariot).

In 440 AD an anonymous writer penned the following:

Britain, abandoned by the Romans, passed into the power of the Saxons

(Chronica Gallica )

When the city of Rome fell to the invading Goths under Alaric, Roman Britain,

which had experienced hundreds of years of comparative peace and prosperity,

was left to its own defences under its local Romano-British leaders, one of

whom may have been a tribal chieftain named Arthur. It quickly crumbled under

the onslaught of Germanic tribes (usually collectively referred to as Anglo-

Saxons) themselves under attack from tribes to the east and wishing to settle

in the sparsely populated, but agriculturally rich lands across the narrow

channel that separated them.

More than two hundred years of fighting between the native Celts, as brave as

ever but comparatively disorganized, and the ever-increasing numbers of

Germanic tribesmen eventually resulted in Britain sorting itself out into

three distinct areas: the Britonic West, the Teutonic East, and the Gaelic

North. It was these areas that later came to be identified as Wales, England,

and Scotland, all with their very separate cultural and linguistic

characteristics (Ireland, of course, remained Gaelic: many of its peoples

migrated to Scotland, taking their language with them to replace the native

Pictish).

From the momentous year 616, the date of their defeat at the hands of the

Saxons in the Battle of Chester, the Welsh people in Wales were on their own.

Separated from their fellow Celts in Cornwall and Cumbria, those who lived in

the western peninsular gradually began to think of themselves as a distinct

nation in spite of the many different rival kingdoms that developed within

their borders such as Morgannwg, Powys, Brycheinion, Dyfed and Gwynedd. It is

also from this period that we can speak of the Welsh language, as distinct

from the older Brythonic.

In a poem dated 633, the word Cymry appears, referring to the country; and it

was not too long before the Britons came to be known as the Cymry, by which

term they are known today. At this point, we should point out that the word

Welsh (from Wealas) is a later word used by the Saxon invaders of the British

Isles perhaps to denote people they considered "foreign" or at least to

denote people who had been Romanized. It originally had signified a Germanic

neighbor, but eventually came to be used for those people who spoke a

different language.

The Welsh people themselves still prefer to call themselves Cymry, their

country Cymru, and their language Cymraeg. It is also from this time that the

Celtic word Llan appears, signifying a church settlement and usually followed

by the name of a saint, as in Llandewi (St. David) or Llangurig (St. Curig),

but sometimes by the name of a disciple of Christ, such as Llanbedr (St.

Peter) or even a holy personage such as Llanfair (St. Mary).

It is in Wales, perhaps, that today's cultural separation of the British

Isles remains strongest, certainly linguistically, and for that, we must look

to the mid 8th Century, when a long ditch was constructed, flanking a high

earthen rampart that divided the Celts of the West from the Saxons to the

East and which, even today, marks the boundary between those who consider

themselves Welsh from those who consider themselves English. The boundary,

known as "Offa's Dyke," in memory of its builder Offa, the king of Mercia

(the middle kingdom) runs from the northeast of Wales to the southeast coast,

a distance of 149 miles.

English-speaking peoples began to cross Offa's Dyke in substantial numbers

when settlements were created by Edward 1st in his ambition to unite the

whole of the island of Britain under his kingship. After a period of military

conquest, the English king forced Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd to give

up most of his lands, keeping only Gwynedd west of the River Conwy.

Edward then followed up his successes by building English strongholds around

the perimeter of what remained of Llewelyn's possessions, and strong, easily

defended castles were erected at Flint, Rhuddlan, Aberystwyth, and Builth.,

garrisoned by large detachments of English immigrants and soldiers. Some of

these towns have remained stubbornly English ever since. Urban settlement, in

any case, was entirely foreign to the Celtic way of life.

In 1294, the Statute of Rhuddlan confirmed Edward's plans regarding the

governing of Wales. The statute created the counties of Anglesey, Caernarfon,

and Merioneth, to be governed by the Justice of North Wales; Flint, to be

placed under the Justice of Chester; and the counties of Carmarthen and

Cardigan were left under the Justice of South Wales. Of the Statute, an

anonymous scribe wrote, in 1284:

The Divine Providence...has now. . .wholly and entirely transferred the land

of Wales with its inhabitants...and has annexed and united the same into the

Crown...as a member of the said body

In the year 1300, the situation seemed permanently established, when "King

Edward of England made Lord Edward his son [born at Caernarfon Castle],

Prince of Wales and Count of Chester," and ever since that date these titles

have been automatically conferred upon the first-born son of the English

monarch. The Welsh people were not consulted in the matter, although an

obviously biased entry in Historia Anglicana for the year 1300 reads:

In this year King Edward of England made Lord Edward, his son and heir,

Prince of Wales and Count of Chester. When the Welsh heard this, they were

overjoyed, thinking him their lawful master, for he was born in their lands.

Following his successes in Wales, signified by the Statute of Rhuddlan,

sometimes referred to as The Statute of Wales, Edward embarked on yet another

massive castle-building program, creating such world-heritage sites of today

as Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris in addition to the earlier not

so-well known (or well-visited) structures at Flint and Rhuddlan. Below their

huge, forbidding castle walls, additional English boroughs were created, and

English traders were invited to settle, often to the exclusion of the native

Welsh, who must have looked on in awe and despair from their lonely hills at

the site of so much building activity. Their ancestors must have felt the

same sense of dismay as they watched the Roman invaders build their heavily

defended forts in strategic points on their lands.

The Welsh were forbidden to inhabit such "boroughs" or to carry arms within

their boundaries (even today, there are laws remaining on the statute books

of Chester, a border town, that proscribe the activities of the Welsh within

the city walls). With the help of the architect Master James of St. George,

and with what must have seemed like limitless resources in manpower and

materials, Edward showed his determination to place a stranglehold on the

Welsh. Occasional rebellions were easily crushed; it was not until the death

of Edward III and the arrival of Owain Glyndwr (Shakespeare's Owen

Glendower), that the people of Wales felt confident enough to challenge their

English overlords. One scribe expressed the situation this way:

The Welsh habit of revolt against the English is a long-standing madness . .

. and this is the reason. The Welsh, formerly called the Britons, were once

noble, crowned with the whole realm of England; but they were expelled by the

Saxons and lost both name and a kingdom . . . But from the sayings of the

prophet Merlin they still hope to recover England. Hence it is they

frequently rebel. (Vita Edward Secundi I c. 1330)

Owain Glyndwr was Lord of Glyndyfrdwy (the Valley of the Dee). He seized his

opportunity in 1400 after being crowned Prince of Wales by a small group of

supporters and defying Henry IV's many attempts to dislodge him. The ancient

words of Geraldus Cambrensis could have served to inspire his followers:

The English fight for power; the Welsh for liberty; the one to procure gain,

the other to avoid loss. The English hirelings for money; the Welsh patriots

for their country

The comet that appeared in 1402 was seen by the Welsh as a sign of their

forthcoming deliverance from bondage as well as one that proclaimed the

appearance of Owain. His magnetic personality electrified and galvanized the

people of Wales, strengthening their armies and inspiring their confidence.

Even the weather was favorable. An entry in Annales Henrici Quarti of 1402

reads as follows:

[Glyndwr] almost destroyed the King and his armies, by magic as it was

thought, for from the time they entered Wales to the time they left, never

did a gentle air breathe on them, but throughout whole days and nights, rain

mixed with snow and hail afflicted them with cold beyond endurance

The Welsh leader's early successes released the long-suppressed feelings of

thousands of Welshmen who eagerly flocked to his support from all parts of

England and the Continent. Before long, it seemed as if the long-awaited

dream of independence was fast becoming a reality: three royal expeditions

against Glyndwr failed: he held Harlech and Aberystwyth, had extended his

influence as far as Glamorgan and Gwent, was receiving support from Ireland

and Scotland; and had formed an alliance with France. Following his

recognition by the leading Welsh bishops, he summoned a parliament at

Machynlleth, in mid-Wales, where he was crowned as Prince of Wales.

It didn't seem too ambitious for Owain to believe that with suitable allies,

he could help bring about the dethronement of the English king; thus he

entered into a tripartite alliance with the Earl of Northumberland and Henry

Mortimer (who married Owain's daughter Caitrin) to divide up England and

Wales between them. After all, Henry IV's crown was seen by many Englishmen

as having been falsely obtained, and they welcomed armed rebellion against

their ruler. Hoping that The Welsh Church be made completely independent from

Canterbury, and that appointments to benefices in Wales be given only to

those who could speak Welsh, Glyndwr was ready to implement his wish to set

up two universities in Wales to train native civil servants and clergymen.

Then the dream died.

Owain's parliament was the very last to meet on Welsh soil; the last occasion

that the Welsh people had the power of acting independently of English rule.

From such a promising beginning to a national revolt came a disappointing

conclusion, even more upsetting because of the speed at which Welsh hopes

crumbled with the failure of the Tripartite Indenture. Henry Percy (Hotspur)

was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury, and the increasing boldness and

military skills of Henry's son, the English prince of Wales and later Henry

V, began to turn the tide against Glyndwr. Like so many of his predecessors,

Glyndwr was betrayed at home. It is not too comforting for Welsh people of

today to read that one of the staunchest allies of the English king and enemy

of Glyndwr was a man of Brecon, Dafydd Gam (later killed at Agincourt,

fighting for the English).

A sixth expedition into Wales undertaken by Prince Henry retook much of the

land captured by Owain, including many strategic castles. The boroughs with

their large populations of "settlers," had remained thoroughly English in any

case, and by the end of 1409, the Welsh rebellion had dwindled down to a

series of guerilla raids led by the mysterious figure of Owain, whose wife

and two daughters had been captured at Harlech and taken to London as

prisoners. Owain himself went into the mountains, becoming an outlaw. He may

have suffered an early death. for nothing is known of him either by the Welsh

or the English. He simply vanished from sight. According to an anonymous

writer in 1415," Very many say that he [Owain Glyndwr] died; the seers say

that he did not" (Annals of Owain Glyndwr). There has been much speculation

as to his fate and much guessing as to where he ended his final days and was

laid to rest.

There is an expression coined in the nineteenth century that describes a

Welshman who pretends to have forgotten his Welsh or who affects the loss of

his national identity in order to succeed in English society or who wishes to

be thought well of among his friends. Such a man is known as Dic Sion Dafydd,

(a term used in a satirical 19th century poem). The term was unknown In

fifteenth century Wales, but, owing to the harsh penal legislation imposed

upon them, following the abortive rebellion, it became necessary for many

Welshmmen to petition Parliament to be "made English" so that they could

enjoy privileges restricted to Englishmen. These included the right to buy

and hold land according to English law.

Such petitions may have been distasteful to the patriotic Welsh, but for the

ambitious and socially mobile gentry rapidly emerging in Wales and on the

Marches, they were a necessary step for any chance of advancement.In the

military. At the same time, Welsh mercenaries, no longer fighting under

Glyndwr for an independent Wales, were highly sought after by the new king

Henry V for his campaigns in France. The skills of the Welsh archers in such

battles as Crecy and Agincourt is legendary.

Such examples of allegiance to their commander, the English sovereign, went a

long way in dispelling any latent thoughts of independence and helped paved

the way for the overwhelming Welsh allegiance to the Tudors (themselves of

Welsh descent) and to general acquiescence to the Acts of Union. The year

1536 produced no great trauma for the Welsh; all the ingredients for its

acceptance had been put in place long before.

The so-called Act of Union of that year, and its corrected version of 1543

seemed inevitable. More than one historian has pointed out that union with

England had really been achieved by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. It was

welcomed by many in Wales and why not? Didn't it state that "Persons born or

to be born in the said Principality . . . of Wales shall have and enjoy and

inherit all and singular Freedoms, Liberties, Rights, Privileges and Laws . .

. as other the King's subjects have, enjoy or inherit?"

Those historians who praise the Acts state that the Welsh people had now

achieved full equality before the law with their English counterparts. It

opened opportunities for individual advancement in all walks of life, and

Welshmen flocked to London to take full advantage of their chances. Yet, one

of the most important in the whole history of Wales, the document was passed

without consultation with the Welsh people.

The full title is An Act for Laws and Justices to be ministered in Wales in

like form as it is in this realm.Its preamble states: "His Highness. . . of

the singular love and favour that he bears towards his subjects of this said

dominion of Wales, and intending to reduce them to the perfect order, notice

and knowledge of the laws of this his Realm, and utterly to extirpate all and

singular the sinister usages and customs differing from the same . . . hath .

. . ordained, enacted and established that his said country or dominion of

Wales shall stand and continue for ever from henceforth incorporated, united

and annexed to and with his Realm of England."

Thus the real purpose was to incorporate, finally and for all time, the

principality of Wales into the kingdom of England. A major part of this

decision was to abolish any legal distinction between the people on either

side of the new border. From henceforth, English law would be the only law

recognized by the courts of Wales. In addition, for the placing of the

administration of Wales in the hands of the Welsh gentry, it was necessary to

create a Welsh ruling class not only fluent in English, but who would use it

in all legal and civil matters.

Thus inevitably, the Welsh ruling class would be divorced from the language

of their country; as pointed out earlier, their eyes were focused on what

London or other large cities of England had to offer, not upon what remained

as crumbs to be scavenged in Wales itself, without a government of its own,

without a capital city, and without even a town large enough to attract an

opportunistic urban middle class, and saddled with a language described by

Parliament as "nothing like nor consonant to the natural mother tongue used

within this realm."

From 1536 on, English was to be the only language of the courts of Wales, and

those using the Welsh language were not to receive public office in the

territories of the king:

No person or persons that use the Welsh speech or language shall have or

enjoy any manor, office or fees within the realm of England, Wales or other

of the king's dominions upon pain of forfeiting the . same offices or fees

unless he or they use and exercise the speech and language of English

It was the arrival of the Welsh Bible, however, that brought the language

back to a respected position. In 1547, Welsh scholar, William Salesbury,

alarmed at what he considered the baseness of the Welsh tongue,wrote: "And

take this advice from me; unless you save and correct and perfect the

language before the extinction of the present generation, it will be too late

afterwards." (Oll Synnwyr Pen Kembero Ygyd). Salesbury collaborated with

Richard Davies, Bishop of St. David's on a Welsh version of The Book of

Common Prayer and The New Testament, both of which were published in 1567.

The scholar John Penry of Breconshire had implored the Queen and her

Parliament that the Welsh people should be taught the scriptures (and the

Prayer Book) in their own language. He was helped by the fact that Elizabeth

and her courtiers were appalled at the slow progress of the Welsh in learning

the English language (and, more important, their slow progress in adopting

Protestantism). Penry's suggestions were welcomed by Parliament; by having

Welsh translations placed next to the English texts in church, it was

believed the congregations could learn English! The reverse happened, of

course, and the Welsh language was given status and a place of honor by being

used as a medium for the holy scriptures. Why bother with English, when there

was now a perfectly acceptable Welsh in which to worship God?

In 1588, the translation of the whole Bible itself, the climax of the whole

movement, made Welsh the language of public worship and thus much more than a

generally despised peasant tongue. Perhaps it is to this that much of the

present-day strength of the Welsh language is owed, compared to Irish (which

did not get its own Bible until 1690) and Scots Gaelic (which had to wait

until 1801).

The Welsh Bible, a magnificent achievement, was completed after eight years

by William Morgan and a group of fellow scholars. In 1620 Dr John Davies of

Mallwyd and Richard Parry, Bishop of St. Asaph, produced a revision of

William Morgan's Bible. Most of the nearly one thousand copies of.the earlier

book had been lost or worn out, and this revised and corrected edition is the

version that countless generations of Welsh people have been thoroughly

immersed ever since, it has been as much a part of their lives as the

Authorized Version has been to the English-speaking peoples or Luther's Bible

to the Germans.

In 1630, the Welsh Bible, in a smaller version (Y Beibl Bach), was introduced

into homes in Wales and as the only book affordable to many families, became

the one book from which the majority of the people could learn to read and

write. Other, poorer families, unable to afford the Bible, were able to share

its contents in meetings held at the homes of neighbors or in their churches

or chapels. Later on, countless generations of children were taught its

contents in Sunday School. It is in this way, therefore, that we can say the

Welsh Bible "saved" the language from possible extinction.

It has been touch and go all the way since, however, with determined efforts

coming from both sides of Offa's Dyke to stamp out the language for ever. Yet

every time the funeral bells have tolled, the language has miraculously

revived itself. As early as the 12th century, Giraldus Cambrensis gave us the

famous Welsh folk tale of the declaration of the old man of Pencader to Henry

ll:

This nation, O King, may now, as in former times, be harassed, and in a great

measure weakened and destroyed by your and other powers, and it will also

prevail by its laudable exertions, but it can never be totally subdued

through the wrath of man, unless the wrath of God shall concur. Nor do I

think that any other nation than this of Wales, nor any other language,

whatever may hereafter come to pass, shall on the day of severe examination

before the Supreme Judge, answer for this corner of the earth. (John of

Salisbury: recorded in Descriptio Kambriae (1193) by Giraldus Cambrensis)

In 1753 Thomas Richards in his Thesaurus wrote:

Yet our name hath not been quite blotted out from under Heaven. We hitherto

not only enjoy the true name of our Ancestors but have preserved entire and

uncorrupted . . that primitive language, spoken as well by the ancient Gauls

and Britons some thousands of years ago

For the continued survival of the language, however, there had to be a

groundwork laid in the field of general education among the masses. There

were still too many people in Wales who could not read or write. As so often

in Welsh history, help came from outside the country itself.

In 1674, a charitable organization, the Welsh Trust, was set up in London by

Thomas Gouge to establish English schools in Wales and to publish books "in

Welsh." Over 500 books were printed in 1718 and 1721 at Trefhedyn and

Carmarthen respectively. Many of these were translations of popular English

works, Protestant tracts that encouraged private worship and prayers, but

along with the six major editions of the Bible that appeared during the same

period, they had the unpredicted effect of ensuring the survival of the

language in an age where many scholars were predicting its rapid demise. Of

equal importance were the cheap catechisms and prayer books.highly prized by

rural families who read them (along with the Beibl Cymraegd) in family groups

during the long, dark winter nights

So successful were educators, benefactors and itinerant teachers that perhaps

as many as one third or more of the population of Wales could read their

scriptures by the time of Griffith Jones' death in 1761. Jones had realized

that preaching alone was insufficient to ensure his people's salvation: they

needed to read the scriptures for themselves. Though not intended by such as

Jones (the rector of Llanddowror and therefore not a Nonconformist minister),

his writings created a substantial Welsh reading public primed and ready to

receive the appeal of the ever-growing Methodists, whose ability in such

preachers as Hywel Harris was matched by their eloquence in the pulpit, and

who obviously filled a great need among the masses.

One influential convert was Thomas Charles who joined in 1784, and who set up

the successful Sunday School movement in North Wales that had such a profound

and lasting influence on the language and culture of that region. Another

preacher of great influence was Daniel Rowland, who had converted in 1737

after hearing a sermon by Griffith Jones. With Hywel Harris, he assumed the

leadership of the Methodist Revival. Rowland's enthusiasm along with that of

his colleagues, attracted thousands of converts, and though their initial

intention was to work within the framework of the established church,

opposition from their Bishops, all of whom had little real interest in Wales

and knew nothing of its language and culture, led finally to the schism of

1811 when an independent union was founded.

This was the Calvinistic Methodist Church (today known as the Presbyterian

Church of Wales). Providing the excitement and fervor that the established

church had been lacking for so long, it did much to pave the way for the

rapid growth of the other non-conformist sects such as the Baptists and

Independents. The movement also was responsible for producing two names that

are outstanding in the cultural history of Wales: William Williams and Ann

Griffiths (dealt with at length in my History of Wales).

In 1841, William Jones, in The Character of the Welsh as a Nation in the

Present Age, praised the perseverance of his people in the face of almost

impossible odds:

To exist after so many and preserving attempts at their extinction, and to

retain the vernacular use of their primitive, nervous, and enchanting

language, after so many revolutions in their civil and religious

circumstances, are facts in which they will ever glory; and no good reason

appears why our English neighbours should deny us the consolation of these

facts, or laugh at us, with so much sarcastic malevolence, when the matter is

discussed in their society

Jones could not have foreseen the result of the coming of heavy industry to

south Wales in the 19th century, especially its twofold effect on the

language and social life of the area. First, with so many Welsh speakers

moving into the area in search of jobs, bringing their language (and their

chapels) with them, a Welsh culture survived in many fields of valley

activity.

Many historians have realized that without this immigration, Wales may have

suffered a fate similar to that of Ireland where the lack of the raw

materials for industry and the heavy reliance upon a single food crop (not to

mention the benign neglect of the English Parliament) led to famine and

massive emigration. Also unlike the Irish language (and to some extent

Breton) the language of scattered, rural communities, Welsh thrived as the

medium of everyday communication in large industrial communities (such as

Merthyr). One writer in 1804, commenting on the fact that Merthyr Tydfil was

now the largest town in Wales, marvelled that :

The workers of all descriptions at these immense works {Cyfarthfa, Merthyr

Tydfil} are Welsh men. Their language is entirely Welsh. The number of

English among them is very inconsiderable. (The Scenery, Antiquities, and

Biography of South Wales

But change was inevitable. At the same time, another culture developed that

owed just as much to its non-Welsh immigrants as it did to those who retained

the language and culture of the Welsh-speaking areas from which they moved.

In 1847 one writer had described the Rhondda Valley thus:

The people of this solitudinous and happy valley are a pastoral race, almost

wholly dependent on their flocks and herds for support ...The air is aromatic

with wild flowers and mountain plants, a sabbath stillness reigns

Only three years later, the celebrated English author Thomas Carlyle

described the same scene in a letter to his wife:

Ah me! 'Tis like a vision of Hell, and will never leave me, that of these

poor creatures broiling or in sweat and dirt, amid their furnaces, pits, and

rolling mills . . The Town [Merthyr] might be, and will be, one of the

prettiest places in the world. It is one of the sootiest, aqualidest and

ugliest; all cinders and dust mounds and soot. . .Nobody thinks of gardening

in such a locality--all devoted to metallic gambling

Such a heavy toll came to so many areas of the southern valleys. In the

counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth, the long, verdant valleys quickly filled

up with factories, mills, coal mines, iron smelting works (and later, steel

works), roads, railways, canals, and above all, people. Houses began to

spread along the narrow hillsides, filling every available space upon which a

house could be set, small houses, crammed together in row after row, street

after street, town after town all strung together on the valley floor. Houses

separated only spasmodically by the grocery store, the somber, grey chapel,

or the public house. Above them all loomed the blackened hillsides and the

slag heaps of waste coal or industrial refuse. And all this brought about by

the discovery of coal.

In the southern valleys, an Anglo-Welsh character came into being; one that

came to dominate the political, social and literary life of Wales, and it was

here also that a new and particular kind of Welshness was forged, symbolized

by the cloth-capped, heavy drinking, strike-prone, English-speaking, rugby

fanatic of the Valleys..To such a character, and to a certain extent, to the

majority of the three large urban areas of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, the

people of the West and North, the Bible-toting, chapel-going, teetotal,

parsimonious, and above all Welsh-speaking were totally alien beings who

might have come from another planet. The repercussions are felt strongly

today as only one in five of the inhabitants of Wales use Welsh as a language

of everyday affairs.

In other areas, the Welsh language had been in decline for over 100 years. In

Flintshire, so near to the large urban areas of Merseyside and Cheshire there

had long been deliberate attempts to stamp out the Welsh language: a

traveller to the area as early as 1799 described the situation:

If therefore, in the colloquial intercourse of the scholars, one of them be

detected in speaking a Welsh word, he is immediately degraded with the 'Welsh

lump,' a large piece of lead fastened to a string, and suspended round the

neck of the offender. The mark of ignominy has had the desired effect: all

the children of Flintshire speak English very well

Such drastic measures had their desired effect. By 1804 John Evans wrote that

"North Wales is becoming English." In the same year, Benjamin Heath Malkin

wrote :

The language of Radnorshire is almost universally English. In learning to

converse with their Saxon neighbours, they have forgotten the use of their

vernacular tongue

Other areas did not suffer the loss of the language. Lord Tennyson, who in a

letter to a friend in 1839 thought "it [is] remarkable how fluently little

boys and girls can speak Welsh." Tennyson's romantic views of the Welsh

language, however, were not shared by the Government in London, nor by

everyone in Wales. In a letter to The Cambrian in September 1840, one writer

blamed the Welsh language for the country's moral turpitude:

I cherish the hope that I may yet see the day when Wales, no longer the seat

of barbarity and heathenism, will herself take a fit position (from which she

has so long been excluded) in moral literature and science. It may be asked

how was Wales set aside from that past, which is the glory and pride of every

other nation? The answer is simple -- she is bound with fetters as yet

indissoluble which she seems to hug with increasing tenacity -- namely her

language --The Welshman is a fool, his language is his folly -- he prefers

others to enjoy his goods, he prefers he prefers being laughed at as a puppet

in Druidic processions and Bardic Eisteddfodau

The writer wished to see the disappearance of Welsh, "without which act, we

can never hope to be recognized otherwise than as simple, good-natured,

honest barbarians."

The letter, astonishingly enough, was written just at the time that Lady

Charlotte Guest was making known to the world some of the glories of Welsh

literature through her translations of the medieval tales known as the

Mabinogion.. Mrs. Guest (Lady Llanover), advised the mothers of Wales,". .

.speak Welsh to your children . . .it is from you, and not from their

fathers, that they will learn to love God in their own language." Others were

not so sympathetic.

Some of the letters published in The Cambrian in the mid 19th Century show an

attitude of many Englishmen towards the Welsh language that has persisted

until today. In one of them, the writer was amused by the proposal to have

the infant Prince of Wales (eldest son of Queen Victoria), instructed in the

Welsh language. He wrote that the prince, by trying to pronounce the Welsh

"ll" or "ch" would be perceived as having spasmodic affections of the

bronchial tubes "that would lead to quinsy or some terrible disease of the

lungs and jugulum and would alarm everyone."

The writer, no doubt fully amused at his own cleverness, and obviously

completely oblivious to the beauties of the Welsh language and the glories of

its culture, goes on to ask his readers to consider the roars of laughter in

the House of Commons when the budget of the day includes the following items:

"Three thousand pounds per annum for teaching His Royal Highness Welsh,

making leek broth, and the national mode of eating it." The idea, he

continued. was revolting, "like trying to cram a calf with logic: nature

forbids it."

The same kind of fatuous, condescending arguments, of course, appeared in the

newspapers of Wales some one hundred and twenty years later when Charles, as

the so-called Prince of Wales, was being taught Welsh at Aberystwyth

University. The newspapers of the 1990's too, often contain similar letters

and articles that discuss the merits of continuing the Welsh language in the

schools, of teaching it to newcomers, and of its relevance in the modern

world. All despite the fact that, in the earlier period, even Queen Victoria

herself, that staunch symbol of Empire, advocated the teaching of Welsh in

the schools of the principality.

By the middle of the 19th century, Victoria's views notwithstanding, the tide

was running heavily against Welsh. In 1842, a Royal Commission, looking into

the state of education in Wales, noted that some Welsh boys employed at mines

in Breconshire were learning to read English at Sunday School, but that they

could speak only Welsh. This was intolerable to the commissioners.

It was demanded in Parliament that an inquiry be conducted into the means

afforded to the laboring classes of Wales to acquire a knowledge of the

English tongue. The report of the Commissioners of Inquiry for South Wales in

1844 lamented the fact that "The people's ignorance of the English language

practically prevents the working of the laws and institutions and impedes the

administration of justice." It didn't seem to occur to the commissioners that

it was their own ignorance of the language that was obstructing justice!

The report led to another Royal Commission, conducted in 1847, which was to

have a lasting effect on the cultural and political life of Wales. The

report, in three volumes bound in blue covers, has become known as Brad y

Llyfrau Gleision (The Treachery of the Blue Books, for the three young and

inexperienced lawyers who conducted the report had no understanding of the

Welsh language, nor, it seems, did they understand non-conformity in

religious matters.

Bright, intelligent and well-read Welsh-speaking children were unable to

understand the questions put to them in English, and the surveyors pig-

headedly assumed that this was due to their ignorance. Their report lamented

what they considered to be the sad state of education in Wales, the too-few

schools, their deplorable condition, the unqualified teachers, the lack of

supplies and suitable English texts, and the irregular attendance of the

children. All these were attributed, along with dirtiness, laziness,

ignorance, superstition, promiscuity and immorality: to Nonconformity, but in

particular to the Welsh language. As the report stated:

The Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales and a manifold barrier to the

moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people. It is not easy to

over-estimate its evil effects.

One result, of course, of the publication of such "facts" led to so many of

its speakers being made to feel ashamed and embarrassed. The effects of the

controversy thus stirred up has lasted up until today; it certainly did much

ot bolster the position of those who agreed with much of the report and who

saw the language as the biggest drawback to the people of Wales. One drastic

remedy, the imposition of English-only Board Schools did much to further has

ten the decline of Welsh over a great part of the country. In these schools,

as in Flintshire a half century earlier, the "Welsh Not" rule was imposed

with severe penalties for speaking Welsh, including the wearing of a wooden

board, the old "Welsh lump" around one's neck.

ТерминСписокопределенийАдресаЦитатыГотовыйIn Chambers' Edinburgh Journal

(vol 2, 1849), there is an entry that shows the prevalence of attitudes towards

"native languages" in other parts of Britain as well as Wales:

That until the middle of the nineteenth century the Celtic tongue in its

varieties of Gaelic, Welsh, Irish and Manx, should be employed as a

vernacular, is a matter not less of surprise than of national discredit . . .

No thought appears to have been bestowed on the fact that large masses of the

population were isolated from general progress on account of their inability

to speak English

The great Welsh industrialist David Davies of Llandinam expressed similar

concerns. In a speech at the National Eisteddfod, Aberystwyth, in 1865 (long

before the all-Welsh rule was established), he said:

I am a great admirer of the Welsh language, and I have no sympathy with those

who revile it. Still, I have seen enough of the world to know that the best

medium to make money is by the English language. I want to advise everyone of

my countrymen to master it perfectly; if you are content with brown bread,

you can of course, remain where you are. If you wish to enjoy the luxuries of

life, with white bread to boot, the only way to do so is by learning English

well. I know what it is to eat both

In the same year, in a speech to the Congregational Union, Welshman Griffith

Richards stated:

It would be an enormous advantage to the Welsh and to the English if the

Welsh language became extinct before tomorrow morning and the Welsh became

absorbed into the English nation

The situation was not universally applauded; there were those such as Thomas

Price, speaking before the Congregational Union in the same year, who

deplored what he saw happening to the language and to his people:

Englishmen, English capital and enterprise, English customs, and unhappily

English vices, are rushing in upon us like mighty irresistible torrents

carrying away before them our ancient language, social habits, and even our

religious customs and influence over the masses

H.L. Spring also commented wistfully on the situation:

Had the mineral wealth of the principality been discovered by the natives,

and could it have been properly put to use before they were subdued to

English rule, they might have preserved their language and have been the

foremost amongst British subjects in wealth, manufactures and arts; but as

the English have, through Providence means of opening out her resources, it

is plain that the English element must universally prevail. (H.L. Spring,

Lady Cambria 1867)

In Caernarfon, Gwynedd, an area still predominantly Welsh-speaking in the

1990's, there is a high school named after Sir Hugh Owen, a pioneer in

education in Wales. Owen's untiring efforts to secure a university for Wales

led to a commission to promote the idea in 1854, the university itself to be

established through voluntary contributions. Owen's pleas to the government

for financial help were unheeded, and it was public subscription that brought

to fruition the old dream of Owain Glyndwr. In 1872 Aberystwyth University

opened its doors to twenty-six students in a very impressive building on the

seafront designed as a hotel, but which was fortunately vacant at the time.

For the first few years of its existence, the college depended greatly on

voluntary contributions from the nonconformist chapels, but it attracted many

who would come to have profound influence on the culture of their nation. In

so many areas it provided the foundations that led to the national revival of

Wales in the late 1890's.

The work of Owen M. Edwards, in a period of language decline, was crucial in

this renaissance. A native of Llanuwchllyn on the shores of Llyn Tegid (Bala

Lake), Oxford University lecturer and later Chief inspector of Schools of the

newly-created Welsh Board of Education, Edwards did much to popularize the

use of Welsh as an everyday language. Alarmed by the decline in the language,

he published a great number of Welsh books and magazines, with particular

interest in works for children. In 1898 he founded Urdd y Delyn, a forerunner

of Urdd Gobaith Cymru, the largest youth organization in Wales and one that

still conducts its activities through the medium of Welsh.

Despite the success of organizations such as Urdd, one problem has remained

for the survival of Welsh ever since the Acts of Union in the middle 1500's.

The Welsh language has considered to be a great hindrance to one's feeling of

Britishness. Even before the First World War, when British soldiers from all

parts of the kingdom marched off under the Union Jack to fight the Boers in

South Africa, the feeling took hold that "...side by side with the honourable

contribution which the Welsh could make to the British Empire, the Welsh

language could be considered an irrelevance..."

This idea was implanted even more firmly in the Welsh mind by the intention

of the leaders of the Welsh-speaking community to show that the peculiarities

of Welsh culture were not a threat to the unity and tranquility of the

kingdom of Britain. When ideas of a separate government for the Welsh people

began to take hold in the late 19th century, once again, the idea of a

British national identity found itself overwhelming the purely local,

isolated, and all too often ridiculed, aspirations of those who wished for a

Welsh nationhood.

In mainly English-speaking South Wales in particular, feelings on the matter

were sharply expressed. At a crucial meeting in Newport, Monmouthshire, in

January 1898 it was firmly stated (by Robert Byrd) that there were thousands

of true Liberals who would never submit "to the domination of Welsh ideas."

With few exceptions, this seems to sum up the attitude of most Welsh

politicians of the next one hundred years. There were too many in Wales whose

close ties with English interests made the idea of home rule repugnant and

one to be fought against at all costs.

Welsh-speaking Lloyd George, future Prime Minister, who was howled down at

the meeting, questioned if the mass of the Welsh nation was willing to be

dominated by a coalition of English capitalists who had made their fortunes

in Wales. Yet even his motives were held with suspicion as being entirely

self-serving. And, as a fluent Welsh speaker, he was mistrusted by many in

the audience who looked with suspicion upon those who could speak a language

that they could not.

In 1881, the Aberdare Commission's report showed that provisions for

intermediate and higher education in Wales lagged behind those in the other

parts of Britain; it suggested that there should be two new Welsh

universities, Cardiff and Bangor. It was found, however, that there was a

lack of adequately trained students for these new colleges and thus, in 1899

the Welsh Intermediate Act came into being that gave the new county councils

the power to raise a levy (to be matched by the Government) for the provision

of secondary schools.In 1896 came the Central Welsh Board to oversee these

schools.

The result was that thousands of Welsh children from all levels of society

were able to continue their education at a secondary level. Another result,

however, was the continued decline of the status accorded the Welsh language,

for the new secondary schools were thoroughly English, only very few even

bothering to offer Welsh lessons. An educated class of Welsh people was thus

created that fostered the cultural traditions of their country in the

language of England.

ТерминСписокопределенийАдресаЦитатыГотовыйIn the meantime, in an age

where radio and movies began to play important roles in the regular everyday

life of the people of Wales, the language continued its precipitous decline.

North Wales got its news from and followed the events in Liverpool; South Wales

was more tied to happenings in Bristol or even London. Links between the two

areas of Wales were practically non-existent; roads and rails went West to

East, not North to South, and the flow of ideas and language went in the same

directions. Any sense of a national Welsh identity was disappearing rapidly

along with the language.

In an attempt to stop the rot, a new party came into being in 1925, Plaid

Genedlaethol Cymru (The National Party of Wales) that was fiercely devoted to

purely Welsh causes such as preservation of the language and culture. In

1926, Saunders Lewis took over the presidency, but the party received very

little general support and, in some areas of Wales, was the object of

ridicule. It was to take forty years before Plaid Cymru was taken seriously

and gained its first seat in Parliament. Much had been happening until then

to further erode Welsh as a common language and the idea of the Welsh as a

common, united people worthy of their own government as part of a greater

Britain.

In 1918, politician Arthur Henderson, (leader of the Labour Party), issued

the following statement:

Given self-government, Wales might establish itself as a modern Utopia and

develop its own institutions, its own culture, its own ideal of democracy in

politics, industry and social life, as an example and an inspiration to the

rest of the world

Henderson's views were not endorsed by the majority of members of his party.

Eleven years later, in Welsh Outlook, Saunders Lewis, at the time a non-

politician, echoed the sentiment:

Give [Wales] self-government and you will give her a capital city where her

writers will con- gregate and meet artists and form a society. Give her a

government and a capital and she will in time gather an urban class which

will be the basis of a new aristocracy

The views of Henderson and Lewis, as imaginative and forward-looking as they

were, did not appeal to the majority of the Welsh people' at the time, those

who thought the politician and the poet were those of a very small minority

indeed. In the meantime, the process of anglicization continued unabated;

more people living in Wales considered themselves Anglo-Welsh than Welsh.

Much of the blame (or for some,the praise), can be placed on the educational

system that, even before the outset of the Second World War was geared to

producing loyal Britons.

When World War ll finally arrived, there was much more unanimity of support

throughout Britain than there had been for the First World War. And there was

less trauma inflicted upon the people of Wales, for this was a crusade

against Fascism and Nazism and Hitler that almost everyone could subscribe

to. It was also a fight to preserve the Empire. The heavy bombing meant a

large exodus of children from the targeted larger English cities into the

more rural areas. In Wales, thousands of refugees learned Welsh, but in many

areas their English language overwhelmed the local speech.or tipped the

scales against its survival.

To counter the linguistic threat to the Welsh culture at Aberystwyth, a

private Welsh-medium school was established.by Ifan ab Owen Edwards, the son

of the famous educator. Apart from this little school, however, it wasn't

until Llanelli Welsh School began in 1947 that the idea of teaching children

through the medium of Welsh began to take hold in earnest. Other schools

followed, so that by 1970, even Cardiff had its Ysgol Dewi Sant (St. David's

School) one of the largest primary schools in Wales, teaching through the

medium of Welsh.

The increase in the Welsh primary schools was accompanied by a demand for a

Welsh secondary education, and the first such schools opened in Flintshire,

Ysgol Gyfun Glan Clwyd and Ysgol Maes Garmon in areas in which the great

majority of the parents were monolingual English. The success of these

schools were followed by Ysgol Rhydfelen in Glamorganshire in 1962 and by

many others by the 1980's.

It may have taken a long while, and for many, it might have been too late,

but the change in the attitude of the Welsh people toward their language has

been dramatic since 1962. Not only that, but great strides have been made in

convincing immigrants to Wales that their children would not suffer the loss

of their English language if they were to be taught through the medium of

Welsh, and that a bilingual education may well be superior to one that

confines them to a single language. Many a non-Welsh speaking parent is now

anxious to point with pride at the achievement of their children in the Welsh

language. It is no longer fashionable in Wales to refer to the language as

"dying," and the activities of the Eisteddfod as "the kicks of a dying

nation," sentiments the author heard at Swansea in 1964. What caused the sea-

change?

One place we can start to look for the answer is the media, especially public

radio. Beginning in 1922, the BBC broadcasts in Wales were eagerly awaited.

its voice, however, was one that gave prestige and authority to its views,

the voice of a public-school-educated upper-class Englishman. In addition,

the majority of broadcasts led a majority of British people to believe that a

BBC accent was not only desirable, but was the correct one, and that their

own accent, dialect, or in the case of much of Wales, their language, was

inferior. It was Radio Eireann, the voice of the Irish Republic, that

broadcast the only regular Welsh language material, beginning in 1927.

At time, and for a long period afterward, incredible as it now seems, the

head of the BBC station in Cardiff ignored protests from devotees of the

Welsh language who wished to hear Welsh language programs. There were then

almost one million speakers of Welsh. But aided by such attitudes of those in

authority, a rapid decline was about to begin. This was not inevitable.

Perhaps the language would have even advanced, given sufficient air time in

the late 1920's and early 30's. The problem was that most Welsh listeners

enjoyed their English language programs; it was only the few who realized

that their enjoyment was coming at the expense of their cherished, native

tongue

Survival of the Welsh Language: Part IX

bridge, or trying to leave town on the same route.

ТерминСписокопределенийАдресаЦитатыГотовыйUndeterred by prison sentences

for disturbing the peace and for their subsequent destruction of government

property (mostly road signs), and led by such activists as Fred Fransis, and

folk-singer Dafydd Iwan, the society began a serious campaign. In the face of

much hostility from passivist locals and prosecution from the authorities,

Cymdeithas pressed for the right to use Welsh on all government documents, from

Post Office forms to television licenses, from driving licenses to tax forms.

In particular, the society engaged in surreptitious night time activities,

removing English-only sign posts and directional instructions from the highways

or daubing them with green paint. All over Wales, in early morning, motorists

were faced with the green paint and daubed slogan that mysteriously had

appeared overnight. It became frustrating and expensive for local authorities

and the Ministry of Transport to keep replacing road signs.

Eventually, in 1963, faced with an ever-growing campaign, increased police

and court costs, destruction of government property, and the vociferous

demands for action by an increasingly angry and frustrated national movement,

the central government decided to establish a committee to look at the legal

status of Welsh. Its report, issued two years later, recommended that the

language be given "equal validity" with English, a diluted version of which

was placed into the Welsh Language Act of 1967.

There came about a new feeling in the land. The young people of Wales were

answering the call of Saunders Lewis; the older generation began to

reconsider their passiveness. Dafydd Iwan and many of his contemporaries

inaugurated a whole new movement in popular Welsh music, translating English

and American pops into Welsh, or writing stirring new lyrics and music or

protest. The popularity of mournful, funereal hymns sung by male voice choirs

found a competitor, the loud, heavy rhythms and rebellious music of new

bands. Groups such as Ar Log and Plethyn rediscovered ancient Welsh folk

music and brought it up to date. The National Eisteddfod entered into the

spirit, each year erecting a Roc Pavilion, where such groups could attract

the younger audiences. Wales began to finally shake off the shrouds cast by

the Methodist Revival of over a century before.

Since the 1960's, in the author's birthplace Flint and in other towns in

Clwyd, attempts to reintroduce the Welsh language in the schools have been

warmly welcomed by many of the townsfolk, and a whole new generation of

children who can speak, read and write Welsh may help ensure the future of

the language (and ultimately, of Plaid Cymru) in such heavily anglicized

areas. Other areas, such as the Cardiff region and the Valleys have already

experienced some growth in the numbers of those able to speak Welsh.

Factors for this increase include the rise of a Welsh bureaucracy; further

expansion of the Welsh-oriented mass media; the continued activities of

Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, with its appeal to the young generation; and the

effects of the Welsh Language Act of 1967. Perhaps most important is the

subtle change in attitude towards the language brought about by the

advantages that can be gained by its speakers in both social and economic

fields. Of crucial importance in winning the hearts and minds of the non-

Welsh speakers who have young children has been Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin (the

Welsh Nursery School Movement) founded in 1971.

In the anglicized areas of Wales, we may yet again read such sentiments as

that given by Sir Walter Scott, in a letter to his son, dated December, 1820:

You hear the Welsh spoken much about you, and if you can pick it up without

interfering with more important labours, it will be worth while

In the late 1990's, as we shall see, one of the more important labors of many

of the Welsh people has been to continue the fight to preserve their

language, and with it, much of the culture upon which it depends. To preserve

this language, the ancient, magnificent tongue of the British people for so

many, many centuries, will be indeed, a labor of love to make up for so much

past pain.

Welsh Language Guide

learning our fine Welsh alphabet.