A Brief Analysis on the Status of the Welsh Language Evolution—Revival by General Trend

By Ding Lilu

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

May, 2017

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to show the gratitude for my supervisor —— Professor Xiong Mingli, for her constant patience, professional advice and encouragement during my thesis writing. I am very grateful that she has devoted considerable portion of her time to offer me valuable advice. I have to say that all of her suggestions are valuable. Truly, without her help of my drafts, I could not have finished this paper.

Second, I am also deeply obliged to all teachers who directly or indirectly do a favor in this paper. Thanks for their scholarly advice and selfless devotion.

Last but not least, my sincere thanks should also go to my beloved roommates and lovely classmates, thanks for their understanding, suggestions and help through all the stages of the thesis writing.

Contents

1.Introduction 1

1.1 Origins and history 1

1.2 Its recession 1

2. Literature review 2

2.1 Research on Welsh language at home 2

2.2 Studies about Welsh abroad 3

3. The efforts from all parties 4

3.1 Data review 4

3.2 Parliament for Wales 6

3.3 Laws and governmental support 7

3.4 Bilingual education 8

3.5 The media dissemination 10

4. Nowadays achievements 10

4.1 Official status 10

4.2 Diplomatic relations with China 11

5.Conclusion 12

5.1 Prospect forecast 12

5.2 Enlightenment 13

References 14

A Brief Analysis on the Status of the Welsh Language Evolution—Revival by General trend

Abstract: Welsh used to be one of the oldest languages in Europe. In the 16th century AD, Welsh was widely used in Great Britain. But since Wales became a part of Britain, the number of people using Welsh dropped. But the Welsh people have been trying to save their language, and the British government from all aspects take measures to promote the use of Welsh language. Including policy support, the promotion of bilingual education in Wales, the use of media, the signs of the decline of the Welsh language gradually disappear, and an emergence of the dawn of the revival can be seen.

Key words: Welsh; Bilingual education; Culture heritage; Political support

摘要：威尔士语曾是欧洲最古老的语言之一。公元16世纪时为威尔士语在大不列颠得到广泛的使用。但自从威尔士成为英国的一个部分，使用威尔士语的人数锐减。但威尔士人一直在努力拯救他们的语言，英国政府也从各方面采取措施推广威尔士语的使用。包括政策支持，在威尔士推广双语教育，媒介方面的宣传使用，威尔士语衰退的迹象渐渐消失，并出现了复兴的曙光。

关键词：威尔士语；双语教育；文化遗产；政策支持

1. Introduction

1.1 Origins and history

Wales is a conquered nation and like all conquered nations has suffered the consequence. But by contrast to several other European cases, Wales demonstrates a remarkable example of what might be called ethno-genesis and the politics of resilience. It has refused to disappear from the page of history and much of this refusal intertwined within the struggle for the language. Welsh is a member of the Brittonic branch of the Celtic languages. It is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argetina). Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Common Brittonic, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct language known as Cumbric. The early Welsh language model, which can date back to the mid-ninth century, is hardly found now. The Welsh we talk a lot today is inherited from the language in 6^th century.

1.2 Its recession

Welsh has four identified periods in its history, with rather indistinct boundaries. From the 6^th century to the 9^th century, it is known as the Primitive Welsh. And this is followed by the Old Welsh period, which is considered to stretch from the beginning of the 9^th century to the 12^th century. And then the golden time of Welsh came, thanks for all the famous Welsh legend and well-known poetry. Early works of the Norman era of Wales such as ancient legends and poetry articles and other works still existed, as a permanent record, inherited from generation to generation. In the Middle Ages, Welsh was still decided to occupy the absolute main position, many people can only understand the Welsh language. It lasted to the 16^th century until the Merger Act was adopted, and then great changes was brought to the official use of Welsh. Since then, Wales has been joined at the hip to England, therefore English gradually became the official language used in Welsh trade and economic affairs (Worall,S 2001). Welsh language was suppressed, its culture assimilated. Later, although Welsh was not banned, people in Wales who can only speak Welsh cannot get a position in the government. Welsh lost its former status and met its decline and recession. What’s more, the number of people speaking Welsh dropped again from the 19^th century to the 20^th century for mainly 3 reasons. Firstly, it is on account of the immigration: more and more people moved into Wales and most of them came from England, and, they don’t speak Welsh. Meanwhile, local people started to move out to find chance and better job, which led Welsh a lower status. Secondly, an increasing number of the existence of English news and TV programs. Thirdly, as more people declared that they had no religion, the effect came from religion became smaller, especially from the Welsh Bible. However, it survived under various adverse conditions, which is thought as the 8^th wonder of Wales, amazed people most. Which surprises us more is that it seems to will receive a revival.

2. Literature review

2.1 Research on Welsh language at home

The studies about Welsh in China are mainly focused on the characteristics of Welsh, Welsh bilingual education and some ancient Welsh writers and their works and books or poems. For instance, The Bilingual Education of Welsh Primary amp; Middle School(Jang, 2003), firstly, the author introduced the background of the bilingual education in Welsh was resulted from the decline of the Welsh language under the macro history and the sharp decline in the number of people who speak Welsh. And then the Welsh people and government became aware of the importance to protect their national language. The second part of her book introduces the programs and concrete measures of Welsh bilingual education, including family education and campus education.The last part is the enlightenment from bilingual education in Wales, and the author lists some specific programs that can be used for national bilingual education in China , including raising awareness of the people, establishing a more sound organization and improving laws and regulations to protect and promote national bilingual education.

Another article the Study of Protection of Minority Language in Britain (Wang,2008)mostly keeps eyes on how Britain protect its minority language. Welsh language protection was part of it. This article specifically selects two of the most populous languages of the British minority, through the history of the Scottish Gaelic and Welsh history and the status of today, collecting information on the number changes of people who use Welsh and changes on minority language education. And also studied the spread and development of Welsh language in mass media, reviewing the protection process of Britain minority language. Due to the strong national pride of the Welsh people and their high loyalty to their own national language, the status of Welsh is better than that of Gaelic. As the official position of Welsh has been established in the mid-20th century, and the bilingual of Welsh Education began to take shape in the early 18th century and has now been stipulated in the form of a series of laws to teach Welsh in national curriculum. Although the number of people speaking Welsh has also experienced a decline, but during the recent 20 years, the use of Welsh language rebound also proved that the minority language policy is of much effectiveness and necessity. Through the analysis of Welsh and Gaelic protection, this paper also explores the implications for other minority language protection measures, and puts forward suggestions for enhancing language prestige, indicating that legal status and a bilingual education system are needed.

2.2 Studies about Welsh abroad

Western researches and studies are most about Welsh culture and development. British studies are more statistics than articles or essays. The first census in Wales was held in 1801, but there was no question about the Welsh language until the 1891 Census. Since then, at least one question has been included in every census. Up until 1971, the questions were about speaking Welsh or English, but the 1971 Census included a question about reading and writing Welsh for those who said they spoke the language. 1981 was the last year Welsh speakers were asked whether they spoke English. In 2001, the form of the question was changed to an unambiguous one about ability. At the same time, respondents were also asked for the first time whether they could understand spoken Welsh. The Welsh Language Board has based the greater part of its activity over the last decade on evidence garnered from the results of the 2001 Census, analyzed by Hywel Jones. The Board also commissioned a good deal of further research to provide more information in areas where statistics were scarce and drew on other picture as possible. The aim of all this was to ensure that the Board’s work can concentrate on things that would make a difference to the future of the Welsh language. Anyway, statistics are the most direct proof, things can be obviously found out: whether the number of people speaking Welsh increased or dropped? Whether those actions such as bilingual education work? Whether Welsh language will face a bright future?

3. The efforts from all parties

3.1 Data review

Welsh used to be one of the oldest language in Europe. In the 16^th century, Welsh was widely used in Great Brain. However, in the year of 1536, Henry ш passed the Act of Union and then Welsh was prohibited in public administration and legislature. People who can only speak Welsh even cannot get paid. Eventually, the number of people speaking Welsh dropped sharply. According to a research in 1911, there was only 43.5% of Welsh people use Welsh, which caused Welsh to become a language less people use for the first time. But after all these, Welsh people did not give up their language. The Welsh Language Act 1993 founded Welsh Language Board, trying to ensure the equal status to English. During the past decades, Welsh Language Board did many study on the use of Welsh.

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