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88-511: Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae (completed by c.  1139 ) purports to narrate the history of the Kings of Britain from its eponymous founder Brutus of Troy to Cadwaladr , the last in the line. Geoffrey professed to have based his history on "a certain very ancient book" written in britannicus sermo (the "British tongue", i.e. Common Brittonic , Welsh , Cornish or Breton ) which he had received from Walter of Oxford . It became one of

176-776: A Míl Espáine (Milesian) and dated to 1700 BC ( Geoffrey Keating : 1287 BC). These dates are inconsistent with the British Israelite literature which dates Tea Tephi to the 6th century BC, but later British Israelites, such as Herman Hoeh ( Compendium of World History , 1970), claimed that the Milesian Royal House (including Tea) was from an earlier blood descendant of the Davidic Line who entered Britain around 1000 BC (citing Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh 's reduced chronology). Linked to Glover's original claims of Tea Tephi, are Grimaldi and Milner's theory that Jeremiah himself in

264-477: A 14th-century Anglo-Norman poem, contains a variant story regarding Albion, the oldest recorded name for Britain, and also contains a slightly different list of kings. The poem states that a colony of exiled Greek royals led by a queen called Albina first founded Britain but before their settlement "no one dwelt there". Albina subsequently gave her name first to Britain, which was later renamed Britain after Brutus. The poem also attempts by euhemerism to rationalise

352-549: A British Israelite invention. A collection of alleged bardic traditions and Irish manuscripts which detail Tea Tephi were published by J. A. Goodchild in 1897 as The Book of Tephi . the work is, however, considered pseudo-historical or a forgery. There is though a queen called Tea in Irish mythology who appears in the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland . She is described as the wife of Érimón

440-565: A German translation of Roberts' English translation in 1854, making it available to non-specialists. At the very end of the Brut Tysilio there appears a colophon ascribed to Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, saying "I […] translated this book from the Welsh into Latin, and in my old age have again translated it from the Latin into Welsh." On this basis, some took the Brut Tysilio to be, at one or more remove,

528-441: A Welsh Language Scheme, which indicates its commitment to the equality of treatment principle. This is sent out in draft form for public consultation for a three-month period, whereupon comments on it may be incorporated into a final version. It requires the final approval of the now defunct Welsh Language Board ( Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg ). Thereafter, the public body is charged with implementing and fulfilling its obligations under

616-586: A Welsh-language edge inscription was used on pound coins dated 1985, 1990 and 1995, which circulated in all parts of the UK prior to their 2017 withdrawal. The wording is Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad (Welsh for 'True am I to my country'), and derives from the national anthem of Wales, " Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau ". UK banknotes are in English only. Some shops employ bilingual signage. Welsh sometimes appears on product packaging or instructions. The UK government has ratified

704-647: A census glossary of terms to support the release of results from the census, including their definition of "main language" as referring to "first or preferred language" (though that wording was not in the census questionnaire itself). The wards in England with the most people giving Welsh as their main language were the Liverpool wards of Central and Greenbank ; and Oswestry South in Shropshire . The wards of Oswestry South (1.15%), Oswestry East (0.86%) and St Oswald (0.71%) had

792-405: A fair amount. 56 per cent of Welsh speakers speak the language daily, and 19 per cent speak the language weekly. The Welsh Government plans to increase the number of Welsh-language speakers to one million by 2050. Since 1980, the number of children attending Welsh-medium schools has increased, while the number going to Welsh bilingual and dual-medium schools has decreased. Welsh is considered

880-557: A huge flood (see Afanc ), only two people, Dwyfan and Dwyfach , survived from whom the later inhabitants of Britain descended. The Welsh clergyman Edward Davies included this myth in his Celtic Researches on the Origin, Traditions and Languages of the Ancient Britons (1804): First, the bursting of the lake of waters, and the overwhelming of the face of all lands, so that all mankind drowned, excepting Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who escaped in

968-472: A king list. Before being revealed as a hoax, the list found its way into John Bale 's Illustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum (1548), John Caius ' Historia Cantabrigiensis Academiae (1574), William Harrison 's Description of England (1577), Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) and Anthony Munday 's A briefe chronicle (1611). Iolo Morganwg , between 1801 and 1807, published a series of Welsh Triads he claimed to have discovered in manuscript form, with

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1056-572: A king of this name. In 1904 Adolf von Harnack proposed that there had been a scribal error in Liber Pontificalis with 'Britanio' being written as an erroneous expansion for ' Britio ', a citadel of Edessa , present day Şanlıurfa in Turkey. The name of the king of Edessa contemporaraneous with Pope Eleutherius was Lucius Aelius Aurelius Abgar VIII . Des grantz geanz ("Of the Great Giants"),

1144-724: A naked vessel and from then the Island of Britain was re-peopled. Several 19th-century Christian authors—for example, Henry Hoyle Howorth —interpreted this myth to be evidence for the Biblical flood of Noah, yet in Morganwg's chronology Dwyfan and Dwyfach are dated to the 18th or 17th century BC, which does not fit the Biblical estimate for the Noachian deluge. Tea Tephi is a legendary princess found described in British Israelite literature from

1232-399: A new language altogether. The argued dates for the period of "Primitive Welsh" are widely debated, with some historians' suggestions differing by hundreds of years. The next main period is Old Welsh ( Hen Gymraeg , 9th to 11th centuries); poetry from both Wales and Scotland has been preserved in this form of the language. As Germanic and Gaelic colonisation of Britain proceeded,

1320-479: A single discourse (known in linguistics as code-switching ). Welsh speakers are largely concentrated in the north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd , Conwy County Borough , Denbighshire , Anglesey , Carmarthenshire , north Pembrokeshire , Ceredigion , parts of Glamorgan , and north-west and extreme south-west Powys . However, first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales. Welsh-speaking communities persisted well into

1408-709: A version of the tale known as Lludd and Llefelys inserted in the segment about Lludd Llaw Eraint ; the presence or absence of this tale has been used to classify the early versions of the Brut . One notable area in which Welsh translators have corrected or adapted Geoffrey based on native traditions is that of personal names and soubriquets. For Geoffrey's "Heli", for instance, was substituted Beli Mawr , an ancestor figure who also appears in Branwen ferch Llŷr and elsewhere in Middle Welsh literature. There are about sixty attestations of

1496-640: Is a history of the Celtic Britons written in north Wales in 829–30, claims that the Celtic Britons were descended from Trojans from the ancient city of Troy , who were the first to settle on the island of Britain. It is also claimed in Historia Brittonum, as well as Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth that the first king of the Britons was Brutus of Troy and that the island of Britain

1584-499: Is also found in J. H. Allen 's Judah's Sceptre and Joseph's Birthright (1902, p. 251). A central tenet of British Israelism is that the British monarchy is from the Davidic line and the legend of Tea Tephi from the 19th century attempted to legitimise this claim. Tea Tephi, however, has never been traced to an extant Irish source before the 19th century and critics assert she was purely

1672-420: Is evidenced by the dropping of final syllables from Brittonic: * bardos 'poet' became bardd , and * abona 'river' became afon . Though both Davies and Jackson cite minor changes in syllable structure and sounds as evidence for the creation of Old Welsh, Davies suggests it may be more appropriate to refer to this derivative language as Lingua Britannica rather than characterising it as

1760-617: Is spoken by smaller numbers of people in Canada and the United States descended from Welsh immigrants, within their households (especially in Nova Scotia ). Historically, it has also been known in English as "British", "Cambrian", "Cambric" and "Cymric". The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 gave the Welsh language official status in Wales. Welsh and English are de jure official languages of

1848-494: The 2016 Australian census , 1,688 people noted that they spoke Welsh. In the 2011 Canadian census , 3,885 people reported Welsh as their first language . According to the 2021 Canadian census , 1,130 people noted that Welsh was their mother tongue. The 2018 New Zealand census noted that 1,083 people in New Zealand spoke Welsh. The American Community Survey 2009–2013 noted that 2,235 people aged five years and over in

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1936-461: The 2021 census , 7,349 people in England recorded Welsh to be their "main language". In the 2011 census, 1,189 people aged three and over in Scotland noted that Welsh was a language (other than English) that they used at home. It is believed that there are as many as 5,000 speakers of Patagonian Welsh . In response to the question 'Does the person speak a language other than English at home?' in

2024-609: The Battle of Dyrham , a military battle between the West Saxons and the Britons in 577 AD, which split the South Western British from direct overland contact with the Welsh. Four periods are identified in the history of Welsh, with rather indistinct boundaries: Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh. The period immediately following the language's emergence is sometimes referred to as Primitive Welsh, followed by

2112-495: The British-Israel-World Federation wrote an article claiming they no longer subscribed to these two identifications, but still strongly stick to the belief that the British monarchy is of Judahite origin. In an earlier publication in 1982, Covenant Publishing Co. admitted that Tea Tephi could not be traced in Irish literature or myth and may have been fabricated by Glover, but they clarified they still believed in

2200-697: The Cornish and the Bretons ), partly based on the work of earlier medieval historians like Gildas , Nennius and Bede , partly from Welsh genealogies and saints' lives, partly from sources now lost and unidentifiable, and partly from his own imagination (see bibliography). Several of his kings are based on genuine historical figures, but appear in unhistorical narratives. A number of Middle Welsh versions of Geoffrey's Historia exist. All post-date Geoffrey's text, but may give us some insight into any native traditions Geoffrey may have drawn on. Geoffrey's narrative begins with

2288-525: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of Welsh. The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel S4C in November 1982, which until digital switchover in 2010 broadcast 70 per cent of Channel 4's programming along with a majority of Welsh language shows during peak viewing hours. The all-Welsh-language digital station S4C Digidol

2376-556: The Gaels and Scots traced their ancestry. Scota first appeared in literature from the 11th or 12th century and most modern scholars interpret the legends surrounding her to have emerged to rival Geoffrey of Monmouth 's claims that the descendants of Brutus (through Albanactus ) founded Scotland. However some early Irish sources also refer to the Scota legends and not all scholars regard the legends as fabrications or as political constructions. In

2464-508: The Old Welsh period – which is generally considered to stretch from the beginning of the 9th century to sometime during the 12th century. The Middle Welsh period is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, which in turn is divided into Early and Late Modern Welsh. The word Welsh is a descendant, via Old English wealh, wielisc , of

2552-662: The Proto-Germanic word * Walhaz , which was derived from the name of the Celtic people known to the Romans as Volcae and which came to refer to speakers of Celtic languages, and then indiscriminately to the people of the Western Roman Empire . In Old English the term went through semantic narrowing , coming to refer to either Britons in particular or, in some contexts, slaves. The plural form Wēalas evolved into

2640-618: The United States spoke Welsh at home. The highest number of those (255) lived in Florida . Sources: Calls for the Welsh language to be granted official status grew with the establishment of the nationalist political party Plaid Cymru in 1925, the establishment of the Welsh Language Society in 1962 and the rise of Welsh nationalism in the later 20th century. Of the six living Celtic languages (including two revived), Welsh has

2728-476: The "Plough King". Hu Gadarn is described by Morganwg in his triads as being the earliest inhabitant of Britain having travelled from the "Summerland, called Deffrobani , where Constantinople now stands" in 1788 BC. He is credited as having founded the first civilisation in Britain and introduced agriculture. Morganwg's Barddas (1862, p. 348) further states that this king is descended from Hu, but that, after

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2816-637: The "Synchronisation" column of the table below. Geoffrey dated Brutus' arrival in Britain (and subsequent founding of the Trojan-British monarchy) to 1115 BC. Geoffrey's book was later retold by Wace (in French) and Layamon (in Middle English); the final column represents Layamon's version. After the death of Cadwallader, the kings of the Brythons were reduced to such a small domain that they ceased to be kings of

2904-525: The "hugely important role", adding, "I look forward to working with the Welsh Government and organisations in Wales in developing the new system of standards. I will look to build on the good work that has been done by the Welsh Language Board and others to strengthen the Welsh language and ensure that it continues to thrive." First Minister Carwyn Jones said that Huws would act as a champion for

2992-766: The "very ancient book" that Geoffrey claimed to have translated from the "British tongue". This claim was taken up by the archaeologist Flinders Petrie , who argued in a paper presented to the Royal Society in 1917 that the Brut and the Historia Regum Britanniae were both derived from a hypothetical 10th-century version in Breton and ultimately from material originating in Roman times, and called for further study. However, modern scholarship has established that all surviving Welsh variants are derivative of Geoffrey rather than

3080-467: The 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of nearly all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion , although the tales themselves are certainly much older. It is also the language of the existing Welsh law manuscripts. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The Bible translations into Welsh helped maintain

3168-589: The 1880s identified a small part of Shropshire as still then speaking Welsh, with the "Celtic Border" passing from Llanymynech through Oswestry to Chirk . The number of Welsh-speaking people in the rest of Britain has not yet been counted for statistical purposes. In 1993, the Welsh-language television channel S4C published the results of a survey into the numbers of people who spoke or understood Welsh, which estimated that there were around 133,000 Welsh-speaking people living in England, about 50,000 of them in

3256-522: The 1993 Act nor secondary legislation made under it covers the private sector, although some organisations, notably banks and some railway companies, provide some of their information in Welsh. On 7 December 2010, the Welsh Assembly unanimously approved a set of measures to develop the use of the Welsh language within Wales. On 9 February 2011 this measure, the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 ,

3344-620: The 19th century. Revd F. R. A. Glover, M.A., of London in 1861 published England, the Remnant of Judah, and the Israel of Ephraim in which he claimed Tea Tephi was one of Zedekiah 's daughters. Since King Zedekiah of Judah had all his sons killed during the Babylonian Captivity, no male successors could continue the throne of King David , but, as Glover noted, Zedekiah had daughters who escaped death (Jeremiah 43:6). Glover believed that Tea Tephi

3432-481: The Assembly which confirms the official status of the Welsh language; which creates a strong advocate for Welsh speakers and will improve the quality and quantity of services available through the medium of Welsh. I believe that everyone who wants to access services in the Welsh language should be able to do so, and that is what this government has worked towards. This legislation is an important and historic step forward for

3520-508: The Brittonic speakers in Wales were split off from those in northern England, speaking Cumbric, and those in the southwest, speaking what would become Cornish , so the languages diverged. Both the works of Aneirin ( Canu Aneirin , c.  600 ) and the Book of Taliesin ( Canu Taliesin ) were written during this era. Middle Welsh ( Cymraeg Canol ) is the label attached to the Welsh of

3608-655: The Celtic language spoken by the ancient Celtic Britons . Classified as Insular Celtic , the British language probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and was probably spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth . During the Early Middle Ages the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, thus evolving into Welsh and

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3696-524: The Chaldean historian Berossus , but now considered to have been a fabrication by the 15th-century Italian monk Annio da Viterbo , who first published it. Renaissance historians like John Bale and Raphael Holinshed took the list of kings of "Celtica" given by pseudo-Berossus and made them into kings of Britain as well as Gaul. John Milton records these traditions in his History of Britain , although he gives them little credence. Historia Brittonum , which

3784-629: The English People , who added the detail that after Eleutherius granted Lucius' request, the Britons followed their king in conversion and maintained the Christian faith until the Diocletianic Persecution of 303. Later writers expanded the legend, giving accounts of missionary activity under Lucius and attributing to him the foundation of certain churches. There is no contemporary evidence for

3872-539: The Greater London area. The Welsh Language Board , on the basis of an analysis of the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study, estimated there were 110,000 Welsh-speaking people in England, and another thousand in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In the 2011 census , 8,248 people in England gave Welsh in answer to the question "What is your main language?" The Office for National Statistics subsequently published

3960-835: The Milesian Royal House-Davidic Line bloodline connection (popularised by Hoeh). Herbert Armstrong (1986) also took up this legendary connection. Welsh language Welsh ( Cymraeg [kəmˈraːiɡ] or y Gymraeg [ə ɡəmˈraːiɡ] ) is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people . Welsh is spoken natively in Wales , by some in England , and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province , Argentina ). It

4048-557: The Scottish origin myths, Albanactus had little place and Scottish chroniclers (e.g., John of Fordun and Walter Bower ) claimed that Scota was the eponymous founder of Scotland and the Scots long before Albanactus , during the time of Moses . Geoffrey synchronises some of his monarchs with figures and events from the Bible, Greek, Roman and Irish legends, and recorded history. These are given in

4136-421: The Welsh Brut in the manuscripts. Brynley F. Roberts , citing J.J. Parry and his own examination of the texts, places all the existing versions into six variant classes: 1) Dingestow MS., 2) Peniarth 44, 3) Llanstephan 1, 4) Peniarth 21, 5) Cotton Cleopatra B. v, and 6) the Brut Tysilio . Of these three texts, it is Llanstephan MS 1 and Brut Dingestow which then came to provide the textual basis for many of

4224-432: The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, all new signs have Welsh displayed first. There have been incidents of one of the languages being vandalised, which may be considered a hate crime . Since 2000, the teaching of Welsh has been compulsory in all schools in Wales up to age 16; this has had an effect in stabilising and reversing the decline in the language. Text on UK coins tends to be in English and Latin. However,

4312-436: The Welsh Language Scheme. The list of other public bodies which have to prepare Schemes could be added to by initially the Secretary of State for Wales, from 1993 to 1997, by way of statutory instrument . Subsequent to the forming of the National Assembly for Wales in 1997, the Government Minister responsible for the Welsh language can and has passed statutory instruments naming public bodies who have to prepare Schemes. Neither

4400-597: The Welsh Parliament, the Senedd , with Welsh being the only de jure official language in any part of the United Kingdom, with English being merely de facto official. According to the 2021 census , the Welsh-speaking population of Wales aged three or older was 538,300 (17.8%) and nearly three quarters of the population in Wales said they had no Welsh language skills. Other estimates suggest that 862,700 people (28.0%) aged three or older in Wales could speak Welsh in March 2024. Almost half of all Welsh speakers consider themselves fluent, while 20 per cent are able to speak

4488-424: The Welsh kings of Gwynedd until that line was forced to submit itself to the Plantagenets in the 13th century. Princes and lords of Gwynedd ruled until the reign of Dafydd III , who ruled from 1282 to 1283. His death marked the end of the house of Brutus. Owen Tudor , grandfather of Henry VII of England , was a maternal descendant of the kings of Gwynedd; Henry's marriage with Elizabeth of York thus signified

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4576-445: The Welsh language, though some had concerns over her appointment: Plaid Cymru spokeswoman Bethan Jenkins said, "I have concerns about the transition from Meri Huws's role from the Welsh Language Board to the language commissioner, and I will be asking the Welsh government how this will be successfully managed. We must be sure that there is no conflict of interest, and that the Welsh Language Commissioner can demonstrate how she will offer

4664-426: The Welsh of the 16th century, but they are similar enough for a fluent Welsh speaker to have little trouble understanding it. During the Modern Welsh period, there has been a decline in the popularity of the Welsh language: the number of Welsh speakers declined to the point at which there was concern that the language would become extinct. During industrialisation in the late 19th century, immigrants from England led to

4752-429: The Welsh-speaking heartlands, with the number dropping to under 50 per cent in Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire for the first time. However, according to the Welsh Language Use Survey in 2019–20, 22 per cent of people aged three and over were able to speak Welsh. The Annual Population Survey (APS) by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that as of March 2024, approximately 862,700, or 28.0 per cent of

4840-403: The ancestor of Cumbric as well as Welsh. Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to the Cynfeirdd or "Early Poets" – is generally considered to date to the Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was supposedly composed in the Hen Ogledd , raising further questions about the dating of

4928-417: The antiquarian forger Iolo Morganwg , in 1801–1807. The editors did not place much faith in the attribution to Tysilio, using that title merely to distinguish it from another Welsh Brut entitled Brut Gruffudd ap Arthur (the chronicle of Geoffrey son of Arthur, an alternative name for Geoffrey of Monmouth). An English translation of the Brut Tysilio by Peter Roberts was published in 1811, and San Marte made

5016-408: The census. In terms of usage, ONS also reported that 14.4 per cent (443,800) of people aged three or older in Wales reported that they spoke Welsh daily in March 2024, with 5.4 per cent (165,500) speaking it weekly and 6.5 per cent (201,200) less often. Approximately 1.7 per cent (51,700) reported that they never spoke Welsh despite being able to speak the language, with the remaining 72.0 per cent of

5104-478: The company of his scribe Baruch ben Neriah travelled to Ireland with Tea Tephi and that they are found described in Irish folklore and old Irish manuscripts. Some British Israelites identify Baruch ben Neriah with a figure called Simon Berac or Berak in Irish myth, while Jeremiah with Ollom Fotla (or Ollam, Ollamh Fodhla). However, like Tea Tephi, there has long been controversy about these identifications, mainly because of conflicting or inconsistent dates. In 2001,

5192-414: The copies attested in other MSS from the 13th century onwards, such as Mostyn MS 117 and NLW Peniarth MS 16. The version known as the Brut Tysilio , attributed to the 7th-century Welsh saint Tysilio , became more widely known when its text was published in The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales , a once-influential collection of Welsh literary material whose credibility has suffered due to the involvement of

5280-414: The course of the 20th century this monolingual population all but disappeared, but a small percentage remained at the time of the 1981 census. Most Welsh-speaking people in Wales also speak English. However, many Welsh-speaking people are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain and the social context, even within

5368-408: The decline in Welsh speakers particularly in the South Wales Valleys. Welsh government processes and legislation have worked to increase the proliferation of the Welsh language, for example through education. Welsh has been spoken continuously in Wales throughout history; however, by 1911, it had become a minority language, spoken by 43.5 per cent of the population. While this decline continued over

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5456-470: The exiled Trojan prince Brutus , after whom Britain is supposedly named, a tradition previously recorded in less elaborate form in the 9th century Historia Brittonum . Brutus is a descendant of Aeneas , the legendary Trojan ancestor of the founders of Rome , and his story is evidently related to Roman foundation legends. The kings before Brutus come from a document purporting to trace the travels of Noah and his offspring in Europe, and once attributed to

5544-409: The fifteenth century". List of legendary kings of Britain The following list of legendary kings of Britain ( Welsh : Brenin y Brythoniaid, Brenin Prydain ) derives predominantly from Geoffrey of Monmouth 's circa 1136 work Historia Regum Britanniae ("the History of the Kings of Britain"). Geoffrey constructed a largely fictional history for the Britons (ancestors of the Welsh ,

5632-431: The following decades, the language did not die out. The smallest number of speakers was recorded in 1981 with 503,000 although the lowest percentage was recorded in the most recent census in 2021 at 17.8 per cent. By the start of the 21st century, numbers began to increase once more, at least partly as a result of the increase in Welsh-medium education . The 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey showed that 21.7 per cent of

5720-426: The help of the antiquarian William Owen Pughe . These were later revealed to be a mixture of forgeries by Morganwg and Williams' alterations to authentic triads. Exactly how much "authentic" content there is of Morganwg's published work remains disputed by scholars today. Morganwg's triads describe the earliest occupation of Britain ( Prydain ) and contain a pseudo-historical reign of kings, beginning with Hu Gadarn ,

5808-411: The highest number of native speakers who use the language on a daily basis, and it is the Celtic language which is considered the least endangered by UNESCO . The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 provide that the Welsh and English languages be treated equally in the public sector, as far as is reasonable and practicable. Each public body is required to prepare for approval

5896-413: The highest percentage of residents giving Welsh as their main language. The census also revealed that 3,528 wards in England, or 46% of the total number, contained at least one resident whose main language is Welsh. In terms of the regions of England , North West England (1,945), London (1,310) and the West Midlands (1,265) had the highest number of people noting Welsh as their main language. According to

5984-431: The language, its speakers and for the nation." The measure was not welcomed warmly by all supporters: Bethan Williams, chairman of the Welsh Language Society, gave a mixed response to the move, saying, "Through this measure we have won official status for the language and that has been warmly welcomed. But there was a core principle missing in the law passed by the Assembly before Christmas. It doesn't give language rights to

6072-402: The least endangered Celtic language by UNESCO . The language of the Welsh developed from the language of Britons . The emergence of Welsh was not instantaneous and clearly identifiable. Instead, the shift occurred over a long period, with some historians claiming that it had happened by as late as the 9th century , with a watershed moment being that proposed by linguist Kenneth H. Jackson ,

6160-417: The legends of giants; Albina is thus described as being "very tall", but is presented as a human queen, a descendant of a Greek king, not a mythological creature. The Albina myth is also found in some later manuscripts of Wace 's Roman de Brut (1155), attached as a prologue. Scota , in Scottish mythology , and pseudohistory, is the name given to the mythological daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh to whom

6248-495: The material and language in which it was originally composed. This discretion stems from the fact that Cumbric was widely believed to have been the language used in Hen Ogledd. An 8th-century inscription in Tywyn shows the language already dropping inflections in the declension of nouns. Janet Davies proposed that the origins of the Welsh language were much less definite; in The Welsh Language: A History , she proposes that Welsh may have been around even earlier than 600 AD. This

6336-657: The merging of the two royal houses (as well as the feuding houses of York and Lancaster ). Annius of Viterbo in 1498 claimed to have found ancient fragments from Berossus detailing the earliest settlement of 'Celtica', including the British Isles, by Samothes, a son of Japheth , son of Noah , after the Great Flood . These fragments were later revealed to have been forged by Annius himself, and are now known as "Pseudo-Berossus". The fragments can be found in Asher (1993) and include

6424-562: The modern period across the border in England. Archenfield was still Welsh enough in the time of Elizabeth I for the Bishop of Hereford to be made responsible, together with the four Welsh bishops, for the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Welsh. Welsh was still commonly spoken there in the first half of the 19th century, and churchwardens' notices were put up in both Welsh and English until about 1860. Alexander John Ellis in

6512-477: The most popular works in the medieval West, but its impact was particularly profound and enduring in Wales, where the Historia was accepted as a largely authentic and authoritative account. The influence is most clearly evidenced by the existence of several translations into Welsh from the 13th century onwards, usually known as Brut y Brenhinedd . The manuscript history of these texts is a rich and long one attesting to

6600-592: The name for their territory, Wales. The modern names for various Romance-speaking people in Continental Europe (e.g. Walloons , Valaisans , Vlachs / Wallachians , and Włosi , the Polish name for Italians) have a similar etymology. The Welsh term for the language, Cymraeg , descends from the Brythonic word combrogi , meaning 'compatriots' or 'fellow countrymen'. Welsh evolved from Common Brittonic ,

6688-613: The other Brittonic languages. It is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Linguist Kenneth H. Jackson has suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around AD 550, and labelled the period between then and about AD 800 "Primitive Welsh". This Primitive Welsh may have been spoken in both Wales and the Hen Ogledd ('Old North') – the Brittonic-speaking areas of what are now northern England and southern Scotland – and therefore may have been

6776-421: The other way around. Roberts has shown the Brut Tysilio to be "an amalgam of versions", the earlier part deriving from Peniarth 44, and the later part abridged from Cotton Cleopatra. It survives in manuscripts dating from c.  1500 , and Roberts argues that a "textual study of the version […] shows that this is a late compilation, not different in essentials from other chronicles which were being composed in

6864-464: The people of Wales in every aspect of their lives. Despite that, an amendment to that effect was supported by 18 Assembly Members from three different parties, and that was a significant step forward." On 5 October 2011, Meri Huws , Chair of the Welsh Language Board , was appointed the new Welsh Language Commissioner. She released a statement that she was "delighted" to have been appointed to

6952-471: The population not being able to speak it. The National Survey for Wales, conducted by Welsh Government, has also tended to report a higher percentage of Welsh speakers than the census, with the most recent results for 2022–2023 suggesting that 18 per cent of the population aged 3 and over were able to speak Welsh, with an additional 16 per cent noting that they had some Welsh-speaking ability. Historically, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh. Over

7040-502: The population of Wales aged 3 and over, were able to speak the language. Children and young people aged three to 15 years old were more likely to report that they could speak Welsh than any other age group (48.4 per cent, 241,300). Around 1,001,500 people, or 32.5 per cent, reported that they could understand spoken Welsh. 24.7 per cent (759,200) could read and 22.2 per cent (684,500) could write in Welsh. The APS estimates of Welsh language ability are historically higher than those produced by

7128-407: The population of Wales spoke Welsh, compared with 20.8 per cent in the 2001 census , and 18.5 per cent in the 1991 census . Since 2001, however, the number of Welsh speakers has declined in both the 2011 and 2021 censuses to about 538,300 or 17.8 per cent in 2021, lower than 1991, although it is still higher in absolute terms. The 2011 census also showed a "big drop" in the number of speakers in

7216-421: The production of several translations and new redactions, most of which were copied many times over. The Welsh renderings are not straightforward translations in the modern sense, but by contemporary standards, they are generally close to their Latin source text, with only some commentary or additional material from bardic traditional lore ( cyfarwydd ) appended to the text. Importantly, several manuscripts include

7304-527: The required fresh approach to this new role." Huws started her role as the Welsh Language Commissioner on 1 April 2012. Local councils and the Senedd use Welsh, issuing Welsh versions of their literature, to varying degrees. Road signs in Wales are in Welsh and English. Prior to 2016, the choice of which language to display first was the responsibility of the local council. Since then, as part of

7392-518: The use of Welsh in daily life, and standardised spelling. The New Testament was translated by William Salesbury in 1567, and the complete Bible by William Morgan in 1588. Modern Welsh is subdivided into Early Modern Welsh and Late Modern Welsh. Early Modern Welsh ran from the 15th century through to the end of the 16th century, and the Late Modern Welsh period roughly dates from the 16th century onwards. Contemporary Welsh differs greatly from

7480-525: The whole Brythonic-speaking area. Two of his relatives, Yvor and Yni, led the exiles back from Brittany , but were unable to re-establish a united kingship. The Anglo-Saxon invaders ruled the south-eastern part of the island of Great Britain, which would become England, after that point in time under the Bretwaldas and later the kings of England . The heirs to the Celtic-British throne continued through

7568-753: Was a surviving Judahite princess who had escaped and travelled to Ireland, and who married a local High King of Ireland in the 6th century BC who subsequently became blood linked to the British monarchy. This theory was later expanded upon by Rev. A.B. Grimaldi, who published in 1877 a successful chart entitled Pedigree of Queen Victoria from the Bible Kings and later by W.M.H. Milner in his booklet The Royal House of Britain an Enduring Dynasty' (1902, revised 1909). Charles Fox Parham also authored an article tracing Queen Victoria's lineage back to King David (through Tea Tephi) entitled Queen Victoria: Heir to King David's Royal Throne . The Tea Tephi-British monarchy link

7656-491: Was named after him. Lucius was a legendary 2nd-century king of the Britons traditionally credited with introducing Christianity into Britain . Lucius is first mentioned in a 6th-century version of the Liber Pontificalis , which says that he sent a letter to Pope Eleutherius asking to be made a Christian. The story became widespread after it was repeated in the 8th century by Bede in his Ecclesiastical History of

7744-518: Was passed and received Royal Assent, thus making the Welsh language an officially recognised language within Wales. The measure: The measure required public bodies and some private companies to provide services in Welsh. The Welsh government's Minister for Heritage at the time, Alun Ffred Jones , said, "The Welsh language is a source of great pride for the people of Wales, whether they speak it or not, and I am delighted that this measure has now become law. I am very proud to have steered legislation through

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