77-449: Llawhaden ( Welsh : Llanhuadain ) is a village, parish and community in mid- Pembrokeshire , West Wales , historically in the Hundred of Dungleddy ( Welsh : Daugleddyf ). The community of Llawhaden includes the parish of Robeston Wathen , part of Narberth and the hamlet of Gelli , and had a population of 634 in 2001, increasing to 688 at the 2011 Census. The name Llawhaden
154-441: 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
231-586: 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
308-647: 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
385-611: A cultural frontier that has persisted, without legal status, for ten centuries or more. The boundary (with Welsh to the north and east, and English to the south and west) starts on St Bride’s Bay and follows a serpentine course eastwards until it meets the River Taf just north of Laugharne in Carmarthenshire . Traces of a boundary also persist across the Llansteffan peninsula and the country near Kidwelly , and it reappears strongly in
462-517: A disciple of Saint David ) is situated below the village beside the river, at 51°49′21″N 4°47′40″W / 51.8226°N 4.7944°W / 51.8226; -4.7944 . Llawhaden and its larger hinterland (between the Syfynwy /Deepford Brook and Eastern Cleddau) was the property of the Bishops of St Davids in the later years of Deheubarth 's existence. The Norman Conquest of Deheubarth left
539-571: A distinct Marcher Lordship. King Henry VIII 's 1535 Laws in Wales Acts abolished the powers of Marcher Lordships; Dewisland (including Llawhaden) was merged by the Act with the adjacent Lordship of Pembroke, to form Pembrokeshire . The Llawhaden exclave became a mere barony, and Llawhaden burgh ceased to have any administrative importance. George Owen , in 1603, described Llawhaden as one of nine Pembrokeshire "boroughs in decay". (Here, borough means burgh;
616-405: 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
693-399: 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,
770-504: A number of Norman/English “planned villages” (e.g. Letterston and New Moat) were made north of the current frontier in the mediæval period. These subsequently failed, and were re-occupied by Welsh speakers in the post Black Death period. In more modern times, the enclosure of commons allowed a substantial southward spread of Welsh speakers, particularly in Carmarthenshire. These are quite rare examples of Welsh-speaking areas expanding at
847-470: A sharp line of demarcation, the boundary consists of a corridor of mixed language, typically 2 to 3 miles (3–5 km) wide, in which the direction of language trend varies according to the migration characteristics of the inhabitants. The frontier zone has probably always had these characteristics. As mentioned above, the frontier moved between 1600 and today. Historic data on personal names also show that it also moved between 1200 and 1600. Attempts to set up
SECTION 10
#1732890819617924-479: 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
1001-619: Is a term used for the language border in Wales between the largely Welsh -speaking and largely English -speaking areas in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire . The English-speaking areas, south of the Landsker line and known as Little England beyond Wales , are notable for having been English linguistically and culturally for many centuries despite being far from the England–Wales border . During
1078-533: Is an anglicised version of the Welsh form Llanhuadain , and probably means "(monastic) enclosure of St Aidan". The village is in the form of a large medieval planned settlement , although most of the land lots laid out along the main street are now vacant. At the end of the main street, spectacularly overlooking the Cleddau valley, is a substantial castle , Llawhaden Castle . The parish church of St Aidan (of Ferns,
1155-644: Is available throughout Europe on satellite and online throughout the UK. Since the digital switchover was completed in South Wales on 31 March 2010, S4C Digidol became the main broadcasting channel and fully in Welsh. The main evening television news provided by the BBC in Welsh is available for download. There is also a Welsh-language radio station, BBC Radio Cymru , which was launched in 1977. Landsker Line The Landsker Line ( Welsh : Ffin ieithyddol Sir Benfro )
1232-420: 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
1309-617: 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
1386-494: 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
1463-461: 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
1540-659: 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
1617-525: 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
SECTION 20
#17328908196171694-508: 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
1771-569: The Preseli Hills were less fertile, and hence less hospitable, than those to the south, successive bishops came to base their administration at Llawhaden; by the 13th century the exchequer , chancery and court of Dewisland had moved here. Though part of Dewisland, and ruled by the same person (the Bishop of St. Davids), as it was an exclave it was sometimes called the Lordship of Llawhaden , as if it were
1848-662: 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
1925-618: 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
2002-525: 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
2079-405: The 11th and 12th centuries both invaders and defenders built more than fifty castles during a complex period of conflict, effectively to consolidate the line. The southernmost was Laugharne ; others included Wiston , Camrose , Narberth , and Roch . These are often referred to as "frontier castles" but they were in fact set back a considerable distance from the frontier itself. In the heart of
2156-467: 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
2233-589: 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
2310-522: 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 ,
2387-481: 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
Llawhaden - Misplaced Pages Continue
2464-454: The Bishops of St Davids had judicial powers over all offences (except high treason), and could levy tax, issue charters, raise armies, and start wars. Bernard built a castle at Llawhaden to protect the Llawhaden portion of his land, and the village grew up around it. As the chief seat of this exclave of Dewisland, he granted the settlement at Llawhaden the status of a burgh . As the lands north of
2541-508: 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
2618-705: 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
2695-434: The English colonists found that farming and feudalism were difficult to maintain on cold acid soils and exposed hillsides. When historians began to gain interest in the linguistic divide, they used the term "landsker", or "lansker", for example by Richard Fenton in 1810, though the term had been used much earlier by antiquarian George Owen of Henllys in 1603. It remains in common use. Local people may not be familiar with
2772-539: 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
2849-540: The Norman-dominated area, the two great fortresses were at Pembroke and Haverfordwest . There were other fortresses within the colonised area as well, including Manorbier , Carew and Tenby . The Landsker has changed position many times, first moving north into the foothills of Mynydd Preseli during the military campaigns of the Early Middle Ages, and then moving southwards again in more peaceful times, as
2926-489: 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,
3003-673: 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
3080-865: 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
3157-515: 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
Llawhaden - Misplaced Pages Continue
3234-481: 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
3311-606: 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
3388-561: 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
3465-562: The anglicisation of the Welsh coast paralleled the anglicisation of Devon and Cornwall , perhaps concurrently. A 2003 DNA study showed that people in 'Little England' are genetically indistinguishable from the people of southern England. The frontier was not solely linguistic: there were also differences in customs (notably of inheritance) and in architecture. Owen characterised the cultural frontier in 1602 as both sharp and stable, and subsequent observers (with less local knowledge than Owen) have reiterated his description, and suggested that
3542-460: The area around Gelli woollen mill . Llawhaden Bridge , to the east of the village, spans the Eastern Cleddau and is a Grade II* listed structure built in the mid-18th century. There are a number of other listed structures in the parish. Admiral Sir Thomas Foley was born in the parish in 1757. Llawhaden was a civil parish with an area of 4,609 acres (1,865 ha). The parish includes
3619-406: The boundary between English and Welsh Gower . The area to the south of the line was referred to in the 16th century as Anglia Transwalliana ( Little England beyond Wales ). In 1603, George Owen provided a snapshot description of the language boundary and 'Little England beyond Wales', and provided an antiquarian account of the settlement of English speakers in southwest Wales. This provides
3696-408: 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
3773-414: 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
3850-470: 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
3927-401: The end of the eighteenth century. In 1939, the term was first applied to the linguistic frontier in southwest Wales. The linguistic boundary, in general, is neither visible nor permanent. Commentators have taken up the use of the word in this context in the last 50 years, so that in the 21st century it is usually understood to mean the language boundary. The language boundary is an example of
SECTION 50
#17328908196174004-577: The expense of English-speaking areas; in the central part of Pembrokeshire the shift of the Landsker southwards between 1600 and 1900 was in excess of 6 miles (10 km). Southwest Wales is very rich in Norman Castles. Some are deep within the Welsh zone (e.g. Newport , Cardigan , Cilgerran , Newcastle Emlyn , Carmarthen ), and some are deep in Little England (e.g. Pembroke , Carew , Manorbier , Haverfordwest , Tenby ). A number lie close to
4081-485: 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
4158-579: The hamlet of Gelli. The civil parish had population as follows: 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
4235-463: 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
4312-469: 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
4389-517: The language boundary (e.g. Roch , Wiston , Llawhaden , Narberth , Laugharne ) and are sometimes referred to as “frontier castles”, but the whole of Dyfed (the territory south of the River Teifi and west of the Towy and Gwili) was in the hands of Norman marcher lords. The line is noted for being sharp, and for having moved only slightly over the past several centuries. A visible boundary which represents
4466-496: 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
4543-402: 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 ,
4620-409: The line remained close to that described by Owen. The first objective, statistically based description of the frontier was made in the 1960s, and showed a line similar to that described by Owen, although in some places it had moved north, while in others it had moved south. People in the frontier zone did not recognise the term “Landsker”, but were well aware of the location of the boundary. Rather than
4697-655: 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
SECTION 60
#17328908196174774-468: 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
4851-433: 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 ,
4928-435: The north and south of the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire" in DNA signatures. The term Landsker is a word of Anglo-Saxon origin used in southwest England and along the anglicised South Wales coast. It signifies a permanent, visible boundary between two tracts of land, and may be a natural feature (e.g. a river) or an artificial feature (e.g. a hedge or a line of marker stones). In Wales , its official use became obsolete at
5005-503: 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
5082-402: 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
5159-471: 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
5236-502: 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
5313-407: 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
5390-409: 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
5467-409: The rest of Carmarthenshire) was Welsh-speaking; the bilingualism was noted by George Owen in his 1603 description; he regarded Llawhaden as one of six parishes which were "bilingual". The Eastern Cleddau formed the linguistic boundary , which has been fairly stable since Norman times, although, perhaps in the early Industrial Revolution when people moved to seek work, Welsh-speakers started emerging in
5544-438: The rights of the Bishops largely unchallenged, creating an effectively independent state under the Bishop's control (since Deheubarth no longer existed around it). In 1115, after Bishop Bernard accepted the king's suzerainty over the land, King Henry I issued a charter formally acknowledging the lands of St. David's as a Marcher Lordship — Dewisland — of which the area around Llawhaden formed an exclave . As Marcher Lords,
5621-502: The term borough only took its modern meaning ( Municipal borough ) - in the 19th century). The settlement at Llawhaden expanded slightly across the Eastern Cleddau river, and provided the nearest church for lands to the east: part of Gwarthaf (part of Carmarthenshire ); hence the parish straddled both sides of the river. Though the Llawhaden part of Dewisland was English-speaking, like Dungleddy to its west, Gwarthaf (and most of
5698-471: The term, but they recognise that the language divide stretching from St Bride's Bay to Carmarthen Bay remains very distinct. The differences in the proportion of Welsh speakers persists in the 21st century and is illustrated by the map derived from the 2011 census. Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics reported in 2015 "unexpectedly stark differences between inhabitants in
5775-518: 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
5852-504: The “traditional” view: that the area was cleared of native Welsh by the Norman invaders in the early 12th century, and was planted with Flemings from elsewhere in England. However, Owen pointed out that there was no trace of Flemish custom or language in his time. In fact, traditional Pembrokeshire English is lexically related to the Early English of southwest England, and in all probability
5929-518: 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
#616383