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75-734: Welsh evolved from British , the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Britons . Alternatively classified as Insular Celtic or P-Celtic , it 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, evolving into Welsh and

150-491: A 19.5% influx of new residents since 1991. The 2011 census government speaker targets (a 5% increase) were missed and the proportion of Welsh speakers decreased, causing much concern, from 21% in 2001 to 19% in 2011. For October 2020 to 30 September 2021, the Annual Population Survey showed that 29.5% of people aged three or older were able to speak Welsh, which equates to approximately 892,500 people. However, when

225-554: A Welsh-language television channel was not established. In early September 1980, Evans addressed thousands at a gathering in which "passions ran high", according to the historian John Davies . The government yielded by 17 September, and the Welsh Fourth Channel ( S4C ) was launched on 2 November 1982. The Welsh Language Act 1993 provided a new law for public organisations in Wales to have bilingual schemes, which would be supervised by

300-419: A community that speaks a foreign language, then you lose your indigenous tongue almost immediately". Plaid Cymru had long advocated controls on second homes, and a 2001 task force headed by Dafydd Wigley recommended that land should be allocated for affordable local housing, called for grants for locals to buy houses, and recommended that council tax on holiday homes should double, following similar measures in

375-573: A paralysis of helplessness", the Conservative Home Secretary announced in September 1979 that the government would not honour its pledge to establish a Welsh-language television channel, much to widespread anger and resentment in Wales. In early 1980 over two thousand members of Plaid Cymru pledged to go to prison rather than pay the television licence fees, and by that spring Gwynfor Evans announced his intention to go on hunger strike if

450-579: A provision in the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 that the term "England" should include Wales, thus defining Wales to be a separate entity from England within the United Kingdom. The act allowed the use of Welsh alongside English in courts of law in Wales, partly based on the Hughes Parry Report. Following the defeat of the "Yes Campaign" for a Welsh Assembly in 1979, and believing Welsh nationalism to be "in

525-490: A radical restructuring of the vowel system. Notes: Through comparative linguistics , it is possible to approximately reconstruct the declension paradigms of Common Brittonic: Notes: Notes: Notes: Brittonic-derived place names are scattered across Great Britain, with many occurring in the West Country ; however, some of these may be pre-Celtic. The best example is perhaps that of each (river) Avon , which comes from

600-504: A revision of the 1588 Bible, which contained a number of printing errors. This work was continued after Morgan's death by bishop Richard Parry and scholar John Davies , and a revised version of the Bible was published in 1620. This edition is still known as William Morgan's translation, and it is this rather than the previous edition which became the standard Welsh Bible until the 20th century and continues to be used to this day. His achievement

675-480: Is a Celtic language historically spoken in Britain and Brittany from which evolved the later and modern Brittonic languages . It is a form of Insular Celtic , descended from Proto-Celtic , a theorized parent language that, by the first half of the first millennium BC, was diverging into separate dialects or languages. Pictish is linked, likely as a sister language or a descendant branch. Evidence from early and modern Welsh shows that Common Brittonic

750-500: Is commemorated in Wales with the graffitied slogan Cofiwch Dryweryn ('Remember Tryweryn'). The flooding of Tryweryn continues to influence debates on forced removal even today. Songs and poems also pay tribute to the loss and shame of the event. In a 1968 newspaper report the existence of a small number of elderly Welsh monoglots in the Llŷn Peninsula of North Wales was described. The leader of Plaid Cymru, Gwynfor Evans , won

825-743: Is now looked on as a major monument in the history of the Welsh language ; it meant that the Welsh people could read the Bible in their first language at roughly the same time as their English neighbours had the privilege. William Morgan was appointed Bishop of Llandaff in 1595 and was translated to the bishopric of St Asaph in 1601. He died on 10 September 1604. He married twice, first to Ellen Salesbury, before going to Cambridge, and later to Catherine, daughter of George ap Richard ap John. He had one son, Evan, who became vicar of his father's old parish of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant. Morgan's birthplace Tŷ Mawr Wybrnant

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900-576: Is preserved by the National Trust as a historic house museum. A slate plaque close to the gates of the parish church of St Dogfan in Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant commemorates Morgan. It was while at this church that he made his historic translations. There is a memorial in St John's College Chapel, Cambridge , where Morgan was a student. In 2019 it was announced that the new office building for

975-552: The Mabinogion , although the tales themselves are certainly much older. It is also the language of the existing manuscripts of Welsh law . Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The famous cleric Gerald of Wales tells the story of King Henry II of England . During one of the King's many raids in the 12th century, Henry asked an old man of Pencader, Carmarthenshire , whether he thought

1050-542: The Basque Country as successful examples to emulate. Lord Elis-Thomas , the former president of Plaid Cymru, disagreed with Dafis's assessment, however. At the Urdd Eisteddfod , Elis-Thomas said that there was no need for another Welsh language act, citing that there was "enough goodwill to safeguard the language's future". His comments prompted Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg and many others to call for his resignation as

1125-525: The Bishop of Ely . His first clerical benefice was the parish of Llanbadarn Fawr , which he gained in 1572; in 1575 he moved to Welshpool , and then became vicar of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant in 1578, where he made his Bible translation. In 1579 he became rector of Llanfyllin , which he held concurrently with being vicar of nearby Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant. Morgan was still at Cambridge when William Salesbury published his Welsh New Testament in 1567. While he

1200-616: The Exmoor National Park authority in England began to consider limiting second home ownership there, which was also driving up local housing prices by as much as 31%. Elfyn Llwyd , Plaid Cymru's Parliamentary Group Leader, said that the issues in Exmoor National Park were the same as those in Wales, however, in Wales, there is the added dimension of language and culture. Reflecting on the controversy Glyn's comments caused earlier in

1275-538: The Firth of Forth . Cumbric disappeared in the 12th century, and in the far south-west, Cornish probably became extinct in the 18th century, though its use has since been revived . O'Rahilly's historical model suggests a Brittonic language in Ireland before the introduction of the Goidelic languages , but this view has not found wide acceptance. Welsh and Breton are the only daughter languages that have survived fully into

1350-490: The King James Version , this proved to have a strong stabilizing effect on the language, and indeed the language today still bears the same Late Modern label as Morgan's language. Of course, many changes have occurred since then. The 19th century was a critical period in the history of the language and one that encompassed many contradictions. In 1800 Welsh was the main spoken language of the vast majority of Wales, with

1425-614: The Scottish Highlands . However, the Welsh Labour – Liberal Democrat Assembly coalition rebuffed these proposals, with the Assembly housing spokesman Peter Black stating that "we [cannot] frame our planning laws around the Welsh language", adding "Nor can we take punitive measures against second homeowners in the way that they propose as these will have an impact on the value of the homes of local people". In contrast, by autumn 2001

1500-608: The Snowdonia National Park (Welsh: Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri ) and Pembrokeshire Coast National Park (Welsh: Parc Cenedlaethol Arfordir Penfro ) authorities began limiting second home ownership within the parks, following the example set by Exmoor. According to planners in Snowdonia and the Pembrokeshire Coast, applicants for new homes must demonstrate a proven local need or that the applicant had strong links with

1575-571: The Welsh Language Board . Some private sector companies, including British Telecom and British Gas , had already included Welsh-language schemes in company policies before this Act. In a speech at the 2000 National Eisteddfod at Llanelli , the Plaid Cymru Assembly Member Cynog Dafis called for a new Welsh-language movement with greater powers to lobby for the language at the Assembly, UK, and EU levels. Dafis felt

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1650-564: The 19th century, peaking in the 1911 census at over one million even as the proportion of the Welsh population that could speak Welsh fell below 50% for the first time. Especially when compared to other stateless languages in Europe, Welsh boasted an extraordinarily active press, with poetry, religious writing, biography, translations, and, by the end of the century, novels all appearing in the language, as well as countless newspapers, journals and periodicals. An ongoing interest in antiquarianism ensured

1725-546: The 21st century. Cornish fell out of use in the 1700s but has since undergone a revival . Cumbric and Pictish are extinct and today spoken only in the form of loanwords in English, Scots , and Scottish Gaelic . The early Common Brittonic vowel inventory is effectively identical to that of Proto-Celtic. /ɨ/ and /ʉ/ have not developed yet. By late Common Brittonic, the New Quantity System had occurred, leading to

1800-455: The Act many gentry and government officials already spoke English; however, the Act codified the class ruling of the English language, with numbers who were fluent in English rising significantly after its passing. The Act's primary function was to create uniform control over the now united England and Wales ; however, it laid a foundation for the superiority of classes through the use of language. Welsh

1875-404: The Assembly's presiding officer. In the 1991 census, the Welsh language stabilised at the 1981 level of 18.7%. According to the 2001 census, the number of Welsh speakers in Wales increased for the first time in over 100 years, with 20.8% in a population of over 2.9 million claiming fluency in Welsh. Further, 28% of the population of Wales claimed to understand Welsh. The census revealed that

1950-523: The British state. It did not become officially recognised as the language of Wales until the passing of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 . Learning English was enthusiastically encouraged; in contrast, Welsh was not taught or used as a medium of instruction in schools, many of which actively discouraged the use of Welsh using measures such as the Welsh Not . Welsh was increasingly restricted in scope to

2025-712: The Brittonic aβon[a] , "river" (transcribed into Welsh as afon , Cornish avon , Irish and Scottish Gaelic abhainn , Manx awin , Breton aven ; the Latin cognate is amnis ). When river is preceded by the word, in the modern vein, it is tautological . Examples are: Basic words tor , combe , bere , and hele from Brittonic are common in Devon place-names. Tautologous, hybrid word names exist in England, such as: William Morgan (Bible translator) William Morgan (1545 – 10 September 1604)

2100-532: The Brythonic-speaking areas of what is now northern England and southern Scotland , and may therefore have been the ancestor of Cumbric as well as Welsh. Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The Welsh language in documents predating around 1150. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to the Cynfeirdd or 'Early Poets' – is generally considered to date to

2175-400: The English counties of Northumberland and Dorset had met with protests. The prime minister Stanley Baldwin refused to hear the case against basing this RAF establishment in Wales, despite a deputation claiming to represent half a million Welsh protesters. The opposition against "British" military usage of this site in Wales was summed up by Saunders Lewis when he wrote that the government

2250-563: The Gwydir estate, he was probably educated at Gwydir Castle , near Llanrwst , along with the children of the Wynn family. Morgan then attended St John's College, Cambridge , where he studied a range of subjects including philosophy , mathematics and Greek . He graduated BA in 1568 and MA in 1571, before seven years of Biblical studies, including a study of the Bible in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic and

2325-638: The Official Languages Act became the first Welsh law to be created in 600 years, according to the First Minister at the time, Carwyn Jones . This law was passed by Welsh Assembly members only and made Welsh an official language of the National Assembly. British language (Celtic) Common Brittonic ( Welsh : Brythoneg ; Cornish : Brythonek ; Breton : Predeneg ), also known as British , Common Brythonic , or Proto-Brittonic ,

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2400-545: The Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was supposedly composed in the Hen Ogledd, raising further questions about the dating of the material and language in which it was originally composed. Middle Welsh ( Cymraeg Canol ) is the label attached to the Welsh of 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

2475-745: The Romanised towns and their descendants, and later from church use. By 500–550 AD, Common Brittonic had diverged into the Neo-Brittonic dialects: Old Welsh primarily in Wales, Old Cornish in Cornwall, Old Breton in what is now Brittany, Cumbric in Northern England and Southern Scotland, and probably Pictish in Northern Scotland. The modern forms of Breton and Welsh are the only direct descendants of Common Brittonic to have survived fully into

2550-511: The Welsh language had any chance: Modern Welsh can be divided into two periods. The first, Early Modern Welsh, ran from the early 15th century to roughly the end of the 16th century. In the Early Modern Welsh Period use of the Welsh language began to be restricted, such as with the passing of Henry VIII's 1536 Act of Union . Through this Act Wales was governed solely under English law . Only 150 words of this Act were concerned with

2625-439: The Welsh language unless direct action was taken. Lewis was responding to the 1961 census, which showed a decrease in the number of Welsh speakers from 36% in 1931 to 26% in 1961, out of a population of about 2.5 million. Meirionnydd, Anglesey, Carmarthen, and Caernarfon averaged a 75% concentration of Welsh speakers, but the most significant decrease was in the counties of Glamorgan , Flint , and Pembroke . Lewis's intent

2700-416: The Welsh language. By the 20th century, the numbers of Welsh speakers were shrinking at a rate which suggested that the language would be extinct within a few generations. According to the 1911 census, out of a population of just under 2.5 million, 43.5% of those aged three years and upwards in Wales and Monmouthshire spoke Welsh (8.5% monoglot Welsh speakers, 35% bilingual in English and Welsh). This

2775-529: The area. The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 modernised the 1993 Welsh Language Act and gave Welsh an official status in Wales for the first time, a major landmark for the language. Welsh is the only official de jure language of any country in the UK. The Measure was also responsible for creating the post of Welsh Language Commissioner , replacing the Welsh Language Board. Following the referendum in 2011,

2850-452: The average earned income in Wales and meant that many local people could not afford to purchase their first home or compete with second-home buyers. In 2001 nearly a third of all properties sold in Gwynedd were bought by buyers from out of the county, and some communities reported as many as a third of local homes used as holiday homes. Holiday homeowners spend less than six months of the year in

2925-632: The dissemination of the language's medieval poetry and prose (such as the Mabinogion ). A further development was the publication of some of the first complete and concise Welsh dictionaries . Early work by Welsh lexicographic pioneers such as Daniel Silvan Evans ensured that the language was documented as accurately as possible. Modern dictionaries such as Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (the University of Wales Dictionary) are direct descendants of these dictionaries. Despite these outward signs of health, it

3000-452: The extinction of Welsh. By the end of the nineteenth century, English came to prevail in the large cities of south-east Wales. Welsh remained strong in the north-west and in parts of mid-Wales and south-west Wales. Rural Wales was a stronghold of the Welsh language, and so also were the industrial slate-quarrying communities of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire. Many of the nonconformist churches throughout Wales were strongly associated with

3075-414: The final word has been rendered cuamiinai .) This text is often seen as: 'The affixed – Deuina, Deieda, Andagin [and] Uindiorix – I have bound'; else, at the opposite extreme, taking into account case-marking – -rix 'king' nominative, andagin 'worthless woman' accusative, dewina deieda 'divine Deieda' nominative/vocative – is: 'May I, Windiorix for/at Cuamena defeat [or 'summon to justice']

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3150-626: The highest concentration of speakers at 87.4%, followed by Cardigan at 87.1%, Merionethshire at 86.1%, and Carmarthen at 82.3%. Caernarfon listed 79.2%. Radnorshire and Monmouthshire ranked lowest with a concentration of Welsh speakers less than 6% of the population. The first Welsh-medium primary school was established in Aberystwyth in 1939 by Ifan ab Owen Edwards . Originally a private school named Ysgol Gymraeg yr Urdd composed of only seven children, it later became Ysgol Gymraeg Aberystwyth and now teaches over 400 children. Ysgol Glan Clwyd

3225-652: The highest percentage of Welsh monoglots, at 57.3%. Bethesda urban district in Caernarfonshire was the most Welsh-speaking urban district in Wales; 96.6% of the district's population could speak Welsh. The Welsh nationalist party Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru ('the National Party of Wales'; later abbreviated to Plaid Cymru, 'the Party of Wales') was founded at a meeting in the 1925 National Eisteddfod in Pwllheli , Gwynedd, with

3300-503: The increase was most significant in urban areas, such as Cardiff with an increase from 6.6% in 1991 to 10.9% in 2001, and Rhondda Cynon Taf with an increase from 9% in 1991 to 12.3% in 2001. However, the number of Welsh speakers declined in Gwynedd from 72.1% in 1991 to 68.7%, and in Ceredigion from 59.1% in 1991 to 51.8%. Ceredigion, in particular, experienced the greatest fluctuation with

3375-457: The language differed little from that of Gaul . Comparison with what is known of Gaulish confirms the similarity. Pictish , which became extinct around 1000 years ago, was the spoken language of the Picts in Northern Scotland. Despite significant debate as to whether this language was Celtic, items such as geographical and personal names documented in the region gave evidence that this language

3450-412: The local community. The issue of locals being priced out of the local housing market is common to many rural communities throughout the United Kingdom, but in Wales, the added dimension of language further complicates the issue, as many new residents do not learn the Welsh language. Concern for the Welsh language under these pressures prompted Glyn to say "Once you have more than 50% of anybody living in

3525-558: The modern day. No documents in the language have been found, but a few inscriptions have been identified. The Bath curse tablets , found in the Roman feeder pool at Bath, Somerset ( Aquae Sulis ), bear about 150 names – about 50% Celtic (but not necessarily Brittonic). An inscription on a metal pendant (discovered there in 1979) seems to contain an ancient Brittonic curse: " Adixoui Deuina Deieda Andagin Uindiorix cuamenai ". (Sometimes

3600-481: The needs of the Welsh language were ignored during the first year of the Assembly, and that to ensure the language's dynamic growth a properly resourced strategy was needed. In his speech Dafis encouraged other Welsh-language advocacy groups to work more closely together to create a more favourable climate in which the use of Welsh was "attractive, exciting, a source of pride and a sign of strength". Additionally, Dafis pointed towards efforts in areas such as Catalonia and

3675-469: The non-conformist religious chapels, who would teach children to read and write in Sunday schools. Individuals such as Matthew Arnold championed the virtues of Welsh literature whilst simultaneously advocating the replacement of Welsh as the everyday language of the country with English, and many Welsh speakers themselves such as David Davies and John Ceiriog Hughes advocated bilingualism, if not necessarily

3750-408: The only exceptions being some border areas and other places which had seen significant settlement, such as south Pembrokeshire ; by the 1901 census, this proportion had declined to a little over half of the population, though the large increase in the total population over the century (due to the effects of industrialisation and in-migration) meant that the total number of Welsh speakers grew throughout

3825-459: The other Brythonic languages ( Breton , Cornish , and the extinct Cumbric ). It is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around 550, and labelled the period between then and about 800 "Primitive Welsh". This Primitive Welsh may have been spoken in both Wales and the Hen Ogledd ('Old North'),

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3900-709: The party's first ever Parliamentary seat in Carmarthen in 1966, which "helped change the course of a nation". This, paired with the Scottish National Party 's Winnie Ewing 's winning a seat in 1967, may have contributed to pressure on the Labour prime minister Harold Wilson to form the Kilbrandon Commission . This event may have also contributed to the passing of the Welsh Language Act 1967 . The act repealed

3975-482: The population of Wales (including Monmouthshire), 38.7% of the population could speak Welsh while 6.6% of the overall population were Welsh monoglots. In the five predominantly Welsh-speaking counties, Welsh was spoken by more than 75% of the population, and was more widely understood than English: Denbighshire was the only other county where a majority could still speak Welsh; here, 51.0% could speak Welsh and 94.0% could speak English. As for larger urban areas, Aberdare

4050-527: The primary aim of promoting the Welsh language. Concern for the Welsh language was ignited in 1936 when the British government decided to build an RAF training camp and aerodrome at Penyberth on the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd. The events surrounding the protest became known as Tân yn Llŷn ('Fire in Llŷn'). The government had settled on Llŷn as the location for this military site after plans for similar bases in

4125-420: The results of the 2021 census were published, they showed a further decrease to 17.8%, equating to 538,000 speakers. The decline in Welsh speakers in Gwynedd and Anglesey (Ynys Môn) may be attributable to non–Welsh-speaking people moving to North Wales, driving up property prices to levels that local Welsh speakers cannot afford, according to Seimon Glyn , a former Gwynedd county councillor with Plaid Cymru. Glyn

4200-559: The time of 75–100 AD. The term Pritenic is controversial. In 2015, linguist Guto Rhys concluded that most proposals that Pictish diverged from Brittonic before c.  500 AD were incorrect, questionable, or of little importance, and that a lack of evidence to distinguish Brittonic and Pictish rendered the term Pritenic "redundant". Common Brittonic vied with Latin after the Roman conquest of Britain in 43 AD, at least in major settlements. Latin words were widely borrowed by its speakers in

4275-490: The use of the Welsh language. Section 20 of the Act banned the use of the language in court proceedings and those who solely spoke Welsh and did not speak English could not hold government office. Wales was to be represented by 26 members of parliament who spoke English. Outside certain areas in Wales such as South Pembrokeshire , the majority of those living in Wales did not speak English, meaning that interpreters were regularly needed in order to conduct hearings. Before passing

4350-551: The works of the Church Fathers and contemporary Protestant theologians. He graduated BD in 1578 and DD in 1583. At Cambridge he was a contemporary of the Welsh clergyman and poet Edmwnd Prys who had been born only 12 miles from Morgan's birthplace; Prys later assisted Morgan with his translation of the Bible. In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Morgan was a clergyman of the Church of England , having been ordained in 1568 by

4425-637: The worthless woman, [oh] divine Deieda.' A tin/lead sheet retains part of nine text lines, damaged, with likely Brittonic names. Local Roman Britain toponyms (place names) are evidentiary, recorded in Latinised forms by Ptolemy 's Geography discussed by Rivet and Smith in their book of that name published in 1979. They show most names he used were from the Brittonic language. Some place names still contain elements derived from it. Tribe names and some Brittonic personal names are also taken down by Greeks and, mainly, Romans. Tacitus 's Agricola says that

4500-500: The year, Llwyd observed "What is interesting is, of course, it is fine for Exmoor to defend their community but in Wales when you try to say these things it is called racist". Llwyd called on other parties to join in a debate to bring the Exmoor experience to Wales when he said "I really do ask them and I plead with them to come around the table and talk about the Exmoor suggestion and see if we can now bring it into Wales". By spring 2002 both

4575-457: Was a Welsh Bishop of Llandaff and of St Asaph , and the translator of the first version of the whole Bible into Welsh from Greek and Hebrew . Morgan was born in 1545 at Tŷ Mawr Wybrnant , in the parish of Penmachno , near Betws-y-Coed , North Wales (there is some doubt about the exact year of his birth; his memorial in Cambridge, for example, gives 1541). As his father was a tenant of

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4650-444: Was a decrease from the 1891 census with 49.9% speaking Welsh out of a population of 1.5 million (15.1% monoglot, 34.8% bilingual). The distribution of those speaking the language however was unevenly distributed with five counties remaining overwhelmingly and predominantly Welsh-speaking: Outside these five counties, a further two areas were noted as having a majority who spoke Welsh, those being: The 1921 census recorded that of

4725-508: Was commenting on a report underscoring the dilemma of rocketing house prices outstripping what locals could pay, with the report warning that "traditional Welsh communities could die out" as a consequence. Much of the rural Welsh property market was driven by buyers looking for second homes for use as holiday homes or for retirement. Many buyers were drawn to Wales from England because of relatively inexpensive house prices in Wales as compared to those in England. The rise in house prices outpaced

4800-569: Was during the nineteenth century that English replaced Welsh as the most widely spoken language within the country. Wales, particularly the South Wales Coalfield , experienced significant population growth and in-migration (primarily from England and Ireland), which changed the linguistic profile of some areas (though other areas would remain Welsh-speaking despite the changes). Welsh held no official recognition and had limited status under

4875-504: Was founded, the first Welsh medium secondary school in South Wales (later Ysgol Garth Olwg ). The Welsh Courts Act was passed in 1942, repealing Henry VIII's earlier laws; this finally permitted limited use of the Welsh language in courts of law. In 1962 Saunders Lewis gave a radio speech entitled Tynged yr Iaith ('The Fate of the Language'), in which he predicted the extinction of

4950-409: Was intent upon turning one of the "essential homes of Welsh culture , idiom , and literature " into a place for promoting a barbaric method of warfare. On 8 September 1936, the building was set on fire, and the Welsh nationalists Saunders Lewis , Lewis Valentine and D. J. Williams claimed responsibility for the arson. The case was tried at Caernarfon, where the jury failed to reach a verdict. It

5025-481: Was most closely aligned with the Brittonic branch of Celtic languages. The question of the extent to which this language was distinguished, and the date of divergence, from the rest of Brittonic, was historically disputed. Pritenic (also Pretanic and Prittenic ) is a term coined in 1955 by Kenneth H. Jackson to describe a hypothetical Roman-era (1st to 5th centuries) predecessor to the Pictish language. Jackson saw Pritenic as having diverged from Brittonic around

5100-399: Was now seen as a language spoken by the lower working classes, with those from higher classes seen superior and given roles in government for choosing to speak English over Welsh. This part of the Act was not repealed until 1993 under the Welsh Languages Act . Late Modern Welsh began with the publication of William Morgan 's translation of the Bible in 1588. Like its English counterpart,

5175-429: Was opened in 1956 with 94 pupils in Rhyl , becoming the first secondary school with a formal remit to teach through the medium of Welsh. It moved to St Asaph in 1969. In 1949 Cardiff gained its first Welsh medium primary school, Ysgol Gymraeg Caerdydd, renamed Ysgol Bryntaf and moved to Llandaf in 1952. In 1978 Ysgol Glantaf opened, Cardiff's first Welsh-medium secondary school. In 1962 Rhydfelen secondary school

5250-495: Was pleased that this work was available, Morgan firmly believed in the importance of having the Old Testament translated into Welsh as well. He began work on his own translation of the Old Testament in the early 1580s and published this, together with a revision of Salesbury's New Testament, in 1588. Following the publication of his Bible, Morgan worked on a revision of the Book of Common Prayer (which had also been translated by Salesbury), published in 1599. He also began work on

5325-549: Was significantly influenced by Latin during the Roman period , especially in terms related to the church and Christianity . By the sixth century AD, the languages of the Celtic Britons were rapidly diverging into Neo-Brittonic : Welsh , Cumbric , Cornish , Breton , and possibly the Pictish language . Over the next three centuries, Brittonic was replaced by Scottish Gaelic in most of Scotland, and by Old English (from which descend Modern English and Scots ) throughout most of modern England as well as Scotland south of

5400-419: Was successful, and by the mid-1930s more programmes in Welsh were broadcast, with the formal establishment of a Welsh regional broadcasting channel by 1937. However, no dedicated Welsh-language television channel would be established until 1982. According to the 1931 census, out of a population of just over 2.5 million, the percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales had dropped to 36.8%, with Anglesey recording

5475-511: Was the only one where a majority could still speak Welsh, here 59.0% could speak Welsh while 95.4% could speak English. In Cardiff , Wales's largest city, 5.2% of people could speak Welsh, while 99.7% of people could speak English. At a district level, Llanfyrnach rural district in Pembrokeshire had the highest percentage of Welsh speakers at 97.5%, while Penllyn rural district in Merioneth had

5550-579: Was then sent to the Old Bailey in London, where the "Three" were convicted and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. On their release from Wormwood Scrubs they were greeted as heroes by a crowd of 15,000 people at a pavilion in Caernarfon . With the advent of broadcasting in Wales , Plaid Cymru protested against the lack of Welsh-language programming and launched a campaign to withhold licence fees. The pressure

5625-663: Was to motivate Plaid Cymru to take more direct action to promote the language; however, it led to the formation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) later that year at a Plaid Cymru summer school held in Pontardawe in Glamorgan . In 1965 the village of Capel Celyn was drowned in the Tryweryn valley . This created tension between natural resources provision and the protection of cultural identity. This event

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