Survival of the Welsh Language
Министерство образования и науки Украины
Таврический национальный университет
Им. В.И. Вернадского
Факультет иностранной филологии
Кафедра английской филологии
Гура Егор Николаевич
Реферат на тему: «The Survival of the Welsh Language»
Дисциплина «Лингвострановедение»
Специальность 7.030502
«английский и немецкий языки и литература»
курс 4, группа 42
Симферополь 2001
Contents :
1. Introduction
3
2. Part I
3
3. Part II
5
4. Part III
7
5. Part IV
8
6. Part V
9
7. Part VI
10
8. Part VII
12
9. Part VIII
14
10. Part IX
15
11. Welsh language guide
18
12. List of used sources
21
Introduction
It is the eighth wonder of Wales that is the most wondrous of them all, the
survival of the Welsh language in the face of almost impossible odds.
Sometime in the seventh century, a Welsh Bishop heard an Englishman's voice
on the bank of the River Severn and was filled with foreboding at the
sound.. He recorded his unsettling experience thus: "For the kinsman of
yonder strange-tongued man whose voice I heard across the river. . . will
obtain possession of this place, and it will be theirs, and they will hold
it in ownership."
The bishop was wrong. More than twelve centuries have passed since the
strange tongue of the Saxon was heard on the borders of Wales, centuries
during which the ancient tongue of the Bishop and his fellow Britons had
every opportunity to become extinct and yet which has stubbornly refused to
die. The survival of the native language is truly one of the great wonders
of Wales, to be appreciated and marvelled at far more than any physical
feature or man-made object, and far more than the so-called seven wonders
of Wales.
It is a something of a shock when visitors travel from England west into
Wales, for, almost without warning, he may find himself in areas where not
only the dialects become incomprehensible, but where even the language
itself has changed. The roadside signs "Croeso i Gymru" (accompanied by the
red dragon, the ancient badge of Wales) let it be known that one is now
entering a new territory, inhabited by a different people, for the
translation is "Welcome to Wales" written in one of the oldest surviving
vernaculars in Europe. For amusement with the language, after getting used
to names such as Pontcysyllte, Pen y Mynydd , or Glynceiriog, one can take
a little detour off the main route through Anglesey to Ireland and visit
the village with its much-photographed sign announcing the now-closed
railway station:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwyllllantisiliogogogoch
To account for the abrupt linguistic change from English into Welsh, one
must journey far, far back into history.
Part I
It was about 1000 BC that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain, probably
introduced by small groups of migrants who became culturally dominant in
their new homelands, and whose culture formed part of a great unified
Celtic "empire" encompassing many different peoples all over Northern
Europe. The Greeks called these people, with their organized culture and
developed social structure Keltoi, the Romans called them Celtai.
In spite of the fact that they were perhaps the most powerful people in
much of Europe in 300 BC, with lands stretching from Anatolia in the East
to Ireland in the West, the Celts were unable to prevent inter tribal
warfare; their total lack of political unity, despite their fierceness in
battle, ultimately led to their defeat and subjugation by the much-better
disciplined armies of Rome. The Celtic languages on Continental Europe
eventually gave way to those stemming from Latin.
The Celts had been in Britain a long time before the first Roman invasion
of the British Isles under Julius Caesar in 55 BC which did not lead to any
significant occupation. The Roman commander, and later Emperor, had some
interesting, if biased comments concerning the native inhabitants. "All the
Britons," he wrote, “paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a
bluish color and makes them look very dreadful in battle" (De Bello
Gallico). It was not until a hundred years later, following an expedition
ordered by the Emperor Claudius, that a permanent Roman settlement of the
grain-rich eastern territories of Britain begun in earnest.
From their bases in what is now Kent, the Roman armies began a long,
arduous and perilous series of battles with the native Celtic tribes, first
victorious, next vanquished, but as on the Continent, superior military
discipline and leadership, along with a carefully organized system of forts
connected by straight roads, led to the triumph of Roman arms. In the
western peninsular, in what is now Wales, the Romans were awestruck by
their first sight of the druids (the religious leaders and teachers of the
British). The historian Tacitus described them as being "ranged in order,
with their hands uplifted, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible
imprecations" (Annales)
The terror was only short-lived; Roman arms easily defeated the native
tribesmen, and it was not long before a great number of large, prosperous
villas were established all over Britain, but especially in the Southeast
and Southwest. Despite defeats in pitched battles, the people of
mountainous Wales and Scotland were not as easily settled; their scattered
settlements remained "the frontier" -- lands where military garrisons were
strategically placed to guard the Northern and Western extremities of the
Empire. The fierce resistance of the tribes in Cambria meant that two out
of the three Roman legions in Britain were stationed on the Welsh borders.
Two impressive Roman fortifications remain to be seen in Wales: Isca
Silurium (Caerleon) with its fine amphitheatre, in Monmouthshire; and
Segontium, (Caernarfon), in Gwynedd.
In Britain, at least for a few hundred years after the Roman victories on
mainland Europe, the Celts held on to much of their customs and especially
to their distinctive language, which has miraculously survived until today
as Welsh. The language of most of Britain was derived from a branch of
Celtic known as Brythonic: it later gave rise to Welsh, Cornish and Breton
(these differ from the Celtic languages derived from Goidelic; namely,
Irish, Scots, and Manx Gaelic). Accompanying these languages were the
Celtic religions, particularly that of the Druids, the guardians of
traditions and learning.
Though the Celtic tongue survived as the medium of everyday speech, Latin
being used mainly administrative purposes, many loan words entered the
native vocabulary, and these are still found in modern-day Welsh, though
many of these have entered at various times since the end of the Roman
occupation. Today's visitors to Wales who know some Latin are surprised to
find hundreds of place names containing Pont (bridge), while ffenest
(window), pysgod (fish), milltir (mile), melys (sweet or honey) cyllell
(knife), ceffyl (horse), perygl (danger), eglwys (church), pared (wall or
partition), tarw (bull) and many others attest to Roman or Latin influence.
When the city of Rome fell to the invading Goths under Alaric, Roman
Britain, which had experienced hundreds of years of comparative peace and
prosperity, was left to its own defences under its local Romano-British
leaders, one of whom may have been a tribal chieftain named Arthur. It
quickly crumbled under the onslaught of Germanic tribes (usually
collectively referred to as Anglo-Saxons) themselves under attack from
tribes to the east and wishing to settle in the sparsely populated, but
agriculturally rich lands across the narrow channel that separated them.
More than two hundred years of fighting between the native Celts, as brave
as ever but comparatively disorganized, and the ever-increasing numbers of
Germanic tribesmen eventually resulted in Britain sorting itself out into
three distinct areas: the Britonic West, the Teutonic East, and the Gaelic
North. It was these areas that later came to be identified as Wales,
England, and Scotland, all with their very separate cultural and linguistic
characteristics (Ireland, of course, remained Gaelic: many of its peoples
migrated to Scotland, taking their language with them to replace the native
Pictish).
From the momentous year 616, the date of their defeat at the hands of the
Saxons in the Battle of Chester, the Welsh people in Wales were on their
own. Separated from their fellow Celts in Cornwall and Cumbria, those who
lived in the western peninsular gradually began to think of themselves as a
distinct nation in spite of the many different rival kingdoms that
developed within their borders such as Morgannwg, Powys, Brycheinion, Dyfed
and Gwynedd. It is also from this period that we can speak of the Welsh
language, as distinct from the older Brythonic.
In a poem dated 633, the word Cymry appears, referring to the country; and
it was not too long before the Britons came to be known as the Cymry, by
which term they are known today. At this point, we should point out that
the word Welsh (from Wealas) is a later word used by the Saxon invaders of
the British Isles perhaps to denote people they considered "foreign" or at
least to denote people who had been Romanized. It originally had signified
a Germanic neighbor, but eventually came to be used for those people who
spoke a different language.
The Welsh people themselves still prefer to call themselves Cymry, their
country Cymru, and their language Cymraeg. It is also from this time that
the Celtic word Llan appears, signifying a church settlement and usually
followed by the name of a saint, as in Llandewi (St. David) or Llangurig
(St. Curig), but sometimes by the name of a disciple of Christ, such as
Llanbedr (St. Peter) or even a holy personage such as Llanfair (St. Mary).
Part II
It is in Wales, perhaps, that today's cultural separation of the British
Isles remains strongest, certainly linguistically, and for that, we must
look to the mid 8th Century, when a long ditch was constructed, flanking a
high earthen rampart that divided the Celts of the West from the Saxons to
the East and which, even today, marks the boundary between those who
consider themselves Welsh from those who consider themselves English. The
boundary, known as "Offa's Dyke," in memory of its builder Offa, the king
of Mercia (the middle kingdom) runs from the northeast of Wales to the
southeast coast, a distance of 149 miles.
English-speaking peoples began to cross Offa's Dyke in substantial numbers
when settlements were created by Edward 1st in his ambition to unite the
whole of the island of Britain under his kingship. After a period of
military conquest, the English king forced Welsh prince Llywelyn ap
Gruffudd to give up most of his lands, keeping only Gwynedd west of the
River Conwy.
Edward then followed up his successes by building English strongholds
around the perimeter of what remained of Llewelyn's possessions, and
strong, easily defended castles were erected at Flint, Rhuddlan,
Aberystwyth, and Builth., garrisoned by large detachments of English
immigrants and soldiers. Some of these towns have remained stubbornly
English ever since. Urban settlement, in any case, was entirely foreign to
the Celtic way of life.
In 1294, the Statute of Rhuddlan confirmed Edward's plans regarding the
governing of Wales. The statute created the counties of Anglesey,
Caernarfon, and Merioneth, to be governed by the Justice of North Wales;
Flint, to be placed under the Justice of Chester; and the counties of
Carmarthen and Cardigan were left under the Justice of South Wales.
In the year 1300, the situation seemed permanently established, when "King
Edward of England made Lord Edward his son [born at Caernarfon Castle],
Prince of Wales and Count of Chester," and ever since that date these
titles have been automatically conferred upon the first-born son of the
English monarch. The Welsh people were not consulted in the matter,
although an obviously biased entry in Historia Anglicana for the year 1300
reads:
In this year King Edward of England made Lord Edward, his son and heir,
Prince of Wales and Count of Chester. When the Welsh heard this, they were
overjoyed, thinking him their lawful master, for he was born in their
lands.
Following his successes in Wales, signified by the Statute of Rhuddlan,
sometimes referred to as The Statute of Wales, Edward embarked on yet
another massive castle-building program, creating such world-heritage sites
of today as Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris in addition to the
earlier not so-well known (or well-visited) structures at Flint and
Rhuddlan. Below their huge, forbidding castle walls, additional English
boroughs were created, and English traders were invited to settle, often to
the exclusion of the native Welsh, who must have looked on in awe and
despair from their lonely hills at the site of so much building activity.
Their ancestors must have felt the same sense of dismay as they watched the
Roman invaders build their heavily defended forts in strategic points on
their lands.
The Welsh were forbidden to inhabit such "boroughs" or to carry arms within
their boundaries (even today, there are laws remaining on the statute books
of Chester, a border town, that proscribe the activities of the Welsh
within the city walls). With the help of the architect Master James of St.
George, and with what must have seemed like limitless resources in manpower
and materials, Edward showed his determination to place a stranglehold on
the Welsh. Occasional rebellions were easily crushed; it was not until the
death of Edward III and the arrival of Owain Glyndwr (Shakespeare's Owen
Glendower), that the people of Wales felt confident enough to challenge
their English overlords.
Owain Glyndwr was Lord of Glyndyfrdwy (the Valley of the Dee). He seized
his opportunity in 1400 after being crowned Prince of Wales by a small
group of supporters and defying Henry IV's many attempts to dislodge him.
The ancient words of Geraldus Cambrensis could have served to inspire his
followers:
The English fight for power; the Welsh for liberty; the one to procure
gain, the other to avoid loss. The English hirelings for money; the Welsh
patriots for their country
The comet that appeared in 1402 was seen by the Welsh as a sign of their
forthcoming deliverance from bondage as well as one that proclaimed the
appearance of Owain. His magnetic personality electrified and galvanized
the people of Wales, strengthening their armies and inspiring their
confidence. Even the weather was favorable.
The Welsh leader's early successes released the long-suppressed feelings of
thousands of Welshmen who eagerly flocked to his support from all parts of
England and the Continent. Before long, it seemed as if the long-awaited
dream of independence was fast becoming a reality: three royal expeditions
against Glyndwr failed: he held Harlech and Aberystwyth, had extended his
influence as far as Glamorgan and Gwent, was receiving support from Ireland
and Scotland; and had formed an alliance with France. Following his
recognition by the leading Welsh bishops, he summoned a parliament at
Machynlleth, in mid-Wales, where he was crowned as Prince of Wales.
It didn't seem too ambitious for Owain to believe that with suitable
allies, he could help bring about the dethronement of the English king;
thus he entered into a tripartite alliance with the Earl of Northumberland
and Henry Mortimer (who married Owain's daughter Caitrin) to divide up
England and Wales between them. After all, Henry IV's crown was seen by
many Englishmen as having been falsely obtained, and they welcomed armed
rebellion against their ruler. Hoping that The Welsh Church be made
completely independent from Canterbury, and that appointments to benefices
in Wales be given only to those who could speak Welsh, Glyndwr was ready to
implement his wish to set up two universities in Wales to train native
civil servants and clergymen.
Then the dream died.
Part III
Owain's parliament was the very last to meet on Welsh soil; the last
occasion that the Welsh people had the power of acting independently of
English rule. From such a promising beginning to a national revolt came a
disappointing conclusion, even more upsetting because of the speed at which
Welsh hopes crumbled with the failure of the Tripartite Indenture. Henry
Percy (Hotspur) was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury, and the increasing
boldness and military skills of Henry's son, the English prince of Wales
and later Henry V, began to turn the tide against Glyndwr. Like so many of
his predecessors, Glyndwr was betrayed at home. It is not too comforting
for Welsh people of today to read that one of the staunchest allies of the
English king and enemy of Glyndwr was a man of Brecon, Dafydd Gam (later
killed at Agincourt, fighting for the English).
A sixth expedition into Wales undertaken by Prince Henry retook much of the
land captured by Owain, including many strategic castles. The boroughs with
their large populations of "settlers," had remained thoroughly English in
any case, and by the end of 1409, the Welsh rebellion had dwindled down to
a series of guerilla raids led by the mysterious figure of Owain, whose
wife and two daughters had been captured at Harlech and taken to London as
prisoners. Owain himself went into the mountains, becoming an outlaw. He
may have suffered an early death. for nothing is known of him either by the
Welsh or the English. He simply vanished from sight. According to an
anonymous writer in 1415," Very many say that he [Owain Glyndwr] died; the
seers say that he did not" (Annals of Owain Glyndwr). There has been much
speculation as to his fate and much guessing as to where he ended his final
days and was laid to rest.
There is an expression coined in the nineteenth century that describes a
Welshman who pretends to have forgotten his Welsh or who affects the loss
of his national identity in order to succeed in English society or who
wishes to be thought well of among his friends. Such a man is known as Dic
Sion Dafydd, (a term used in a satirical 19th century poem). The term was
unknown In fifteenth century Wales, but, owing to the harsh penal
legislation imposed upon them, following the abortive rebellion, it became
necessary for many Welshmen to petition Parliament to be "made English" so
that they could enjoy privileges restricted to Englishmen. These included
the right to buy and hold land according to English law.
Such petitions may have been distasteful to the patriotic Welsh, but for
the ambitious and socially mobile gentry rapidly emerging in Wales and on
the Marches, they were a necessary step for any chance of advancement. In
the military. At the same time, Welsh mercenaries, no longer fighting under
Glyndwr for an independent Wales, were highly sought after by the new king
Henry V for his campaigns in France. The skills of the Welsh archers in
such battles as Crecy and Agincourt is legendary.
Such examples of allegiance to their commander, the English sovereign, went
a long way in dispelling any latent thoughts of independence and helped
paved the way for the overwhelming Welsh allegiance to the Tudors
(themselves of Welsh descent) and to general acquiescence to the Acts of
Union. The year 1536 produced no great trauma for the Welsh; all the
ingredients for its acceptance had been put in place long before.
The so-called Act of Union of that year, and its corrected version of 1543
seemed inevitable. More than one historian has pointed out that union with
England had really been achieved by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. Those
historians who praise the Acts state that the Welsh people had now achieved
full equality before the law with their English counterparts. It opened
opportunities for individual advancement in all walks of life, and Welshmen
flocked to London to take full advantage of their chances.
The real purpose was to incorporate, finally and for all time, the
principality of Wales into the kingdom of England. A major part of this
decision was to abolish any legal distinction between the people on either
side of the new border. From henceforth, English law would be the only law
recognized by the courts of Wales. In addition, for the placing of the
administration of Wales in the hands of the Welsh gentry, it was necessary
to create a Welsh ruling class not only fluent in English, but who would
use it in all legal and civil matters.
Thus inevitably, the Welsh ruling class would be divorced from the language
of their country; as pointed out earlier, their eyes were focused on what
London or other large cities of England had to offer, not upon what
remained as crumbs to be scavenged in Wales itself, without a government of
its own, without a capital city, and without even a town large enough to
attract an opportunistic urban middle class, and saddled with a language
described by Parliament as "nothing like nor consonant to the natural
mother tongue used within this realm."
From 1536 on, English was to be the only language of the courts of Wales,
and those using the Welsh language were not to receive public office in the
territories of the king.
Part IV
It was the arrival of the Welsh Bible, however, that brought the language
back to a respected position.
In 1588, the translation of the whole Bible itself, the climax of the whole
movement, made Welsh the language of public worship and thus much more than
a generally despised peasant tongue. Perhaps it is to this that much of the
present-day strength of the Welsh language is owed, compared to Irish
(which did not get its own Bible until 1690) and Scots Gaelic (which had to
wait until 1801).
The Welsh Bible, a magnificent achievement, was completed after eight years
by William Morgan and a group of fellow scholars. In 1620 Dr John Davies of
Mallwyd and Richard Parry, Bishop of St. Asaph, produced a revision of
William Morgan's Bible. Most of the nearly one thousand copies of.the
earlier book had been lost or worn out, and this revised and corrected
edition is the version that countless generations of Welsh people have been
thoroughly immersed ever since, it has been as much a part of their lives
as the Authorized Version has been to the English-speaking peoples or
Luther's Bible to the Germans.
In 1630, the Welsh Bible, in a smaller version (Y Beibl Bach), was
introduced into homes in Wales and as the only book affordable to many
families, became the one book from which the majority of the people could
learn to read and write. Other, poorer families, unable to afford the
Bible, were able to share its contents in meetings held at the homes of
neighbors or in their churches or chapels. Later on, countless generations
of children were taught its contents in Sunday School. It is in this way,
therefore, that we can say the Welsh Bible "saved" the language from
possible extinction.
It has been touch and go all the way since, however, with determined
efforts coming from both sides of Offa's Dyke to stamp out the language for
ever. Yet every time the funeral bells have tolled, the language has
miraculously revived itself.
For the continued survival of the language, however, there had to be a
groundwork laid in the field of general education among the masses. There
were still too many people in Wales who could not read or write. As so
often in Welsh history, help came from outside the country itself.
In 1674, a charitable organization, the Welsh Trust, was set up in London
by Thomas Gouge to establish English schools in Wales and to publish books
"in Welsh." Over 500 books were printed in 1718 and 1721 at Trefhedyn and
Carmarthen respectively. Many of these were translations of popular English
works, Protestant tracts that encouraged private worship and prayers, but
along with the six major editions of the Bible that appeared during the
same period, they had the unpredicted effect of ensuring the survival of
the language in an age where many scholars were predicting its rapid
demise. Of equal importance were the cheap catechisms and prayer
books.highly prized by rural families who read them (along with the Beibl
Cymraegd) in family groups during the long, dark winter nights.
So successful were educators, benefactors and itinerant teachers that
perhaps as many as one third or more of the population of Wales could read
their scriptures by the time of Griffith Jones' death in 1761. Jones had
realized that preaching alone was insufficient to ensure his people's
salvation: they needed to read the scriptures for themselves. Though not
intended by such as Jones (the rector of Llanddowror and therefore not a
Nonconformist minister), his writings created a substantial Welsh reading
public primed and ready to receive the appeal of the ever-growing
Methodists, whose ability in such preachers as Hywel Harris was matched by
their eloquence in the pulpit, and who obviously filled a great need among
the masses.
One influential convert was Thomas Charles who joined in 1784, and who set
up the successful Sunday School movement in North Wales that had such a
profound and lasting influence on the language and culture of that region.
Another preacher of great influence was Daniel Rowland, who had converted
in 1737 after hearing a sermon by Griffith Jones. With Hywel Harris, he
assumed the leadership of the Methodist Revival. Rowland's enthusiasm along
with that of his colleagues, attracted thousands of converts, and though
their initial intention was to work within the framework of the established
church, opposition from their Bishops, all of whom had little real interest
in Wales and knew nothing of its language and culture, led finally to the
schism of 1811 when an independent union was founded.
This was the Calvinistic Methodist Church (today known as the Presbyterian
Church of Wales). Providing the excitement and fervor that the established
church had been lacking for so long, it did much to pave the way for the
rapid growth of the other non-conformist sects such as the Baptists and
Independents. The movement also was responsible for producing two names
that are outstanding in the cultural history of Wales: William Williams and
Ann Griffiths (dealt with at length in my History of Wales).
Part V
The result of the coming of heavy industry to south Wales in the 19th
century could not have been foreseen, especially its twofold effect on the
language and social life of the area. First, with so many Welsh speakers
moving into the area in search of jobs, bringing their language (and their
chapels) with them, a Welsh culture survived in many fields of valley
activity.
Such a heavy toll came to so many areas of the southern valleys. In the
counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth, the long, verdant valleys quickly
filled up with factories, mills, coal mines, iron smelting works (and
later, steel works), roads, railways, canals, and above all, people. Houses
began to spread along the narrow hillsides, filling every available space
upon which a house could be set, small houses, crammed together in row
after row, street after street, town after town all strung together on the
valley floor. Houses separated only spasmodically by the grocery store, the
somber, grey chapel, or the public house. Above them all loomed the
blackened hillsides and the slag heaps of waste coal or industrial refuse.
And all this brought about by the discovery of coal.
In the southern valleys, an Anglo-Welsh character came into being; one that
came to dominate the political, social and literary life of Wales, and it
was here also that a new and particular kind of Welshness was forged,
symbolized by the cloth-capped, heavy drinking, strike-prone, English-
speaking, rugby fanatic of the Valleys..To such a character, and to a
certain extent, to the majority of the three large urban areas of Cardiff,
Swansea and Newport, the people of the West and North, the Bible-toting,
chapel-going, teetotal, parsimonious, and above all Welsh-speaking were
totally alien beings who might have come from another planet. The
repercussions are felt strongly today as only one in five of the
inhabitants of Wales use Welsh as a language of everyday affairs.
In other areas, the Welsh language had been in decline for over 100 years.
In Flintshire, so near to the large urban areas of Merseyside and Cheshire
there had long been deliberate attempts to stamp out the Welsh language.
Other areas did not suffer the loss of the language.
Some of the letters published in The Cambrian in the mid 19th Century show
an attitude of many Englishmen towards the Welsh language that has
persisted until today. In one of them, the writer was amused by the
proposal to have the infant Prince of Wales (eldest son of Queen Victoria),
instructed in the Welsh language. He wrote that the prince, by trying to
pronounce the Welsh "ll" or "ch" would be perceived as having spasmodic
affections of the bronchial tubes "that would lead to quinsy or some
terrible disease of the lungs and jugulum and would alarm everyone."
Part VI
By the middle of the 19th century, Victoria's views notwithstanding, the
tide was running heavily against Welsh. In 1842, a Royal Commission,
looking into the state of education in Wales, noted that some Welsh boys
employed at mines in Breconshire were learning to read English at Sunday
School, but that they could speak only Welsh. This was intolerable to the
commissioners.
It was demanded in Parliament that an inquiry be conducted into the means
afforded to the laboring classes of Wales to acquire a knowledge of the
English tongue. The report of the Commissioners of Inquiry for South Wales
in 1844 lamented the fact that "The people's ignorance of the English
language practically prevents the working of the laws and institutions and
impedes the administration of justice." It didn't seem to occur to the
commissioners that it was their own ignorance of the language that was
obstructing justice!
The report led to another Royal Commission, conducted in 1847, which was to
have a lasting effect on the cultural and political life of Wales. The
report, in three volumes bound in blue covers, has become known as Brad y
Llyfrau Gleision (The Treachery of the Blue Books, for the three young and
inexperienced lawyers who conducted the report had no understanding of the
Welsh language, nor, it seems, did they understand non-conformity in
religious matters.
Bright, intelligent and well-read Welsh-speaking children were unable to
understand the questions put to them in English, and the surveyors pig-
headedly assumed that this was due to their ignorance. Their report
lamented what they considered to be the sad state of education in Wales,
the too-few schools, their deplorable condition, the unqualified teachers,
the lack of supplies and suitable English texts, and the irregular
attendance of the children. All these were attributed, along with
dirtiness, laziness, ignorance, superstition, promiscuity and immorality:
to Nonconformity, but in particular to the Welsh language.
One result, of course, of the publication of such "facts" led to so many of
its speakers being made to feel ashamed and embarrassed. The effects of the
controversy thus stirred up has lasted up until today; it certainly did
much ot bolster the position of those who agreed with much of the report
and who saw the language as the biggest drawback to the people of Wales.
One drastic remedy, the imposition of English-only Board Schools did much
to further has ten the decline of Welsh over a great part of the country.
In these schools, as in Flintshire a half century earlier, the "Welsh Not"
rule was imposed with severe penalties for speaking Welsh, including the
wearing of a wooden board, the old "Welsh lump" around one's neck.
In Caernarfon, Gwynedd, an area still predominantly Welsh-speaking in the
1990's, there is a high school named after Sir Hugh Owen, a pioneer in
education in Wales. Owen's untiring efforts to secure a university for
Wales led to a commission to promote the idea in 1854, the university
itself to be established through voluntary contributions. Owen's pleas to
the government for financial help were unheeded, and it was public
subscription that brought to fruition the old dream of Owain Glyndwr. In
1872 Aberystwyth University opened its doors to twenty-six students in a
very impressive building on the seafront designed as a hotel, but which was
fortunately vacant at the time. For the first few years of its existence,
the college depended greatly on voluntary contributions from the
nonconformist chapels, but it attracted many who would come to have
profound influence on the culture of their nation. In so many areas it
provided the foundations that led to the national revival of Wales in the
late 1890's.
The work of Owen M. Edwards, in a period of language decline, was crucial
in this renaissance. A native of Llanuwchllyn on the shores of Llyn Tegid
(Bala Lake), Oxford University lecturer and later Chief inspector of
Schools of the newly-created Welsh Board of Education, Edwards did much to
popularize the use of Welsh as an everyday language. Alarmed by the decline
in the language, he published a great number of Welsh books and magazines,
with particular interest in works for children. In 1898 he founded Urdd y
Delyn, a forerunner of Urdd Gobaith Cymru, the largest youth organization
in Wales and one that still conducts its activities through the medium of
Welsh.
Despite the success of organizations such as Urdd, one problem has remained
for the survival of Welsh ever since the Acts of Union in the middle
1500's. The Welsh language has considered to be a great hindrance to one's
feeling of Britishness. Even before the First World War, when British
soldiers from all parts of the kingdom marched off under the Union Jack to
fight the Boers in South Africa, the feeling took hold that "...side by
side with the honourable contribution which the Welsh could make to the
British Empire, the Welsh language could be considered an irrelevance..."
This idea was implanted even more firmly in the Welsh mind by the intention
of the leaders of the Welsh-speaking community to show that the
peculiarities of Welsh culture were not a threat to the unity and
tranquility of the kingdom of Britain. When ideas of a separate government
for the Welsh people began to take hold in the late 19th century, once
again, the idea of a British national identity found itself overwhelming
the purely local, isolated, and all too often ridiculed, aspirations of
those who wished for a Welsh nationhood.
In mainly English-speaking South Wales in particular, feelings on the
matter were sharply expressed. At a crucial meeting in Newport,
Monmouthshire, in January 1898 it was firmly stated (by Robert Byrd) that
there were thousands of true Liberals who would never submit "to the
domination of Welsh ideas." With few exceptions, this seems to sum up the
attitude of most Welsh politicians of the next one hundred years. There
were too many in Wales whose close ties with English interests made the
idea of home rule repugnant and one to be fought against at all costs.
Welsh-speaking Lloyd George, future Prime Minister, who was howled down at
the meeting, questioned if the mass of the Welsh nation was willing to be
dominated by a coalition of English capitalists who had made their fortunes
in Wales. Yet even his motives were held with suspicion as being entirely
self-serving. And, as a fluent Welsh speaker, he was mistrusted by many in
the audience who looked with suspicion upon those who could speak a
language that they could not.
In 1881, the Aberdare Commission's report showed that provisions for
intermediate and higher education in Wales lagged behind those in the other
parts of Britain; it suggested that there should be two new Welsh
universities, Cardiff and Bangor. It was found, however, that there was a
lack of adequately trained students for these new colleges and thus, in
1899 the Welsh Intermediate Act came into being that gave the new county
councils the power to raise a levy (to be matched by the Government) for
the provision of secondary schools.In 1896 came the Central Welsh Board to
oversee these schools.
The result was that thousands of Welsh children from all levels of society
were able to continue their education at a secondary level. Another result,
however, was the continued decline of the status accorded the Welsh
language, for the new secondary schools were thoroughly English, only very
few even bothering to offer Welsh lessons. An educated class of Welsh
people was thus created that fostered the cultural traditions of their
country in the language of England.
Part VII
In the meantime, in an age where radio and movies began to play important
roles in the regular everyday life of the people of Wales, the language
continued its precipitous decline. North Wales got its news from and
followed the events in Liverpool; South Wales was more tied to happenings
in Bristol or even London. Links between the two areas of Wales were
practically non-existent; roads and rails went West to East, not North to
South, and the flow of ideas and language went in the same directions. Any
sense of a national Welsh identity was disappearing rapidly along with the
language.
In an attempt to stop the rot, a new party came into being in 1925, Plaid
Genedlaethol Cymru (The National Party of Wales) that was fiercely devoted
to purely Welsh causes such as preservation of the language and culture. In
1926, Saunders Lewis took over the presidency, but the party received very
little general support and, in some areas of Wales, was the object of
ridicule. It was to take forty years before Plaid Cymru was taken seriously
and gained its first seat in Parliament. Much had been happening until then
to further erode Welsh as a common language and the idea of the Welsh as a
common, united people worthy of their own government as part of a greater
Britain.
The views of Henderson and Lewis, as imaginative and forward-looking as
they were, did not appeal to the majority of the Welsh people' at the time,
those who thought the politician and the poet were those of a very small
minority indeed. In the meantime, the process of anglicization continued
unabated; more people living in Wales considered themselves Anglo-Welsh
than Welsh. Much of the blame (or for some,the praise), can be placed on
the educational system that, even before the outset of the Second World War
was geared to producing loyal Britons.
When World War ll finally arrived, there was much more unanimity of support
throughout Britain than there had been for the First World War. And there
was less trauma inflicted upon the people of Wales, for this was a crusade
against Fascism and Nazism and Hitler that almost everyone could subscribe
to. It was also a fight to preserve the Empire. The heavy bombing meant a
large exodus of children from the targeted larger English cities into the
more rural areas. In Wales, thousands of refugees learned Welsh, but in
many areas their English language overwhelmed the local speech.or tipped
the scales against its survival.
To counter the linguistic threat to the Welsh culture at Aberystwyth, a
private Welsh-medium school was established.by Ifan ab Owen Edwards, the
son of the famous educator. Apart from this little school, however, it
wasn't until Llanelli Welsh School began in 1947 that the idea of teaching
children through the medium of Welsh began to take hold in earnest. Other
schools followed, so that by 1970, even Cardiff had its Ysgol Dewi Sant
(St. David's School) one of the largest primary schools in Wales, teaching
through the medium of Welsh. The increase in the Welsh primary schools was
accompanied by a demand for a Welsh secondary education, and the first such
schools opened in Flintshire, Ysgol Gyfun Glan Clwyd and Ysgol Maes Garmon
in areas in which the great majority of the parents were monolingual
English. The success of these schools were followed by Ysgol Rhydfelen in
Glamorganshire in 1962 and by many others by the 1980's.
It may have taken a long while, and for many, it might have been too late,
but the change in the attitude of the Welsh people toward their language
has been dramatic since 1962. Not only that, but great strides have been
made in convincing immigrants to Wales that their children would not suffer
the loss of their English language if they were to be taught through the
medium of Welsh, and that a bilingual education may well be superior to one
that confines them to a single language. Many a non-Welsh speaking parent
is now anxious to point with pride at the achievement of their children in
the Welsh language. It is no longer fashionable in Wales to refer to the
language as "dying," and the activities of the Eisteddfod as "the kicks of
a dying nation," sentiments the author heard at Swansea in 1964. What
caused the sea-change?
One place we can start to look for the answer is the media, especially
public radio. Beginning in 1922, the BBC broadcasts in Wales were eagerly
awaited. Its voice, however, was one that gave prestige and authority to
its views, the voice of a public-school-educated upper-class Englishman. In
addition, the majority of broadcasts led a majority of British people to
believe that a BBC accent was not only desirable, but was the correct one,
and that their own accent, dialect, or in the case of much of Wales, their
language, was inferior. It was Radio Eireann, the voice of the Irish
Republic, that broadcast the only regular Welsh language material,
beginning in 1927.
At time, and for a long period afterward, incredible as it now seems, the
head of the BBC station in Cardiff ignored protests from devotees of the
Welsh language who wished to hear Welsh language programs. There were then
almost one million speakers of Welsh. But aided by such attitudes of those
in authority, a rapid decline was about to begin. This was not inevitable.
Perhaps the language would have even advanced, given sufficient air time in
the late 1920's and early 30's. The problem was that most Welsh listeners
enjoyed their English language programs; it was only the few who realized
that their enjoyment was coming at the expense of their cherished, native
tongue.
Part VIII
One who did take notice, and one who provided the second place to look for
the answer was Ifan ab Owen Edwards, whose father Owen M. Edwards had
founded Urdd y Delyn in 1898. The son, in his turn, established the most
influential of all youth movements in Wales, Urdd Gobaith Cymru in 1922;
the movement has involved countless thousands of Welsh boys and girls ever
since, conducting their camps, sports activities, singing festivals,
eisteddfodau, etc. all through the medium of Welsh and proving that the
language was not one that should be confined to an older, chapel-going,
puritanical generation. Continued protests against the policies of the BBC,
unable and in most cases unwilling to cater to the new, younger generation
eventually led to the BBC studio at Bangor broadcasting Welsh language
programs. In 1935, and in July of 1937 the Welsh Region of the BBC finally
began to broadcast on a separate wavelength. Radio Cymru, however, had to
wait until 1977.
Another pivotal figure in the fight for survival of the Welsh language, and
one who made good use of the power of the radio broadcast was the poet and
dramatist Saunders Lewis. Like Ifan ab Owen Edwards, Lewis was greatly
concerned that, unless something was done, and done quickly, the Welsh
language as a living entity would disappear before the end of the century.
Lewis, a major Welsh poet and dramatist, generally considered as the
greatest literary figure in the Welsh language of this century, was born in
Cheshire into a Welsh family; he later became a lecturer at the newly
established University College, Swansea. Heavily influenced by events in
Ireland and the struggle for national identity in that country that took
place in the political sphere, he was one of the founders of Plaid Cymru in
1925 at the Pwllheli National Eisteddfod, becoming its president in 1926.
Lewis envisioned a new role for the people of Wales that would transform
their position as a member of the British Empire into one in which they
could see themselves as one of the nations that helped found European
civilization. As he viewed it:
What then is our nationalism?...To fight not for Welsh independence but
for the civilization of Wales. To claim for Wales not independence but
freedom. (Egwyddorion Cenedlaetholdeb, 1926)
Ten years later, with two companions, D.J. Williams and Lewis Valentine,
Lewis deliberately set a fire at Penyberth in the Llyn Peninsular, North
Wales, a site that the military wished to use for construction of a bombing
school. The three then turned themselves in to the authorities and were
duly indicted and summoned to appear in court. The failure of the court to
agree on a verdict at Caernarfon, a town sympathetic to their cause, meant
the removal of their trial to London, where they were each sentenced to
nine months imprisonment. Lewis was dismissed from his teaching post at
Swansea even before the arrival of the guilty verdict at the Old Bailey.
Leading Welsh historians agree that The fire at Penyberth should be
regarded as a cause celebre in the struggle for Welsh identity; it
certainly had its impact on Welsh thinking, an impact that was not wholly
dampened by the onset of Word War ll which again focused the people of
Britain on their shared identity in the face of an enemy that threatened
their survival as a nation. The pacificism of Lewis was an affront to many,
even within Plaid Cymru who saw the need to defeat as overriding any other
concern.
Part IX
The improvements in the road system meant that many areas in Wales were
easy to get to. Their beauty and tranquility became an irresistible magnet
to thousands ready to retire from the squalor and overcrowding of the big
industrial cities of northern and middle England. Welsh communities,
especially along the North Wales coast, found themselves inundated with a
flood of newcomers who were either too old to learn the language or
couldn't be bothered. Many of the younger couples had no idea that Wales
had a language of its own, or when they did find out were adamant that
their children be educated through the medium of English. Far more
significant was the fact that it was far too easy to get by perfectly well
in Wales without knowing a word of its language.
The whole north Wales coast, known as "the Welsh Riviera" became first a
weekend playground for, and then an extension of, Merseyside. The mid-Wales
coast, similarly was transformed by a huge influx of people from the
Midlands. LIverpool accents were more common in Llandudno than Welsh;
Birmingham accents common in Borth, or even Aberystwyth. The author vividly
remembers visiting a pub in Bangor where every customer but one could speak
Welsh, but all of whom used English to defer to a monolingual Englishman
(who had been in the area forty years without learning a single word of
Welsh). The same situation was found throughout much of North Wales.
The result of such massive invasions, often by retirees, certainly by those
with little incentive to learn Welsh was drastic. From almost a million
Welsh speakers in 1931, the number fell to just over 500,000 in less than
fifty years.despite the large increase in population. Strongholds of the
language and its attendant culture were crumbling fast, and it seemed that
nothing could be done to stem the tide. In 1957 occurred an event that
exemplified the situation: the Liverpool Corporation got the go-ahead from
Parliament to drown a valley in Meirionydd (Merionethshire) called
Tryweryn, which housed a strong and vibrant Welsh-speaking community. The
removal of the people of Tryweryn to make way for a source of water for an
English city convinced many in Wales that the nation was on its way to
extinction. The survival of the Welsh language seemed irreversibly doomed,
and no-one seemed to care.
Then something happened; someone seemed to care after all. At Pontarddulais
in 1962, at the summer school of Plaid Cymru, a new movement began. Mainly
involving a younger active post-war Welsh generation, many of them college
students, the Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) decided
to take matters in their own hands to try to halt the decline of the
language by forcing the hand of the government. Saviors to many, scoundrels
and troublemakers to others, frustrated members of the Society had been
galvanized into action by a talk given on the BBC by Saunders Lewis in
February, 1962.
In his talk, entitled Tynged yr Iaith (Fate of the language) Lewis asked
his listeners to make it impossible for local or central government
business to be conducted without the use of the Welsh language. This was
the only way, he felt, to ensure its survival. Plaid Cymru could not help,
as it was a political party, so the banner was taken up by Cymdeithas yr
Iaith Gymraeg. At narrow Trefechan Bridge, Aberystwyth in February, 1963,
members of the society sat down in the road and stopped all traffic trying
to get into town over the bridge, or trying to leave town on the same
route.
Undeterred by prison sentences for disturbing the peace and for their
subsequent destruction of government property (mostly road signs), and led
by such activists as Fred Fransis, and folk-singer Dafydd Iwan, the society
began a serious campaign. In the face of much hostility from passivist
locals and prosecution from the authorities, Cymdeithas pressed for the
right to use Welsh on all government documents, from Post Office forms to
television licenses, from driving licenses to tax forms. In particular, the
society engaged in surreptitious night time activities, removing English-
only sign posts and directional instructions from the highways or daubing
them with green paint. All over Wales, in early morning, motorists were
faced with the green paint and daubed slogan that mysteriously had appeared
overnight. It became frustrating and expensive for local authorities and
the Ministry of Transport to keep replacing road signs.
Eventually, in 1963, faced with an ever-growing campaign, increased police
and court costs, destruction of government property, and the vociferous
demands for action by an increasingly angry and frustrated national
movement, the central government decided to establish a committee to look
at the legal status of Welsh. Its report, issued two years later,
recommended that the language be given "equal validity" with English, a
diluted version of which was placed into the Welsh Language Act of 1967.
There came about a new feeling in the land. The young people of Wales were
answering the call of Saunders Lewis; the older generation began to
reconsider their passiveness. Dafydd Iwan and many of his contemporaries
inaugurated a whole new movement in popular Welsh music, translating
English and American pops into Welsh, or writing stirring new lyrics and
music or protest. The popularity of mournful, funereal hymns sung by male
voice choirs found a competitor, the loud, heavy rhythms and rebellious
music of new bands. Groups such as Ar Log and Plethyn rediscovered ancient
Welsh folk music and brought it up to date. The National Eisteddfod entered
into the spirit, each year erecting a Roc Pavilion, where such groups could
attract the younger audiences. Wales began to finally shake off the shrouds
cast by the Methodist Revival of over a century before.
Since the 1960's, in the author's birthplace Flint and in other towns in
Clwyd, attempts to reintroduce the Welsh language in the schools have been
warmly welcomed by many of the townsfolk, and a whole new generation of
children who can speak, read and write Welsh may help ensure the future of
the language (and ultimately, of Plaid Cymru) in such heavily anglicized
areas. Other areas, such as the Cardiff region and the Valleys have already
experienced some growth in the numbers of those able to speak Welsh.
Factors for this increase include the rise of a Welsh bureaucracy; further
expansion of the Welsh-oriented mass media; the continued activities of
Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, with its appeal to the young generation; and
the effects of the Welsh Language Act of 1967. Perhaps most important is
the subtle change in attitude towards the language brought about by the
advantages that can be gained by its speakers in both social and economic
fields. Of crucial importance in winning the hearts and minds of the non-
Welsh speakers who have young children has been Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin
(the Welsh Nursery School Movement) founded in 1971.
In the anglicized areas of Wales, we may yet again read such sentiments as
that given by Sir Walter Scott, in a letter to his son, dated December,
1820:
You hear the Welsh spoken much about you, and if you can pick it up
without interfering with more important labours, it will be worth while
In the late 1990's, as we shall see, one of the more important labors of
many of the Welsh people has been to continue the fight to preserve their
language, and with it, much of the culture upon which it depends. To
preserve this language, the ancient, magnificent tongue of the British
people for so many, many centuries, will be indeed, a labor of love to make
up for so much past pain.
Supplement 1
Welsh Language Guide
The language of Wales, more properly called Cymraeg in preference to Welsh
(A Germanic word denoting "foreigner"), belongs to a branch of Celtic, an
Indo-European language. The Welsh themselves are descendants of the
Galatians, to whom Paul wrote his famous letter. Their language is a
distant cousin to Irish and Scots Gaelic and a close brother to Breton.
Welsh is still used by about half a million people within Wales and
possibly another few hundred thousand in England and other areas overseas.
In most heavily populated areas of Wales, such as the Southeast (containing
the large urban centers of Cardiff, Newport and Swansea), the normal
language of everyday life is English, but there are other areas, notably in
the Western and Northern regions, (Gwynedd and Dyfed particularly) where
the Welsh language remains strong and highly visible. The Welsh word for
their country is Cymru (Kumree), the land of the Comrades; the people are
known as Cymry (Kumree) and the language as Cymraeg (Kumrige). Regional
differences in spoken Welsh do not make speakers in one area unintelligible
to those in another (as is so often claimed), standard Welsh is understood
by Welsh speakers everywhere.
Despite its formidable appearance to the uninitiated, Welsh is a language
whose spelling is entirely regular and phonetic, so that once you know the
rules, you can learn to read it and pronounce it without too much
difficulty. For young children learning to read, Welsh provides far fewer
difficulties than does English, as the latter's many inconsistencies in
spelling are not found in Welsh, in which all letters are pronounced.
THE WELSH ALPHABET: (28 letters)
A, B ,C ,Ch, D, Dd, E, F, Ff, G, Ng, H, I, L
Ll, M, N, O, P, Ph, R, Rh, S, T, Th, U, W, Y
(Note that Welsh does not possess the letters J, K, Q, V, X or Z, though
you will often come across "borrowings" from English, such as John, Jones,
Jam and Jiwbil (Jubilee); Wrexham (Wrecsam); Zw (Zoo).
THE VOWELS: (A, E, I, U, O, W, Y)
A as in man. Welsh words: am, ac Pronounced the same as in English)
E as in bet or echo. Welsh words: gest (guest); enaid (enide)
I as in pin or queen. Welsh words: ni (nee); mi (me); lili (lily); min
(meen)
U as in pita: Welsh words: ganu (ganee); cu (key); Cymru (Kumree); tu
(tee); un (een)
O as in lot or moe. Welsh words: o'r (0re); don (don); dod (dode); bob
(bobe)
W as in Zoo or bus. Welsh words: cwm (koom), bws (bus); yw (you); galw
(galoo)
Y has two distinct sounds: the final sound in happy or the vowel sound in
myrrh Welsh words: Y (uh); Yr (ur); yn (un); fry (vree); byd (beed)
All the vowels can be lengthened by the addition of a circumflex (д), known
in Welsh as "to bach" (little roof). Welsh words: Tдn (taan), lдn (laan)
THE DIPHTHONGS:
Ae, Ai and Au are pronounced as English "eye": ninnau (nineye); mae (my);
henaid (henide); main (mine); craig (crige)
Eu and Ei are pronounced the same way as the English ay in pray. Welsh
words: deisiau (dayshy), or in some dialects (deeshuh); deil (dale or
dile); teulu (taylee or tyelee)
Ew is more difficult to describe. It can be approximated as eh-oo or
perhaps as in the word mount. The nearest English sound is found in English
midland dialect words such as the Birmingham pronunciation of "you" (yew).
Welsh words: mewn (meh-oon or moun); tew (teh-oo)
I'w and Y'w sound almost identical to the English "Ee-you." or "Yew" or
"You": Welsh words: clyw (clee-oo); byw (bee-you or b'you); menyw (menee-
you or menyou)
Oe is similar to the English Oy or Oi. Welsh words: croeso (croyso); troed
(troid); oen (oin)
Ow is pronounced as in the English tow, or low: Welsh word: Rhown (rhone);
rho (hrow)
Wy as in English wi in win or oo-ee: Welsh words: Wy (oo-ee); wyn (win);
mwyn (mooin)
Ywy is pronounced as in English Howie. Welsh words: bywyd (bowid); tywyll
(towith)
Aw as in the English cow. Welsh words: mawr (mour); prynhawn (prinhown);
lawr (lour)
THE CONSONANTS:
For the most part b, d, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, and t are pronounced the same
as their English equivalents (h is always pronounced, never silent). Those
that differ are as follows:
C always as in cat; never as in since. Welsh words: canu (Kanee); cwm
(come); cael (kile); and of course, Cymru (Kumree)
Ch as in the Scottish loch or the German ach or noch. The sound is never as
in church, but as in loch or Docherty. Welsh words: edrychwn (edrych oon);
uwch (youch ), chwi (Chee)
Dd is pronounced like the English th in the words seethe or them. Welsh
words: bydd (beethe); sydd (seethe); ddofon (thovon); ffyddlon (futh lon)
Th is like the English th in words such as think, forth, thank. Welsh
words: gwaith (gwithe); byth (beeth)
F as in the English V. Welsh words: afon (avon); fi (vee); fydd (veethe);
hyfryd (huvrid); fawr (vowr), fach (vach)
Ff as in the English f. Welsh words: ffynnon (funon); ffyrdd (furth);
ffaith (fithe)
G always as in English goat, gore. Welsh words: ganu (ganee); ganaf
(ganav); angau (angeye); gem (game)
Ng as in English finger or Long Island. Ng usually occurs with an h
following as a mutation of c. Welsh words Yng Nghaerdydd (in Cardiff:
pronounced ung hire deethe) or Yng Nghymru (in Wales: pronounced ung
Humree)
Ll is an aspirated L. That means you form your lips and tongue to pronounce
L, but then you blow air gently around the sides of the tongue instead of
saying anything. Got it? The nearest you can get to this sound in English
is to pronounce it as an l with a th in front of it. Welsh words: llan
(thlan); llawr (thlour); llwyd (thlooid)
Rh sounds as if the h come before the r. There is a slight blowing out of
air before the r is pronounces. Welsh words: rhengau (hrengye); rhag
(hrag); rhy (hree)
The most common expressions that Welsh-Americans come across are Cymanfa
Ganu (Kumanva Ganee); Eisteddfod (Aye-steth-vod); and Noson Lawen (Nosson
Lowen)
While preparing the essay the following publications and resources were
used:
Publications by Professor R. Rees Davies, M.A., D.Phil. All Souls College,
Oxford:
1. The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415, Oxford, 1991
2. The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr (Oxford, 1995)
3. The Matter of Britain and the Matter of England, Oxford, 1996
Internet resources:
1. www.bbc.co.uk/history
2. www.planet-britain.com |
