Welsh language
Welsh (Cymraeg) is the national language of Wales. Today only about 18% of Welsh people speak Welsh, English is now the dominant language in Wales.
Welsh is also spoken by over 100,000 people in England, a few thousand in Y Wladfa (the former Welsh colony in Patagonia, Argentina), and thousands more around the world. In 2010 UNESCO rated Welsh as a vulnerable language, and the least endangered of all Celtic languages.
Since 1951 the number of Welsh speakers in Wales has increased, though this is mostly due to the increasing population, as the percentage of Welsh speakers has usually decreased over time. Today Welsh is mostly spoken in the rural west and north-west of Wales, particularly in Gwynedd and Anglesey.
The Welsh alphabet has 29 letters: a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, j, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y. This means for example that "fy" (starts with f) comes before "ffrwyth" (starts with ff) alphabetically. Welsh has often gained a reputation as lacking vowels but there are actually 7 vowel letters - a, e, i, o, u, w, y. In fact a place name like "Ysbyty Ystwyth" has 6 vowels. (pronounced us-butty us-twith)[1]
Letters that sound different to English:
- a, e, i, o - compare the Spanish pronunciations of these letters
- ch - a guttural sound similar to the 'ch' in the Scottish word "loch"
- dd - like the 'th' in "there"
- f - makes a 'v' sound ('ff' is the letter for the 'f' sound)
- ll - not in English, imagine it like "hl" or "thl"
- r/rh - rolled r like most European languages
- u - similar to 'i', especially in South Wales dialects
- w - 'oo' sound when as a vowel
- y - 'uh' sound, same as u/i when in the final syllable
The vowels can also have accents on top of them, most common is the to bach (literally "little roof") which makes a vowel sound longer. Such as in "man" (place) and "mân" (small), where mân has the longer vowel.
Traditionally Welsh has four different dialects, which each pronounce words slightly differently. They are Gwyndodeg (north-west Wales), Powyseg (north-east / mid Wales), Dyfedeg (west Wales), and Gwenhwyseg (south Wales). Today it is Gwyndodeg and Dyfedeg that are the most common dialects, as those areas are where Welsh is most spoken. Gwenhwyseg in particular has many differences from standard Welsh, with different pronunciation and some different words used.