Talk:History of the Welsh language

General points
This article is rated 'High Importance' for WikiProject Wales. I agree with that rating. Apart from anything else, it is simply impossible to understand the history of Wales without realising that up to 1850 at least most of the country was monoglot Welsh.

There seem to me to be two main strands to the present article - (a) the history of the linguistic development of the language; (b) the history of the use and currency of the language. I'm afraid both need a lot of work.

As far as (a) is concerned - some topics which seem to me to need mentioning include - the main dialect differences; and the (?) increasing divergence between the literary and the commonly spoken language. The early history is very sketchy. Fortunately, I do not think it is necessary to reinvent the wheel here - there are already excellent Wikipedia articles on, eg, Gododdin and Y Gododdin - I should have thought a skillful use of cross-referencing would solve a lot of problems.

(b) is of course a possible political or cultural hot potato. There are very different 'folk memories' at work here. I think it is essential (a) that the article does not endorse easy slogans which are not accurate (e.g. "the Welsh Not was used in all Welsh schools" (no it was not); or "Welsh was confined to the rural areas" (no it was not)). Something has to be said of the Welsh in the large English cities - Manchester, Merseyside, Bristol, and esp London. And abroad - in the USA, in Patagonia ... And the article must be written with the sort of accurate feeling for historical balance that the late John Davies (historian) shows throughout his History of Wales.

I am not an expert on these topics, though I know enough to notice some overbroad and erroneous statements. What the article really needs is a very good supervising editor !! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwedi elwch (talk • contribs) 23:40, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Suggestions

 * Early Welsh or Old Welsh. "Very little of this language remains" is an understatement. Mention inscriptions? What other sources?
 * "Both Canu Aneirin and Canu Taliesin were in this era." Just "were" renders the statement uncrackable: some dab
 * "Late Modern Welsh" is simply Modern Welsh, opposed to Early Modern Welsh.
 * The date of the first printed dictionary needs to be included.--Wetman (talk) 21:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Aren't we missing out the bit where Welsh was forcibly removed from the schooling system by the English? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.78.231.234 (talk) 01:37, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Cymdeithas-logo.svg
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"Bombing School" (1)
What on Earth is a bombing school? Wikipedia, dictionary.com, and Google all fail me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.46.62.59 (talk) 17:25, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I assume it's a school where people learn how to make and set bombs. The article Penyberth says that Saunders Lewis protested "that the UK government 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". —Angr 18:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
 * A training centre where peopele are trained to drop bombs from airplanes, or how to set them. Ysgol Fomio (Bombing School) is what the site in Penyberth has always been refered to in Welsh.--Rhyswynne (talk) 10:24, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Addition of Welsh Language Measure (2011) to time line
Can someone add the Welsh Language Measure (Wales) 2011 to the time line on the right? --  Xxglennxx  (talk • cont.) 01:32, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

"Bombing School" (2)
Can someone please edit the article to make clear what is being discussed when it talks about a "bombing school." I wasn't sure if this was perhaps a British English word for a boarding school - though this would strike me as quite odd - or if this was simply a case of vandalism in the article... -Helvetica (talk) 04:34, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Did you see the discussion two threads up? Angr (talk) 09:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I saw the same 'anomaly' today and dug deeper. It was a British military (airforce) training camp, to be set up on 'Welsh' soil. Objectors used the (poetic?) phrase 'Building a Bombing school' in order to express their strong antipathy to the project and muster support for their protests. I have amended the article accordingly.

Even so, I cannot see that this particular section, i.e. Tân yn Llŷn 1936 has any notable significance in an article about the history and development of the Welsh Language. Unless more relevance can be established, I propose that this section be removed. --Observer6 (talk) 16:19, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Welsh and Latin
On another Wiki page one reads "Evidence from Welsh shows a great influence from Latin on Common Brittonic during the Roman period, and especially so in terms related to the Church and Christianity, which are nearly all Latin derivatives". Given that for three hundred years Britain was under Roman rule one might expect Latin to be heavily represented in the Old British AKA 'Welsh' language. Anyone know if this is so? Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.99.142 (talk) 08:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is. Welsh has an enormous number of Latin loanwords. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

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Restructuring 19th, 20th and 21st century History
I propose that rather than having for example, the results of the 1921 Census and the founding of Plaid Cymru in 1925 in the same subsection, we should instead have two subsections covering the language in the 19th and 20th centuries: One on the Demographics of the Language during said period, and the other on literature, politics, institutions and education etc. So for example, its decline in industrial South Wales in the latter 19th century would go in subsection one, while the Blue Books would go in subsection two. A third sub-section could be written on Argentina. With a personal copy of Janet Davies's book about it and access to my university library, I could do it once my essay deadlines are over on the 22nd of April, or when my exams are over in June. --Abreshonas (talk) 21:41, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Redirect
Currently Modern Welsh redirects here, but oughtn't it redirect to Welsh language? I feel like that's the more logical one. -Coreydragon (talk) 00:20, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress
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