The role and importance of the Welsh language in Wales’s cultural independence within the United Kingdom Sylvain Scaglia To cite this version: Sylvain Scaglia. The role and importance of the Welsh language in Wales’s cultural independence within the United Kingdom. Linguistics. 2012. dumas-00719099 HAL Id: dumas-00719099 https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00719099 Submitted on 19 Jul 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIVERSITE DU SUD TOULON-VAR FACULTE DES LETTRES ET SCIENCES HUMAINES MASTER RECHERCHE : CIVILISATIONS CONTEMPORAINES ET COMPAREES ANNÉE 2011-2012, 1ère SESSION The role and importance of the Welsh language in Wales’s cultural independence within the United Kingdom Sylvain SCAGLIA Under the direction of Professor Gilles Leydier Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................. 1 WALES: NOT AN INDEPENDENT STATE, BUT AN INDEPENDENT NATION ......................................................... 6 I – The fight for Welsh freedom: the birth and evolution of Wales ............................................................... 7 From Celtic tribes to Cymru ....................................................................................................................... 7 The emergence of a nation ........................................................................................................................ 8 The Norman invasion and its consequences ............................................................................................. 9 The awakening of nationalism ................................................................................................................. 11 Twentieth century challenges ................................................................................................................. 12 II – A unique Welsh culture .......................................................................................................................... 13 Culture, a definition ................................................................................................................................. 13 Some Welsh national symbols ................................................................................................................. 14 Emergence of a literature ........................................................................................................................ 15 Characteristics of a rich culture ............................................................................................................... 19 III – The survival of an independent culture................................................................................................. 22 The resistance until the annexation ........................................................................................................ 22 Laws in Wales Acts’ consequences .......................................................................................................... 23 From an “anti-Welsh” attitude… ............................................................................................................. 25 …To classic “Welsh pranks”? ................................................................................................................... 27 Literature, education and religion ........................................................................................................... 28 The Welsh Industrial Revolution ............................................................................................................. 30 THE WELSH LANGUAGE ................................................................................................................................... 33 I – Origins of the language .......................................................................................................................... 34 Old Celtic origins ...................................................................................................................................... 34 Primitive and Old Welsh era .................................................................................................................... 35 Middle Welsh period ............................................................................................................................... 36 Early Modern Welsh ................................................................................................................................ 37 Late Modern Welsh ................................................................................................................................. 38 The Welsh language until 1960 ............................................................................................................... 39 1962 onwards: “The fate of the language” ............................................................................................. 41 II – The Welsh language's specificities ......................................................................................................... 43 Welsh syntax ............................................................................................................................................ 44 Welsh morphology .................................................................................................................................. 45 I | P a g e Welsh phonology and pronunciation ...................................................................................................... 46 About Welsh dialects ............................................................................................................................... 47 III – Status of the Welsh language today ..................................................................................................... 48 Welsh’s official status .............................................................................................................................. 49 The National Assembly for Wales ............................................................................................................ 50 The Welsh Language Commissioner ........................................................................................................ 51 Fighting for Welsh on TV ......................................................................................................................... 52 Welsh in the written press ...................................................................................................................... 53 BEING WELSH, SPEAKING WELSH .................................................................................................................... 55 I – The Welsh speakers ................................................................................................................................ 56 Some figures: The evolution of the number of Welsh speakers ............................................................. 56 The role of education .............................................................................................................................. 58 The distribution of Welsh speakers in Wales .......................................................................................... 60 The “Three-Wales model” ....................................................................................................................... 62 Social background of the Welsh speakers ............................................................................................... 62 What future for the Welsh language? ..................................................................................................... 63 II – Welsh outside Wales ............................................................................................................................. 65 An external threat: ‘the treason of the Blue Books’ ................................................................................ 65 A prestigious or old-fashioned language? ............................................................................................... 67 Is there an anti-Welsh attitude? .............................................................................................................. 68 The Welsh language beyond Wales ......................................................................................................... 69 III – Language and political nationalism in Wales ........................................................................................ 71 From a national consciousness… ............................................................................................................. 71 …To a nationalist political struggle .......................................................................................................... 73 The fight of a minority? 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