The Welsh language is the oldest living European language. This volume surveys the social history of the language in modern times. Its political status is considered, together with the use of Welsh in the courts, and in religion, education and scholarship. The promotion of the status of Welsh is also discussed, to counteract the stigma attached to it by the language clause of 1536.
The existence of the Welsh-language can come as a surprise to those who assume that English is the foundation language of Britain. However, J. R. R. Tolkien described Welsh as the 'senior language of the men of Britain'. Visitors from outside Wales may be intrigued by the existence of Welsh and will want to find out how a language which has, for at least fifteen hundred years, been the closest neighbour of English, enjoys such vibrancy, bearing in mind that English has obliterated languages thousands of miles from the coasts of England. This book offers a broad historical survey of Welsh-language culture from sixth-century heroic poetry to television and pop culture in the early twenty-first century. The public status of the language is considered and the role of Welsh is compared with the roles of other of the non-state languages of Europe. This new edition of The Welsh Language offers a full assessment of the implications of the linguistic statistics produced by the 2011 Census. The volume contains maps and plans showing the demographic and geographic spread of Welsh over the ages, charts examining the links between words in Welsh and those in other Indo-European languages, and illustrations of key publications and figures in the history of the language. It concludes with brief guides to the pronunciation, the dialects and the grammar of Welsh.
This is essential reading for anybody who wishes to be fully informed of the British Revolution debate and/or teach the history of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment in Great Britain. All Welsh texts are translated, which makes them accessible to an English-speaking audience for the first time. Four illustrations, among them the first political cartoon in the Welsh language, add valuable visual material and information.
This book considers the use of the Bible by dissenters in Britain from the mid-17th to the mid-20th centuries. It reconsiders the divided history of Protestantism: dissenters were people drawn together by the belief that they were truer to the Bible than any other Christians, yet still divided by differences in how they read it.
The conquest of Wales by the medieval English throne produced a fiercely contested territory, both militarily and culturally. Wales was left fissured by frontiers of language, jurisdiction and loyalty - a reluctant meeting place of literary traditions and political cultures. But the profound consequences of this first colonial adventure on the development of medieval English culture have been disregarded. In setting English figurations of Wales against the contrasted representations of the Welsh language tradition, this volume seeks to reverse this neglect, insisting on the crucial importance of the English experience in Wales for any understanding of the literary cultures of medieval England and medieval Britain.
Despite significant social and economic changes and the material advancement of the gentry, this period saw the survival of the Welsh language and its culture, of older concepts of gentility and many conservative features in the daily life and activity of all ranks in the community.
Ranging from devotional poetry to confessional history, across the span of competing religious traditions, this volume addresses the lived faith of diverse communities during the turmoil of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Together, they provide a textured understanding of the complexities in religious belief, practice and organization.
This volume tells a story of Welsh industrial history different from the one traditionally dominated by the coal and iron communities of Victorian and Edwardian Wales. Extending the chronological scope from the early eighteenth- to the late twentieth-century, and encompassing a wider range of industries, the contributors combine studies of the internal organisation of workplace and production with outward-facing perspectives of Welsh industry in the context of the global economy. The volume offers important new insights into the companies, the employers, the markets and the money behind some of the key sectors of the Welsh economy – from coal to copper, and from steel to manufacturing – and challenges us to reconsider what we think of as constituting ‘industry’ in Wales.
A Companion to the History of the English Language addresses the linguistic, cultural, social, and literary approaches to language study. The first text to offer a complete survey of the field, this volume provides the most up-to-date insights of leading international scholars. An accessible reference to the history of the English language Comprises more than sixty essays written by leading international scholars Aids literature students in incorporating language study into their work Includes an historical survey of the English language, from its Germanic and Indo- European beginnings to modern British and American English Enriched with maps, diagrams, and illustrations from historical publications Introduces the latest scholarship in the field
