Lost to Time:

Looking through a foggy window at a picturesque landscape, the mist giving it an air of mystique and ethereality. Pastures and rolling hills cover miles of land in every direction, with small winding roads and streams like spider webs covering the countryside--but this is not a reality anymore. Wiping away the fog on the window, you notice the smog coming from English cities and coal mines, choking the life out of Wales. The beautiful country you saw was a dream from the past, only an illusion after the English tried to smother Welsh culture with their modernity.

A small country bordering England as a part of the United Kingdom, Wales has a unique national identity that is being slowly erased by the English. After the English invasion into Great Britain, the language and history of Wales that was preserved for centuries in songs and poetry unique to the country disappeared. The English were biased against the Welsh, seeing them as uncultured and unintelligent, though potentially educable in the ways of civility (Chedgzoy).

Learning the Welsh language was forcibly stifled, with students punished in school for speaking Welsh by being forced to wear a wooden necklace called a “Welsh not”. Such checks seem ridiculous and hateful to us now, but it is important to realize this was occurring until the late nineteenth century. Efforts to help preserve the Welsh are only just starting; there were only a few resources prior the 1990s to help people learn Welsh. The lack of knowledge about the Welsh language has not helped with their loss of culture--before English invasion there was no written Welsh, thus stories, legends, and cultural knowledge were passed down solely within the language. According to Brynley, “The earliest Welsh literary tradition was, of necessity, an oral one. Written Welsh, in its extant forms, appears first in marginalia, explanatory notes, and glosses in the eighth century A.D. in an orthography which is obviously derived from Latin”. The Welsh government is attempting to pass laws requiring the teaching of Welsh in early schools as well as provide more online resources that help people learn Welsh by themselves.

The Welsh language often seems confusing or impossible to outsiders, causing Welsh culture to appear obsolete and equally confusing by association. This is far from true; there are several stories and themes that originated there and are still present in modern, even American culture. The stories of Druids all originated in Wales, the stories of their magic and fantastic powers derived from their very real existence as a part of an upper class group of people dedicated to preserving history and religious stories for the entire country. King Arthur also is believed to have originated here, with the many medieval authors and modern adaptations of him as a well-known children’s fairy tale all having their roots in one of the first recorded pieces of Welsh literature. Love spoons, a piece of wood hand-carved with elaborate designs and given as presents to fiancees, are also a common tradition kept from the Middle Ages and still practiced in Wales.

Along with Welsh stories, the Welsh language is an often ignored part of their history. Though popular belief seems to hold that the Welsh language is dead or dying, it is actually rising in popularity and constantly evolving with the times. The small population of Welsh speakers left after the English attempted to wipe it out is growing, and efforts are being made by the British government to raise awareness about it. Duolingo, a popular app to learn and study foreign languages, reports over one million people currently learning Welsh. This is over twice as many people as those who reported being fluent in Welsh in the 2011 census, showing the immense interest in Welsh when it is accessible and open for anyone to learn. The amount of Welsh speakers has also been increasing, though they have a major disadvantage in that most digital platforms and resources do not offer Welsh as a supported language. According to Plaid Cymru, “A lack of strategic investment will mean that the Welsh language is at risk of being left behind in the digital era”. They also “called for an ‘overlying strategy’ to tackle the Welsh “digital language divide””.

Despite the beautiful intricacies of Welsh culture, it is still struggling for acceptance and popularity in our rapidly evolving world. The language appears difficult to learn and not at all useful on the surface, lessening the appeal to most. Many pieces of Welsh literature have not been translated well into English, and the pieces that have are often priced too high to be accessible to many who are only casually interested.

Other parts of Welsh culture that could potentially bring attention to the beauty of the small country are not promoted well in foreign countries, often due to the lack of digital support for the Welsh language. With the British government finally beginning to fund efforts to promote the Welsh language, it is not unrealistic to hope for more widespread recognition of Welsh culture and language within the next several years.

One day, I hope we will have integrated the Welsh language into our modern world enough that it is instantly recognizable to at least the western world, just as we have done with French, Spanish, or German. Digitizing Welsh, promoting the language as a useful tool, and celebrating its beauty may one day bring it into the common discourse just as we have done with many other countries. Knowledge of Welsh culture will surely follow, perhaps even true independence for Wales. A beautiful country like this one deserves to be seen and heard from every corner of the world.

Chedgzoy, Kate. The Civility of Early Modern Welsh Women. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Wales is often thought of as not a nation but only a major city-like area of England. This often leads to an interpretation that the English look down on the Welsh or think of them as a sort of lower class. Though the Welsh are undoubtedly more connected, in most parts, to the countryside as opposed to their English counterparts, it is impossible to equate that with their civility. In The Civility of Early Modern Welsh Women, Chedgzoy refutes the statement that the early English settlers viewed the Welsh as uncultured and inferior and instead introduces the rarely examined mixed emotions the English felt for Wales. Though not necessarily in favour of separation, many English looked at Wales as simply another eccentric part of Britain without animosity.

Johnson, Ben. “Traditions and Folklore of Wales.” Historic UK, Historic UK Ltd.

Company, www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofWales/Traditions-folklore-of-

Wales/.

Johnson details many of the medieval Welsh traditions that have survived, at least symbolically, into the present day. He also explains several Welsh legends and superstitions. “Traditions and Folklore of Wales” includes a brief section on the discouragement of the use of the Welsh language in school, for which students were punished due to its not being conformist with the English rule at the time. He mentions The Mabinogion, a book which contains a written record of some of the earliest and most influential Welsh stories, mythology, and legends.

Roberts, Brynley F. Oral Tradition and Welsh Literature: A Description and Survey.

Roberts explains the lack of written Welsh literature before English invasion, instead explaining many aspects of the ways in which stories were passed on throughout generations. Through teachers, family, and bards, many Welsh stories were passed on almost unchanged throughout centuries orally. After the English decided to attempt to eradicate the Welsh language, however, some of these stories were lost. Many that still survive today are here because of the Welsh adopting the Latin alphabet in an attempt to preserve their culture in a dwindling Welsh-speaking society. The English prevention of Welsh in schools and law harmed many aspects of Welsh culture, and is still evident today despite the recent attempts to begin to revive the language.

“The Welsh Language ‘at a Disadvantage’ Online Compared to Other Languages.” Plaid

Cymru - The Party of Wales, Plaid Cymru, 6 Aug. 2018,  

Plaid Cymru, or the Party of Wales, details the difficulty of maintaining and growing a Welsh-speaking population in a fast-paced digital world. The lack of Welsh people, even more so in technological fields, is causing the language to fade into the background and become less useful. With limited online resources offering Welsh, it is nearly impossible to use it as a first language online. Major phone and computer brands, also, generally do not have any built-in Welsh software or options. Plaid Cymru hopes to change this within several years, putting policies into schools that educate young students in the Welsh language and funding efforts to promote the learning of Welsh.