Isn’t it thought that the connection with Latin completely changed the pre-Roman Brythonig (proto-Brythonic?) language to what then became the common ancestor of Cymraeg, Cumbric, Kernowek and Brezhoneg? I don’t just mean loan words, I mean patterns of speech and grammar constructs.
I’m not a linguist this is just stuff I’ve picked up from other conversations.
That’s quite an assumption, and I don’t think it’s correct. I think the huge increase, if it happens, will have to come through a massive expansion in Welsh medium education. As adult learners it’s tempting to think of expansion in the language base in terms of ‘people like us’, but I don’t think this is where scarce resources are likely to be targeted.
But that will possibly have a similar effect in any case, since we will have a couple of generations of young people who have spoken Welsh at school but not at home. So they may also have a simplified, possibly standardised Welsh through lack of real exposure to the idiomatic Welsh of the heartlands.
Maybe that, or maybe the social and economic turmoil caused by the retreat of the legions and the climate changes and Justinian Plague that followed.
I think it’s more based on the similarities between brythonic and Latin patterns rather than the internal differences between themselves.
that is the critical element in uninterrupted language transfer, I’d say
it would be interesting to compare French and Welsh in this regard: noun inflections, grammatical gender reduced in similar ways, verb form complexity remained in similar ways,
I suspect TV , Radio, Film and the Internet are going to be very influential. When the first ‘talkie’ arrived, my Mam had never heard an American accent! Everyone hated the sound and didn’t realise it was US rather than bad sound! When British films with sound arrived, they heard beautiful rich looking ladies speak with cut glass accents and they heard more and more ‘received pronunciation’ on radio. My snobby Mam trained herself to sound as much like that as possible. Now we all have every accent under the sun and know what comes from where. But the difference between gog and de, east and west will surely slowly even out under the pressure of all these influences?
Another thing that can happen is the reverse - people accentuating their accents in order to identify with a particular region or group. People have a need to feel part of a particular social group, and the way they speak is a huge in-group marker.
Suggestion:
Consider the marketing opportunity of promoting SSiW and 6mws using online platforms such as www.udemy.com/ I’ve not read all posts in this thread, so my apologies if this suggestion has already been made.
Hmm…just tripped over this! An old-ish post but still relevant. My question would be - how will it be counted? When does a person qualify as a ‘Welsh Speaker’? And when I get there - because I’m gonna! - who will know I exist?
I guess that they will use the figures from the census which is collected every ten years. The census doesn’t really give an accurate account of things though as there will be , for example , thousands of children who can speak Welsh through the education system but never speak a word of it outside the school gates included in the figures. It is of course great that they can speak Welsh though because at least they would be equipped to speak Welsh or understand it if they needed to.
I remember an example from about 6 years ago when my daughter was a small child , I took her to the pier in Llandudno and she was playing on that giant slide they have there . She made a friend and after about ten minutes , to my surprise I realised that they were playing in Welsh ! They played for about half an hour. I asked my daughter afterwards how they started playing in Welsh and my daughter said that "the little girl came up to me and asked me in Welsh if I wanted to play with her " . Although back then my daughter didn’t speak Welsh outside school at all because I hadn’t started learning yet , due to being in Welsh medium education she was equipped with the ability at that moment to reply to her new friend and play with her in Welsh. This I think is a brilliant example of why Welsh medium education is so important.
In terms of what point you class yourself as a Welsh speaker , that is a difficult question and I guess everyone would have a different level of fluency at which they would class themselves as one.
About 6 months ago I was asked to tick a yes or no box on a form to state if I was a Welsh speaker or not. After thinking about it for a while I ticked the “no” box but if I was in that situation again now then I think I would definitely tick the "yes " box. I’ve had a number of breakthroughs lately which have made me realise just how much I have progressed all of a sudden and I feel that the ease at which I am understanding and ease at which I can join in most conversations is a lot better than it was 6 months/a year ago. So I guess for me , at some point within the last few months I crossed that line where I would class myself as a Welsh speaker ( although there is still a long way to go to reach “fluency”)
Yes, I guess that you would have to include all children who speak Welsh as a 1st or 2nd language in school (even if nowhere else). As we would with any other language. Also all adult learners would surely qualify on the same grounds? I’m thinking of anyone who could build a few sentences, vocally - say our “5 Minute Speaker” level, or SSiW Level 1.
It seems difficult to get an official definition of “Welsh Speaker”. However, until one pops up, how about this from a Welsh Govt publication on the Million Speaker theme?
" …we will look at everyone as a Welsh speaker who is on a different part of their journey to speaking Welsh fluently". (Welsh Govt Doc - Our plan to have 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050)