Welsh Language
Welsh (Cymraeg or y Gymraeg, pronounced ) is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it has also been known in English as "the British tongue", "Cambrian", "Cambric" and "Cymric".
A 2004 survey by the Welsh Language Board indicated that 21.7% of the population of Wales (611,000 people) were able to speak the language, compared with 20.8% in the 2001 Census. Of those 611,000 Welsh speakers, 57% (315,000) considered themselves fluent, and 78% (477,000) considered themselves fluent or "fair" speakers. 62% of speakers (340,000) claimed to speak the language daily, including 88% of fluent speakers.
A greeting in Welsh is one of 55 languages included on the Voyager Golden Record chosen to be representative of Earth in NASA's Voyager program launched in 1977. The greetings are unique to each language, with the Welsh greeting being Iechyd da i chwi yn awr ac yn oesoedd which translates into English as "Good health to you now and forever".
The Welsh Language Measure 2011 gave the Welsh language official status in Wales, making it the only language that is de jure official in any part of the United Kingdom.
Read more about Welsh Language: History, Distribution of Welsh Speakers, Official Status, Vocabulary, Orthography, Counting System, Dialects, Registers, Welsh in Education, Welsh in Information Technology, Welsh in Warfare, Use of Welsh At The European Union
Famous quotes containing the words welsh and/or language:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word liberty entire nations.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)