There is a proverb in Wales, "cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon"-"a nation without language is a nation without soul"-language is the core of national culture.[1]
Author=R Griffiths |Date=1851
Welsh originally had its own language and culture. After it merged with England in the 16th century, it lost political independence. In the middle of the 20th century, Welsh was not used in schools, courts and many other public places.[2] It was an illegal language. In order to protect the Welsh language, Welsh people have struggled with the government for a long time. Welsh people will brush road signs, destroy telephone poles, set fire to British holiday houses, etc. In the end, more than 100 people were punished. Since then, the Welsh government has begun the protection and restoration of the Welsh language, and with the establishment and gradual expansion of the Welsh local government's self-control rights, this work has gradually been strengthened.
In short, today's government has a tolerant and open attitude towards the languages of ethnic minorities. This change in attitude may be the most obvious in Wales. The Welsh language was once banned, but now it is protected by the government. Welsh is not only rich in expression, but also intimidatingly beautiful.
Imagine yourself in the Welsh Gwined car park (this is the most Welsh-speaking area of the 8 Welsh counties) and try to roll your tongue and say: A ydycg wedi talu a dodi eich tocyn yn y golwg?[3] means : Did you remember to pay the parking fee and show the receipt? The above words look hard to read? Then you guessed it, it's really hard to read. From an English point of view, the pronunciation and spelling of Welsh are basically unrelated. For example, the town of Dolgellau is pronounced doll-geth-lee. It’s not difficult.[3] Take a look at the following place names: Llwchmynydd, Bwlchtocyn, Dwygyfylchi, Cwmystwyth, Pontrhydfendigaid and Cnwch Coch. Do you feel like crying?Let’s take a look at what the Welsh government has done to protect and promote the Welsh language!
The Welsh Language Act 1993
The "Welsh Language Act" promulgated in 1993 and the Welsh government law promulgated in 1998 provide that Wales has the same legal effect as English. [4]The law also stipulates that public agencies should plan and implement a Welsh language plan. The bill accomplishes three things
1. The Welsh Committee was established. Its accusation is to promote the benign use of the Welsh language and make corresponding judgments to protect the correct direction of the development of the language.
2. People who can speak Welsh are allowed to use Welsh in the course of court proceedings, realizing the same effect as Welsh and English.
3. Require the public sector to lead by example and give priority to Welsh and English on an equal basis when serving the public.
ROAD SIGNS: Some councils have expressed concerns over proposals for Welsh to appear first on bilingual road signs.
Vigorously develop education related to language revival
In 2010, the Welsh region promulgated the "Educational Strategies for Welsh as a Media Language" and began to strengthen mother tongue education in the education system of schools at all levels in the country...covering all stages from pre-school education to higher education.In Welsh public schools, all students between the ages of 5 and 16 must learn Welsh as their first or second language. In 1939, the first school with Welsh as the language of instruction was established in Aberystwyth. Currently, there are approximately 448 primary schools and 53 secondary schools in Wales teaching in Welsh. In Welsh universities, some courses are taught in Welsh. [5]There are also many Welsh language courses designed for adults throughout Wales.
Language revival policy goes deep into daily and economic life
In Wales, there is not only the national television station S4C that broadcasts in Welsh, but there are also many radio stations that broadcast most of the programs in Welsh, including BBC’s BBC Radio Cymru. A certain number of Welsh newspapers and magazines are also published every year. There are also many Welsh language theater companies that regularly hold eisteddfodau throughout Wales.
According to The Economist magazine, Welsh is now the most subsidized language in the world. The magazine wrote in a report on the establishment of the Welsh S4C television station: “Don’t mind that the government spends £43 million a year to broadcast TV programs that only 20% of Welsh residents can understand. These populations only account for the total population of the UK. 1%."[6]
Welsh towns have some of the most unique names in the world, such as Betws-y-Coed, Penrhyndeudraeth and Pen-bont-rhyd-y-beddau; among them, there is also the longest place name in the world Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, but for convenience, usually Abbreviated as Llanfair pg.
Custom computer letters
As one of the oldest languages in Europe, Welsh has 28 letters, and not all letters have exclusive computer fonts. For this reason, the Welsh government commissioned Smörgåsbord, a local design and brand agency in Wales, to develop those exclusive computer fonts, and finally gave the government a set of perfect works, the Cymru Wales Sans font, which was the first time for the “missing” letters to be analyzed. "Image Design".
image courtesy Smörgåsbord
Why is Welsh, one of the oldest languages in Europe, where some of the 28 letters do not have an exclusive computer language, and the Welsh government still needs to work hard for this. In fact, some of the letters that are vacant in Welsh computer fonts are mainly some two-in-one letters in Welsh, which means that a combination of two letters exists as a letter, such as dd, ff, ch, etc. Although more than one Welsh language contains two-in-one letters, this phenomenon is also common in other Western European countries, but the phenomenon that two letters are combined to produce one syllable in other countries is not just because of this phenomenon. Think of the two-in-one letter as a word, or treat it as two letters. For example, the English word "champion", where "ch" is a two-in-one letter, and "/ʧ/" is pronounced at the same time, but we will not say that "champion" is made up of 7 because "ch" is pronounced as a syllable. Made up of letters.
But in Welsh, the situation is different. When a two-in-one letter appears in a word, that letter will only be counted as a letter. Therefore, it is not that there are no computer fonts dedicated to words, but they are indistinguishable when they are typed on the keyboard. There is no visual feature, and there is no way to distinguish their particularity from English letters.
Although Welsh is a relatively niche language, and there are not many people who care about whether Welsh has exclusive computer fonts, and the usage rate of people outside of Welsh is also very limited. Therefore, the approach of the Welsh government has a positive development for Welsh's identity and future development.
image courtesy Smörgåsbord
Cymru Wales Sans font
After repackaging, the appearance of the digraphs has indeed changed a lot. For example, "dd", the two "d" are deformed and "sequentially written" together. The "c" and "h" of "ch" have also undergone "continuous writing" processing. The design of "ll" is more special, two "L"s are stacked up and down. Smörgåsbord draws on the style of traditional Welsh printing fonts, and has made some innovations, mainly for some consonants (such as d, h, k, m, n, u) and 5 digraphs (ch, dd, ff, ll). , Th) has been specially designed.
We can see that the Welsh language revival initiative is led by the government, multi-party collaboration, and interlocking. Government legislation guarantees the implementation of language revival, and organizes and develops relevant language education as the basis for revival. It uses language to
image courtesy Smörgåsbord
return to life practice in an all-round way, supplemented by appropriate foreign exchanges. This is the path to success in Wales, and it is also an experience that other languages that are gradually disappearing can learn from.
Reference
[1]Cenedl heb iaith, cenedl heb galon. (2013, February 2). Institute of Welsh Affairs. https://www.iwa.wales/agenda/2013/02/cenedl-heb-iaith-cenedl-heb-galon/
[2]Contributors to Wikimedia projects. (2021, December 6). Welsh independence. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_independence
[3]silo.pub. (n.d.). The Mother Tongue. SILO.PUB. Retrieved December 20, 2021, from https://silo.pub/the-mother-tongue.html
[4]IN SEARCH OF THE “REAL” WALES, COUNTRY OF CONSONANTS. (n.d.). The Washington Post. Retrieved December 20, 2021, from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/travel/1988/08/07/in-search-of-the-real-wales-country-of-consonants/83a2cec5-e4a9-4596-82b7-f5014db78d44/
[5]WalesOnline. (2009, September 24). First Welsh-medium primary school celebrates 70th anniversary. WalesOnline. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/first-welsh-medium-primary-school-celebrates-2084865
[6]Contributors to Wikimedia projects. (2021b, December 19). S4C. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S4C
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