On
this date in 1400, Owain Glyndwr was proclaimed Prince of Wales. He'd
led the Welsh rebellion against Henry IV and English rule—and an
independent Wales thanked him with the throne. Just nine years later
Henry IV and the English reconquered Wales, though.
You
probably know that Wales is still joined with England, Scotland and
Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom (and Wales, England, and
Scotland make up Great Britain). You may not realize that the
heir-apparent of the U.K. (usually the first-born son of the ruling
king or queen), although not Welsh-born, is dubbed “Prince of
Wales.” The current Prince of Wales is Queen Elizabeth's son Prince
Charles.
In
the year 2000 (the 600th anniversary of Glyndwr's rule),
there were festivals and events in honor of the long-ago Glyndwr
throughout Wales. A special sculpture was unveiled in Machynlleth,
and there was a candlelight procession and a medieval banquet. People
flew the Welsh flag from their homes, two groups of Welsh-language
poets met after taking tours of north and south Wales and had a
poetry reading. The site of Glyndwr's home at Glyndyfrydwy was opened
to the public.
Love
those Welsh names!
Welsh
is a minority language, even within Wales. Still, more than 600,000
people speak Welsh, and hundreds of thousands converse in the
language daily. (None of them speak only Welsh, however. English is
the dominant language.) The Welsh Language Board has been working to
preserve the language, and since the Welsh Language Act of 1993,
Welsh has accompanied English on signs and in the public sector.
Welsh
has 28 letters. Some letters are “digraphs,” which means two
letters written together and treated as a single letter (with a sound
different from the letters that make it up). Both “w” and “y”
are vowels. Here are the letters:
a,
b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh,
s, t, th, u, w, and y
Even
though there are many letters from the English language that are not
part of the Welsh language, they are sometimes used in words borrowed
from English or in technical terms. Here are some examples:
- j jam
- k kilogram (also
spelled “cilogram”)
- v volt (also
spelled “folt”)
- x xeroser (also
spelled “seroser”)
- z zero (also
spelled “sero”)
Because
“W” can be a vowel in Welsh, there are some words that look
unpronounceable to me. For example, the word for a gap between two
hills (in other words, a pass) is “bwlch,” and valley is “cwm.”
Even the words that include “Y” as a vowel look pretty strange to
me: for example, “dyffryn” is another word for valley, and
“eglwys” means church.
Enjoy
Welsh tales!
There
are five great books, written by Lloyd Alexander, that are very
loosely based on Welsh mythology. The names and places in the books
definitely have a Welsh flavor. For example, the characters often go
from one fortified castle to another – and each has a place name
involving the word “Caer,” which is the Welsh word for “fort.”
Here are names of the Chronicles of Prydain:
- The
Book of Three
- The
Black Cauldron
- The
Castle of Llyr
- Taran
Wanderer
- The
High King (a Newberry Award winner)
If you ever go to southern Argentina, you may happen on a very clear, twisty river called Chubut River. That name comes from a Tehuelche word that means "transparent."
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