What's Welsh for Zen

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Q. Ydych chi'n siarad Cymraeg

A. If so, you have access to one of the oldest living languages in Europe, and certainly the one with the longest continuous history on the island of Great Britain, English deriving from the Germanic languages of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking invaders of the Dark Ages and Gaelic being introduced from Ireland after the 5th century AD.

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Q. What's the history of the Welsh language

A. Like almost all European languages - the exceptions being Basque, Lappish, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian - Welsh, or more correctly Cymraeg or the language of Wales (the word Welsh being derived from a derogatary Germanic term for foreigner), is an Indo-European tongue. These languages are spoken from northern India right through to north-western Europe, and include such seemingly diverse tongues as Hindi, Persian, Greek, Spanish and English.

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Cymraeg is from the Celtic branch of Indo-European languages, and is descended from Brythonic, the language spoken by the majority of the population in what is now England, Wales and southern Scotland at the time of the Roman invasion in the first century AD. It was related to another Celtic language spoken on the Continent. It is close to Cornish (now to all intents and purposes a dead language, though one that there are attempts to revive) and Breton spoken in Brittany in France; it is more distantly related, though still pretty close, to Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic. As the Germanic speaking peoples started to move in after the Romans withdrew from Britain, Bryhtonic moved west and north - and in the case of Breton, back to the Continent - and this is where the language is now spoken.

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Q. So it's not related to English at all

A. Very distantly, separated by several thousand years, but you won't find much in common. The nearest languages to English are Flemish, then Dutch and Afrikaans, followed by German and the Scandinavian languages.

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Q. Where is Welsh spoken

A. In Wales - obviously - mostly in the rural north and west, but there are speakers in former British colonies, particularly South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and North America, and, curiously, a number of people descended from Welsh sheep farmers in Patagonia, Argentina.

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Q. Are numbers of Welshspeakers declining

A. In Wales, the numbers have stayed much the same for the best part of a century, though as a percentage of the population it is dropping. In Wales the number of people who can speak Welsh as either a first or second language is about 500,000, though it's probably true to say that no-ne speaks only Welsh. In some areas around 50 per cent can and do. It is not so long ago that Welsh was actively discouraged and not taught in school.

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However, much has been done to try to revive the fortunes of the language, and Wales is offically bilingual. As a result it is the healthiest of the surviving Celtic languages. It is possible that more people speak Breton, but statistics are hard to come by and official French policy does not encourage its use, so it's fighting a losing battle.

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Q. Are there any Welsh words in English

A. Not many, though plenty survive in place names. Some common words are corgi, flannel (from gwlan, 'wool'), coracle and cwm. The Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases list only five words entering English over the last three centuries compared to a few hundred from Japanese - the other side of the world - and twenty from Australian Aboriginal languages.

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Q. So, what does 'yacky da' mean, then

A. Actually iechyd da, 'good health' to non-Welsh speakers. Incidentally, it is - or was - yeghes da in Cornish, which shows how close they are.

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For more information on and examples of the language of Wales, try these for a start

http://www.travlang.com/languages/cgi-bin/langchoice.cgi

http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk/geraint.jones/about.welsh/

http://www.britannia.com/celtic/wales/language.html

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For more on Phrases & Sayings click here

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By Simon Smith