Talk:Welsh language/Archive 2

message: We seem to have a lot of information from the 2001 census, compared with the other censuses. Do we need everything from "The 2001 census also recorded that 20% could read Welsh, 18% could write Welsh, and an impressive 24% could understand Welsh. Furthermore..." onwards? (Particularly the "impressive".) I'm not really sure what it adds except that more people understand it than speak it and that not all of those who speak it can write it. We don't have anything to compare those with. --Telsa 13:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the earlier censuses did not ask so many questions as later ones, so there is more information to be had from the latest one and comparisons are not possible.  Also, what is meant by "Welsh speaking" is imprecise (an imprecision which earlier censuses cannot resolve, because they ask no other questions):  does it mean knowing a few words, does it mean fluency, does it mean used every day?  The additional statistics show that one in four people in Wales can still understand the language, which was surprising and interesting to me, at least.  I find it hard to think of information more relevant to the article than this, nor more scientifically based.Chelseaboy 13:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd say, simplify, simplify. The numbers are all close; why not just say "according to the 2001 census, approximately 20% of the population know Welsh" (keeping the definition of "know" deliberately vague), and provide a link to the census figures to allow the interested reader to find all the gory details there? Angr/talk 11:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should prefer precision to imprecision, particularly when it is based on such a good source.  It is a pity to lose relevant and well sourced information.  And linking to a source is not as good as improving the Wiki, especially, since source weblinks don't last for ever. Chelseaboy 17:04, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Census

message: There's quite a list of suggestions on the peer review page now. I have gone ahead and implemented some of the more minor ones: a couple of links, organising the external links, and adding some references for the dialect stuff. I don't know whether they're the best references, but they are at least references. Also, I was trying to be concise, but I don't think what I put was very clear. Please do improve it if you can! 
There's lots of different styles of references in use on Wikipedia. If anyone has strong preferences, now is a good time to voice them, whilst there aren't too many to do. (I am a fan of Harvard refs myself, but I know how to do Wikipedia footnotes, so that's what I did for now.)
I have left the more substantial suggestions for now, largely in the hope that someone more knowledgeable will do them. :)
--Telsa 13:13, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review

message: The British language began its disintegration and transformation to successor languages during the Roman occupation, a process which continued in the centuries following the Roman occupation. Early Welsh is guessed (only roughly due to lack of documentary evidence) to have separated from its predecessor, the British language, in the 6th or 7th century. At the same time as British was developing into what scholars term Early Welsh and Early Cornish the British/successor language was being gradually replaced in some areas by Old English and Goidelic through the influence of invaders (or population replacement by invaders or a mixture of the two). Early Welsh was not confined to the territory of Wales and the Welsh marches (history is never neat and tidy) but was spoken in those parts of North Western England and the Scottish borderlands and lowlands held by British chiefs. It survived for many centuries in the territories that became England and Scotland – in some places till the 11th century (see Cumbric). Ref: A History of Wales, John Davies, 1993;  Datblygiad yr Iaith Gymraeg, Henry Lewis, 1931 (in Welsh). A Bibliography of the Welsh language also includes the following references which are probably relevant (but I haven't had the chance to refer to them):
Williams, Ifor: When did British become Welsh? – The beginnings of Welsh poetry…; ed. Rachel Bromwich. Cardiff: Unversity of Wales Press, 1972, 1-15
Foster, Idris Ll: The emergence of Wales – Prehistoric and early Wales; ed. I. Ll. Foster and Glyn Daniel. London: Routledge and Degan Paul, 1965, 213 – 35
Jackson, Kenneth: The British language during the period of the English settlements. – Studies in early British history; ed. Nora K Chadwick. Cambridge: University Press, 1954
Jackson, Kenneth: Language and history in early Britain: a chronological survey of the Brittonic languages, 1st to 12th c. A.D. Edinburgh: University Press, 1953, 288-92
Separate article?
For the reasons given above I do not think that this article should be amalgamated with Welsh or Old Welsh. I think this parent language should stay as an independent article, although it does cover a lot of the same ground as the article on the Brythonic languages in general. Lloffiwr 13:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Transformation of British to Early Welsh/Early Cornish

message: The list of contemporary speakers is getting out of hand. I recommend we delete this section (no other language page I've seen on WP has anything like it) before there are 610,000 names on the list. Angr/talk 06:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Many of these people's articles don't mention that they speak Welsh, incidentally: is it generally something notable enough to include? I have never been sure whether to include it or not. --Telsa ((t)(c)) 08:37, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I'd say that's more of an argument to include the information in the article on the person in question, provided, of course, that it's verifiable. Angr/talk 09:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Deletion supported. Being bilingual is not usually of itself notable. As for noting this in the relevant article for particular people then again we are talking of a personal biographical detail which, although of great importance to the individual concerned (subconsciously if not consciously), is not of itself necessarily a noteworthy part of that person's public achievements. However, for persons whose achievements are accomplished wholly or partly through the medium of Welsh it is obviously a relevant biographical point, e.g. actors who perform in both Welsh and English, authors who write in both languages. Lloffiwr 13:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree to deletion. While I can see some point to it (one does sometimes meet people from the other side of the border who seem to think all Welsh speakers live in caves on the slopes of Snowdon) the article is already large and this list could grow and grow. It hasn't even got me on it yet ;) Rhion 08:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've gone ahead and deleted it. It's totally unnecessary and in almost all cases unverified information. Angr/talk 08:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of contemporary speakers 

message: | 8. Unknown origin:
*Welsh: Iseldireg
*Cornish: Iseldiryek
A section on the Dutch language cuurrently lists the origin of the Welsh word for Dutch as unknown.
Could speakers and/or native speakers clarify the origin? Thanks.
Sander 17:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a straight translation of Netherlands/Nederland. Isel means "low", tir means "country", -eg is a suffix used to form language names. The switch from tir to dir is due to soft mutation. Angr (talk • contribs) 18:02, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question to Welsh speakers! 

message: I have removed this sentence to here for comments. "A downside of the mandatory teaching of Welsh is that it displaces the learning of other second languages, and a significantly lower proportion of Welsh children study French, German, Spanish etc. to GSCE (age 16) than in England." This is an argument made by people on one side of a particular debate; and there are plenty of arguments that could be made in return. But should that happen in this article? Would it not be more appropriate over in Education in Wales or one of its sub-articles? (If it's to stay in any article, it probably wants a source: it is a point of view and we should say who holds it.) Thoughts? Should we keep it? Telsa (talk) 07:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there's a source for the statistic, that can be included at Education in Wales (not here), and it can speak for itself without commentary. Without a source for the statistic, it smacks of being written by a disgruntled schoolchild who resents having to take Welsh. Angr (talk • contribs) 08:22, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ditto the comments above.   Hogyn Lleol 11:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Downside of teaching Welsh?

message: I get that it needs citations... But next time, put that on the entire article. Not the entire article LINE BY LINE. 17  tags rather dramatically degraded the readability of the article.
Nentuaby 19:27, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cite tags

message: I know that lots of historians agree that Welsh was not a written language and as such does not have its own alphbetic letters just the Roman ones. But I was wondering if this is just because it has not been found yet or it does not exist. I know that it was against the Druidic religion to write anything reliogious down but what about other domestic non-religious things. The Ogham alphabet existed in Scotland at the time so is it impossible that there was in fact a written Welsh language before the Roman invasion. History is written by the victors.--Rhydd Meddwl 15:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How would we today know the difference between "it hasn't been found yet" and "it doesn't exist"? When scholars say Welsh wasn't written down until the 9th century, and then in Roman letters, it's because that's all that's been found. Of course it's conceivable that some form of Proto-Brittonic was written down in Ogham or some other writing system earlier, but until evidence of that is found, we stick to known facts. Angr (talk) 17:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Welsh language Written Yes/No

message: When I was looking at the phonology section of the article, I noticed that the symbol for the open back (unrounded) vowel was in the vowel table, but it was in the location for the open central vowel. As I'm not familiar with Welsh, should the vowel be changed to represent a open central vowel or the vowel moved to the spot for the open back vowel? As far as I know, open central vowels are not known to contrast in any language with open front vowels, which according to the table, the open front vowel occurs in Welsh, so the latter is probably most likely. --Redtitan 00:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's clearly wrong -- like so much of the phonetics on Wikipedia :-( -- and the ɑː belongs in the back column. The problem is that it's can of worms -- when you start to look at it closely the whole thing tends to unravel.  For example what's this alleged [o:] vowel? and what's the basis for the claimed ɑ/a difference in "Spelling the diphthongs"? In fact orthographic <ae ~ au> (allegedly /ɑːɨ ~ aɨ/) are pronounced the same. Flapdragon 01:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The [o:] vowel is the Welsh long o, the one that's often spelled ô. The chart indicates that <ae ~ au> are the same in South Wales dialects, but distinct in North Wales dialects. I can find a source for this later today. User:Angr 07:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly don't know of any Welsh accent that pronounces ô as [o:] and would be equally surprised to see a reliable source for the other idea! Flapdragon 13:06, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How do you pronounce ô? User:Angr 13:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

text: It's pretty much long cardinal 6 (symbol doesn't seem to work in my browser but it's a turned c), perhaps a fraction lower in the North. Pronouncing it [o:] introduces a strange Scottish flavour. Flapdragon 14:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it the same height as short o? User:Angr 14:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I think the short answer would be more or less. Speaking off the top of my head here, I'd say that in the South it's much the same but in the North there will be more difference of quality between the long and short o, with the short one being a little more open. There may be issues of lip-rounding too. Sorry no time to read up and think about this properly, hope this is better than nothing! Flapdragon 17:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at Welsh Phonology (1984), ed. Martin J. Ball and Glyn E. Jones, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, , especially the first three chapters: "Phonetics for phonology" by Martin J. Bell, "The distinctive vowels and consonants of Welsh" by Glyn E. Jones, and "Phonotactic constraints in Welsh" by Gwenllian M. Awbery. These chapters confirm that long ô is higher than short o in both North Wales and South Wales. That being the case, it makes sense to transcribe them either as  and  respectively or as  and  respectively. Since the first option is the one chosen by all three authors, it's probably best if we stick to it here. The second and third chapters also confirm that  and  are distinct in North Wales dialects (the first chapter doesn't address diphthongs at all). As for the quality of , the second chapter is the only one to address it all; the author says that  is a low front vowel (!) very similar in quality to /a/, but slightly less fronted, in South Wales dialects, while for many speakers of North Welsh it's almost of the same quality as /a/. So there's no confirmation for  being a back vowel at all. User:Angr 18:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks, will take a look as soon as I get a moment. Flapdragon 08:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  open back vowel 

message: I guess it wasn't the latin(?) script used in english?
:As far as anyone knows, it was the Latin alphabet. User:Angr 14:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  what was the original script for welsh? 

message: Why are the voiceless nasals,  etc in parenthesis in the table of consonants. The article says they only occur as a result of nasal mutation but surely this means that they occur regularly, if not very often. Also, am I correct in understanding that nasal mutation takes [b] to [m] and [p] to [m̥] etc. but the nasal mutation section in the morphology article says that the voiceless plosives become aspirated nasal. Is that different from the voiceless nasals, in Icelandic, say? Stefán Ingi 13:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose they're in parentheses because the fact that they only occur as a result of nasal mutation puts their status as phonemes in doubt. I don't think there's a significant difference between "voiceless" and "aspirated" nasals in any language (Welsh, Icelandic, Burmese) that has them. Phonetically, they're voiceless, and any aspiration is usually preaspiration rather than postaspiration as with aspirated oral stops. Phonologically, they tend pattern with aspirated stops are usually analyzed as being [+aspirated] (or [+spread glottis] or whatever feature for aspiration you like) rather than [−voice]. User:Angr 14:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if there was no difference between the two in terms of Welsh phonology, there is a significant acoustic difference between aspirated and voiceless and the article should make it clear which sound(s) are meant. Additionally, some of these sounds appear to be using the IPA diacritic for dental. 149.159.113.205 00:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unvoiced nasals 

message: Welsh has a substantial presence on the Internet, but this is strongly biased towards public bodies:  
 the ratio of search engine hit frequencies for Welsh words to their English equivalents tends to 
 be about 0.1% for formal terms such as  (education), 
  (society) or  
 (government), but only about 0.01% for everyday terms such as 
  (cow),  (sleet) or 
  (knife).
This worries me slightly.  First, it looks like original research; second, and more importantly, the choice of apparently 'everyday terms' is just peculiar.  I can't remember the last time I used the words cow, sleet, or knife in any language on the internet.  On the other hand, the main point seems reasonable.  Does anyone know where this comes from and if any other words were checked? garik 13:13, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been in the article for months and months and has bothered me too. I have just tried to reproduce the results. It has taken a lot longer than I expected, because of course you have to search on all the mutated forms too (this makes an amazing difference to cyllell and especially cymdeithas), and remember to exclude results on Wikipedia, and so on. I am starting to lose count of zeros so I am giving up now. But I can't reproduce the same figures. I am not sure how good these pairs of words are anyway. "Cow" in English is a noun, a verb, and a term of abuse. Buwch.. isn't. "Sleet" is one of the terms in the METAR tables, and these weather reports are propagated, duplicated and syndicated (in English) all across the web, including news and tourist sites (they got in my way once, so I remember this :)) so there is some extra representation there. I can't find out where it came from originally. Telsa (talk) 22:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

text: So I never did find where these comparisons came from. As User:Garik says, it's looking very like original research at the moment. Has anyone any objection to removing it? Telsa (talk) 15:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Welsh on the internet 

message: User:88.111.63.120 made an edit which claimed that Welsh is the second most popular Celtic language, on the grounds that this article says that Welsh has 700,000 speakers and Irish language says that Irish has 1,600,000 speakers. This change was reverted by User:Ptcamn, who said it was untrue. Is it in fact untrue? If so, should we modify one of the two articles? Or are the figures measuring different things? The Wednesday Island 17:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think they're measuring very different things. As I understand it, Welsh has 700,000 people who use the language as their everyday language, while Irish has 1.6 million people who can--if required--carry on a conversation at some level. Welsh definitely has far more native speakers than Irish. —The preceding signed comment was added by Angr (talk • contribs). 18:25, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comparing the number of speakers against Irish