Хочу поділитись деякими цікавинками, які дізнаюсь в процесі навчання. Нещодавно відкрила для себе мову Welsh, якою розмовляють у Вельсі. Раніше ніколи навіть не чула про неї!
WELSH
(CYMRAEG)
Welsh is a Celtic
language spoken in Wales (Cymru) by about 740,000 people, and in the
Welsh colony (yr Wladfa) in Patagonia, Argentina (yr Ariannin) by
several hundred people. There are also Welsh speakers in England (Lloegr),
Scotland (yr Alban), Canada, the USA (yr Unol Daleithiau),
Australia (Awstralia) and New Zealand (Seland Newydd).
Number of speakers (Nifer
o siaradwyr). Welsh, or Cymraeg, is spoken by 19% of Wales’ total population
of around 3 million, according to the 2011 census. This is down from 20.8% in
2001. However, in the sixth century AD Welsh was spoken in most of Britain, and
until the twentieth century some shepherds in Cumbria were still counting their
sheep in Welsh.
History
(Hanes). If Welsh can seem complex and beautiful, it’s because
it’s spent 4,000 years evolving. What’s certain is that it’s Britain’s oldest
language. From Indo-European and Brythonic origins, the Romans were the first
to commit these words to paper, introducing elements of Latin still present
today. Historians see clues in the prose of the earliest Welsh poets, writing
between the fifth and eighth centuries. They pinpoint Early Welsh, Breton and
Cornish as being related. Offa’s Dyke was the first clear border between the
English speakers of the east and the Welsh speakers of the west. Wales was one
of the first countries to use its own language to create laws, and the word
Cymry was used to describe its people as long ago as the 7th century.
The earliest known
examples of Welsh literature are the poems of Taliesin and Aneirin's Y
Gododdin, nobody knows for sure when these works were composed or when they
were first written down, however the oldest surviving manuscript featuring Y
Gododdin dates from the second half of the 12th century. The earliest known
example of written Welsh is on a gravestone in Tywyn church and dates from the
8th century AD.
The name Welsh originated
as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning "foreign
speech" (see Walha). The native term for the language is Cymraeg and Cymru
for "Wales".
Current
status (Statws cyfoes). Today there are radio stations and a TV
channel, that broadcast entirely or mainly in Welsh. There are also weekly and
monthly newspapers and magazines. About 500 books in Welsh are published
annually, and there is a thriving Welsh language music scene. There are a
number of Welsh language theatre groups, and regular eisteddfodau or cultural
festivals are held throughout Wales.
All school pupils in
Wales study Welsh as a first or second language for 12 years, from the age of 5
to 16. There are currently over 440 primary schools and over 50 secondary
schools in Wales that teach entirely or mainly throught the medium of Welsh.
There is also a Welsh-medium school in London. Some courses at Welsh
universities and colleges are taught through Welsh, and there are numerous
Welsh courses for adults throughout Wales.
Relationship
to other languages (Perthynas i ieithoedd eraill). Welsh
is fairly closely related to Cornish and Breton, and more distantly related to
Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic. Here is an illustration of some of the
differences and similarities between the Celtic languages using the phrases
'What is your name?' and 'My name is ... / I'm ...':
Irish - Cén t-ainm atá
ort?, Is mise ...
Gloss: What-the name is
on-you?, Am I [emphatic] ..."
Scottish Gaelic - Dè an
t-ainm a th'ort, Is mise ...
Gloss: What the name is
on-you?, Am I [emphatic] ..."
Manx - Cre'n ennym
t'ort?, Ta'n ennym orrym ... / ... mish
Gloss: What'the name is
on-you?, Is the name on-me ... / ... I [emphatic]"
Breton - Petra eo da
anv?, ... eo ma anv
Gloss: What is your
name?, ... is my name"
Cornish - Pyth yw dha
hanow?, Ow hanow yw ...
Gloss: What is your
name?, My name is ..."
Welsh - Beth yw dy enw
(di)?, Fy enw (i) yw...
Gloss: What is your name
(you)?, My name (me) is ..."
The only word in these
examples that is similar in all the languages is name: ainm (Irish), ainm
(Scottish Gaelic), ennym (Manx), anv (Breton), hanow (Cornish) and enw (Welsh).
The word for what - Cén
(Irish), De (Scottish Gaelic), Cre (Manx), Petra (Breton), Pyth (Cornish) and
Beth (Welsh) - illustrates one of the sound differences between the branches of
the Celtic languages. In the Gaelic languages, apart from Scottish Gaelic, it
starts with C, which is why they are called Q-Celtic languages (this sound is
sometimes written with a Q in Manx), while in the Brythonic languges it starts
with p or b, which is why they are known as P-Celtic. Both sounds developed
from the Proto-Celtic [kʷ].
There are more
similarities within each branch of these languages than between the branches
(Gaelic and Brythonic), and the Gaelic languages are closer to one another than
are the Brythonic languages.
Similar to languages such
as Arabic, Classical Hebrew, and Mayan, the canonical word order in Welsh is
verb–subject–object. This is unlike English and most other European Languages,
which tend to use SVO.
Any
Welsh words in English? Lots of British place names and
geographical features have Welsh roots, but surprisingly few Welsh words have
made it into everyday English vocabulary, actually. They include ‘bard’,
‘corgi’, ‘flannel’ – and maybe ‘penguin’, oddly. The most common is ‘dad’, from
the Welsh tad.
The
Welsh Alphabet. As first glance you could be forgiven for
thinking that the Welsh language is the same as English but it actually has a
few subtle differences. For starters it is actually made up of 28 letters and doesn't have some of the English alphabet
letters such as X and Z.
That
said, often people will now include the letter j in the alphabet (between
letters I and L) because it is used in several words that have made their way
over from the English language. You won't really see K, V, X and X in the
alphabet but they are used in more technical and measuring terms such as
kilogram and zero.
Why don’t you have any vowels? It’s a myth, actually. Welsh has more vowels than English. English has a,
e, i, o, u. Welsh has got a, e, i, o, u, w, y. English also uses ‘y’ as a
vowel. Why? (No, that’s an example: ‘why’.) Also the word, ‘myth’,
appropriately.Phonology. The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are typologically rare in European languages, specifically the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬ], voiceless nasal stops [m̥], [n̥], and [ŋ̊], and voiceless rhotic [r̥]. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable.
Easy
Welsh phrases. Hello is the easily-remembered ‘helo’ and
thank you is simply ‘diolch’. Here are some more simple words and phrases to
get started:
Bore da (Pronounced:
Boh-reh dah): Good morning
Nos da (nohs dah): Good
night
Croeso i Gymru (Croesoh
ee Gum-reeh): Welcome to Wales
Iechyd da! (Yeh-chid
dah): Cheers!
Tafarn (Tav-arn): Pub
Diolch (Dee-olch): Thanks
Da iawn (Dah ee-aw-n):
Very good
Counting
system. The traditional counting system used by the Welsh
language is vigesimal, which is to say it is based on twenties, as in standard
French numbers 70 (soixante-dix, literally "sixty-ten") to 99
(quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, literally "four twenties nineteen"). Welsh
numbers from 11 to 14 are "x on ten", 16 to 19 are "x on
fifteen" (though 18 is deunaw, "two nines"); numbers from 21 to
39 are "1–19 on twenty", 40 is "two twenties", 60 is
"three twenties", etc. This form continues to be used, especially by
older people, and it is obligatory in certain circumstances (such as telling
the time).
Some Facts about Welsh
The town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch (Phonetically: Llan-vire-pooll-guin-gill-go-ger-u-queern-drob-ooll-llandus-ilio-gogo-goch) has the longest place name in the UK. This is not an authentic Welsh toponym, but was artificially created in the 1860’s as a publicity stunt. It translates as: The Church of St Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio near a red cave.
At 58 letters
long, ‘Lanfairpg’ is often mistakenly thought to be the longest place
name in the world. With 85 letters Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokai-whenuakitanatahu,
the Māori name for a hill in New Zealand, holds the record.
In January 2014 it was reported that the Welsh language
‘faces emergency’, due to the inability of many who want to live their lives
through the medium of Welsh to access Welsh in public services. However, the
Welsh government insists that it is committed to promoting the Welsh language
and "to ensuring that people are able to use it in all aspects of their
daily lives".
Welsh, like Navajo, was used as a code
language during World War II and the Balkan War.
