While otheraccents and dialects from England have affected those of English in Wales, especially in the east of the country, influence has moved in both directions, those in the west have been more heavily influenced by the Welsh language, those in north-east Wales and parts of the North Wales coastline it have been influenced byNorthwestern English, and those in the mid-east and the south-east Wales (composing the South Wales Valleys) have been influenced byWest Country andWest Midlands English,[1][2] and the one fromCardiff have been influenced byMidlands, West Country, andHiberno-English.[3]
A colloquialportmanteau word for Welsh English isWenglish. It has been in use since 1985.[4]
Theschwa tends to be supplanted by an/ɛ/ in final closed syllables, e.g.brightest/ˈbrəitɛst/. The uncertainty over which vowel to use often leads to hypercorrections involving the schwa, e.g.programme is often pronounced/ˈproːɡrəm/.[8]
Monophthongs of Welsh English as they are pronounced in Abercrave, fromCoupland & Thomas (1990), pp. 135–136.Monophthongs of Welsh English as they are pronounced in Cardiff, fromCoupland & Thomas (1990), pp. 93–95. Depending on the speaker, the long/ɛː/ may be of the same height as the short/ɛ/.[13]Diphthongs of Welsh English as they are pronounced in Abercrave, fromCoupland & Thomas (1990), pp. 135–136Diphthongs of Welsh English as they are pronounced in Cardiff, fromCoupland & Thomas (1990), p. 97
Thetrap-bath split is variable in Welsh English, especially among social status. In some varieties such asCardiff English, words like ask, bath, laugh, master and rather are usually pronounced with PALM while words like answer, castle, dance and nasty are normally pronounced with TRAP. On the other hand, the split may be completely absent in other varieties likeAbercraf English[14] and mostnorthern varieties.[15]
Most other long monophthongs are similar to that ofReceived Pronunciation, but words with the RP/əʊ/ are sometimes pronounced as[oː] and the RP/eɪ/ as[eː]. An example that illustrates this tendency is theAbercrave pronunciation ofplay-place[ˈpleɪˌpleːs].[18]
In northern varieties,/əʊ/ as incoat and/ɔː/ as incaught/court may be merged into/ɔː/ (phonetically[oː]).[8]
Welsh English is one of few dialects where the Late Middle English diphthong/iu̯/ never became/juː/, remaining as a falling diphthong[ɪʊ̯]. Thusyou/juː/,yew/jɪʊ̯/, andewe/ɪʊ̯/ are not homophones in Welsh English.[citation needed] As suchyod-dropping never occurs: distinctions are made betweenchoose/t͡ʃuːz/ andchews/t͡ʃɪʊ̯z/,through/θruː/ andthrew/θrɪʊ̯/, which is absent in most other English varieties.
Welsh English is mostlynon-rhotic, however variable rhoticity can be found in accents influenced by Welsh, especiallynorthern varieties. Additionally, whilePort Talbot English is mostly non-rhotic like other varieties of Welsh English, some speakers may supplant the front vowel ofbird with/ɚ/, like in many varieties ofNorth American English.[21]
Somegemination between vowels is often encountered, e.g.money is pronounced[ˈmɜn.niː].[24]
As Welsh lacks the letter Z and thevoiced alveolar fricative /z/, some first-language Welsh speakers replace it with thevoiceless alveolar fricative /s/ for words likecheese andthousand, whilepens (/pɛnz/) andpence merge into/pɛns/, especially in north-west, west and south-west Wales.[24][25]
In northern varieties influenced by Welsh,chin (/tʃɪn/) andgin may also merge into/dʒɪn/.[24]
In the north-east, under influence of such accents asScouse,ng-coalescence does not take place, sosing is pronounced/sɪŋɡ/.[26]
Also in northern accents,/l/ is frequently strongly velarised[ɫː]. In much of the south-east,clear and dark L alternate much like they do in RP.[21]
The consonants are generally the same as RP but Welsh consonants like/ɬ/ and/x/ (phonetically[χ]) are encountered in loan words such asLlangefni andHarlech.[24]
Aside from lexical borrowings fromWelsh likebach (little, wee),eisteddfod,nain andtaid (grandmother andgrandfather respectively), there exist distinctive grammatical conventions in vernacular Welsh English. Examples of this include the use by some speakers of thetag questionisn't it? regardless of the form of the preceding statement and the placement of the subject and the verb after thepredicate for emphasis, e.g.Fed up, I am orRunning on Friday, he is.[24]
In South Wales the wordwhere may often be expanded towhere to, as in the question, "Where to is your Mam?". The wordbutty (Welsh:byti) is used to mean "friend" or "mate".[27]
There is no standard variety of English that is specific to Wales, but such features are readily recognised by Anglophones fromthe rest of the UK as being from Wales, including the phraselook you which is a translation of a Welsh language tag.[24]
The wordtidy is among “the most over-worked Wenglish words”. It carries a number of meanings including ‘great’ or ‘excellent,’ or a large quantity. Atidy swill is a wash that includes, at the least, the hands and the face.[28]
Welsh code-switchers fall typically into one of three categories: the first category is people whose first language is Welsh and are not the most comfortable with English, the second is the inverse, English as a first language and a lack of confidence with Welsh, and the third consists of people whose first language could be either and display competence in both languages.[31]
Welsh and English share congruence, meaning that there is enough overlap in their structure to make them compatible for code-switching. In studies of Welsh English code-switching, Welsh frequently acts as the matrix language with English words or phrases mixed in. A typical example of this usage would look likedw i’n love-io soaps, which translates to "I love soaps".[30]
In a study conducted by Margaret Deuchar in 2005 on Welsh-English code-switching, 90 per cent of tested sentences were found to be congruent with the Matrix Language Format, or MLF, classifying Welsh English as a classic case of code-switching.[30] This case is identifiable as the matrix language was identifiable, the majority of clauses in a sentence that uses code-switching must be identifiable and distinct, and the sentence takes the structure of the matrix language in respect to things such as subject verb order and modifiers.[29]
The presence of English in Wales intensified on the passing of theLaws in Wales Acts of 1535–1542, thestatutes having promoted the dominance of English in Wales; this, coupled with theclosure of the monasteries, which closed down many centres of Welsh education, led to decline in the use of the Welsh language.
The decline of Welsh and the ascendancy of English was intensified further during theIndustrial Revolution, when many Welsh speakers moved to England to find work and the recently developedmining andsmelting industries came to be manned by Anglophones.David Crystal, who grew up inHolyhead, claims that the continuing dominance of English in Wales is little different from its spread elsewhere in the world.[32] The decline in the use of the Welsh language is also associated with the preference in the communities for English to be used in schools and to discourage everyday use of theWelsh language in them, including by the use of theWelsh Not in some schools in the 18th and 19th centuries.[33]
"Anglo-Welsh literature" and "Welsh writing in English" are terms used to describe works written in the English language by Welsh writers. It has been recognised as a distinctive entity only since the 20th century.[34] The need for a separate identity for this kind of writing arose because of the parallel development of modernWelsh-language literature; as such it is perhaps the youngest branch of English-language literature in the British Isles.
WhileRaymond Garlick discovered sixty-nine Welsh men and women who wrote in English prior to the twentieth century,[34] Dafydd Johnston believes it is "debatable whether such writers belong to a recognisable Anglo-Welsh literature, as opposed to English literature in general".[35] Well into the 19th century English was spoken by relatively few in Wales, and prior to the early 20th century there are only three major Welsh-born writers who wrote in the English language:George Herbert (1593–1633) fromMontgomeryshire,Henry Vaughan (1622–1695) fromBrecknockshire, andJohn Dyer (1699–1757) fromCarmarthenshire.
Welsh writing in English might be said to begin with the 15th-century bardIeuan ap Hywel Swrdwal (?1430 - ?1480), whoseHymn to the Virgin was written atOxford in England in about 1470 and uses a Welsh poetic form, theawdl, andWelsh orthography; for example:
O mighti ladi, owr leding - tw haf
At hefn owr abeiding:
Yntw ddy ffast eferlasting
I set a braents ws tw bring.
A rival claim for the first Welsh writer to use English creatively is made for the diplomat, soldier and poetJohn Clanvowe (1341–1391).[citation needed]
The influence of Welsh English can be seen in the 1915 short story collectionMy People byCaradoc Evans, which uses it in dialogue (but not narrative);Under Milk Wood (1954) byDylan Thomas, originally a radio play; andNiall Griffiths whose gritty realist pieces are mostly written in Welsh English.
^Deuchar, Margaret; Davies, Peredur (2009). "Code switching and the future of the Welsh language".International Journal of the Sociology of Language (195).doi:10.1515/ijsl.2009.004.S2CID145440479.
Connolly, John H. (1990),"Port Talbot English", in Coupland, Nikolas; Thomas, Alan Richard (eds.),English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict, and Change, Multilingual Matters Ltd., pp. 121–129,ISBN978-1-85359-032-0
Penhallurick, Robert (2004),"Welsh English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.),A handbook of varieties of English, Vol. 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 98–112,ISBN978-3-11-017532-5
Parry, David,A Grammar and Glossary of the Conservative Anglo-Welsh Dialects of Rural Wales, The National Centre for English Cultural Tradition:introduction andphonology available at the Internet Archive.
.jpg)
