Welsh is a member of the Celtic language family which was spoken throughout Europe. The Celtic language is believed to have arrived to Britain at around 600BC. Celtic later evolved into Brittonic, which then eventually expanded to be Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. When the Romans invaded Britain, Latin words entered the Brittonic vocabulary. As Roman influence declined with the fall of the empire, the Irish and the Germanic tribes settled alongside speakers of the Brittonic language and instigated further word-borrowing. Offa’s Dyke, constructed late in the 8th century, demarcated the boundary between the Britons of the west and the Germanic tribes of the east. Wales was now a separate entity from England. As the Welsh kingdoms developed, the Welsh language became the official mode of communication. The Latin alphabet, which was the former language of writing, was adapted for Welsh in the early 9th century.
After the period of cultural prosperity, the Welsh again faced invasion and this time it was the Normans. Welsh political independence, culture, and identity came under threat as the Anglo-Norman conquerors increasingly imposed English as the language for official purposes over the years. This culminated in the Act of Union of 1536 passed by Henry VIII, which legally incorporated Wales into England, banned Welsh monoglots from public office, and English became the sole official language. However, Welsh was not yet lost as it was still the language spoken by ordinary people. In 1563, Elizabeth I passed a legislation which required the Welsh translations of the Book of Common Prayer and the Bible to be placed alongside the English versions. Ironically, this legislation hoped the Welsh would learn the English language and abandon their own language, but it instead aided the survival of the Welsh language.
Fast forward to the mid-19th century, popular risings and riots breaking out across Wales were attributed to poor education and the Welsh language. To increase the moral and material conditions of the Welsh people, the introduction of English to the education system was proposed. The Welsh Not, punishing Welsh children for speaking Welsh, became a symbol of English cultural oppression. The Industrial Revolution brought English immigrants to Welsh coal mines and the English language was seen as the language of progress. Welsh lagged behind English as an effective language of daily communication in an Anglicized world. After World War I, the number of Welsh speakers fell from 43.5% of the population to 37.1%. Around 20,000 Welsh speakers died in the war and economic hardship forced 390,000 people between 1925 and 1939 to seek better opportunities outside Wales.
The deterioration of the Welsh language led to the founding of Plaid Cymru in 1925, a political party which sought self-government and the preservation of Welsh language and culture. Language campaigns in the following decades eventually led to a Welsh language television channel. The Welsh devolution referendum in 1997 resulted in the formation of the National Assembly for Wales. Welsh is now an official language of Wales and is treated as equally as the English language. As of the 2011 census, there are more than 700,000 Welsh speakers in the UK. There are about 560,000 speakers in Wales, accounting for 19% of the Welsh population.
The Welsh language has persevered through a number of obstacles throughout its history. It is one of the descendants of the Brittonic language and received Roman and Germanic influences in its early beginnings. During a period of isolation, Welsh was the official language of its kingdoms and rooted itself deep enough into its people to keep it alive through subsequent attempts of suppression. The Welsh language struggled through the Normans, the English, the Industrial Revolution, and World War I, and eventually the centuries of effort and cultural pride allowed Welsh to exist today. The number of Welsh speakers seem to be on the rise and the future of the Welsh language looks bright.
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