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91-605: The Landsker Line ( Welsh : Ffin ieithyddol Sir Benfro ) is a term used for the language border in Wales between the largely Welsh -speaking and largely English -speaking areas in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire . The English-speaking areas, south of the Landsker line and known as Little England beyond Wales , are notable for having been English linguistically and culturally for many centuries despite being far from

182-441: A Welsh Language Scheme, which indicates its commitment to the equality of treatment principle. This is sent out in draft form for public consultation for a three-month period, whereupon comments on it may be incorporated into a final version. It requires the final approval of the now defunct Welsh Language Board ( Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg ). Thereafter, the public body is charged with implementing and fulfilling its obligations under

273-594: A Welsh-language edge inscription was used on pound coins dated 1985, 1990 and 1995, which circulated in all parts of the UK prior to their 2017 withdrawal. The wording is Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad (Welsh for 'True am I to my country'), and derives from the national anthem of Wales, " Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau ". UK banknotes are in English only. Some shops employ bilingual signage. Welsh sometimes appears on product packaging or instructions. The UK government has ratified

364-663: A census glossary of terms to support the release of results from the census, including their definition of "main language" as referring to "first or preferred language" (though that wording was not in the census questionnaire itself). The wards in England with the most people giving Welsh as their main language were the Liverpool wards of Central and Greenbank ; and Oswestry South in Shropshire . The wards of Oswestry South (1.15%), Oswestry East (0.86%) and St Oswald (0.71%) had

455-612: A clearly distinguishable group set apart by their language and customs. Various cultural and linguistic customs are similar to those of the Southern part of the Netherlands. Generally, Flemings do not identify themselves as being Dutch and vice versa. There are popular stereotypes in the Netherlands as well as Flanders which are mostly based on the 'cultural extremes' of both Northern and Southern culture. Alongside this overarching political and social affiliation, there also exists

546-629: A cultural frontier that has persisted, without legal status, for ten centuries or more. The boundary (with Welsh to the north and east, and English to the south and west) starts on St Bride’s Bay and follows a serpentine course eastwards until it meets the River Taf just north of Laugharne in Carmarthenshire . Traces of a boundary also persist across the Llansteffan peninsula and the country near Kidwelly , and it reappears strongly in

637-650: A lesser extent on Brabantic, which is the most dominant Dutch dialect of the Southern Netherlands and Flanders . Approximately 75% of the Flemish people are by baptism assumed Roman Catholic , though a still diminishing minority of less than 8% attends Mass on a regular basis and nearly half of the inhabitants of Flanders are agnostic or atheist . A 2006 inquiry in Flanders showed 55% chose to call themselves religious and 36% believe that God created

728-580: A number of mannerist structures, and Willem van den Blocke also has sculpted multiple lavishly decorated epitaphs and tombs in Poland. Flemish people also emigrated at the end of the fifteenth century, when Flemish traders conducted intensive trade with Spain and Portugal , and from there moved to colonies in America and Africa . The newly discovered Azores were populated by 2,000 Flemish people from 1460 onwards, making these volcanic islands known as

819-511: A number of Norman/English “planned villages” (e.g. Letterston and New Moat) were made north of the current frontier in the mediæval period. These subsequently failed, and were re-occupied by Welsh speakers in the post Black Death period. In more modern times, the enclosure of commons allowed a substantial southward spread of Welsh speakers, particularly in Carmarthenshire. These are quite rare examples of Welsh-speaking areas expanding at

910-468: A number of lexical and a few grammatical features which distinguish them from the standard language. As in the Netherlands, the pronunciation of Standard Dutch is affected by the native dialect of the speaker. At the same time East Flemish forms a continuum with both Brabantic and West Flemish . Standard Dutch is primarily based on the Hollandic dialect (spoken in the northwestern Netherlands) and to

1001-470: A sharp line of demarcation, the boundary consists of a corridor of mixed language, typically 2 to 3 miles (3–5 km) wide, in which the direction of language trend varies according to the migration characteristics of the inhabitants. The frontier zone has probably always had these characteristics. As mentioned above, the frontier moved between 1600 and today. Historic data on personal names also show that it also moved between 1200 and 1600. Attempts to set up

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1092-479: A single discourse (known in linguistics as code-switching ). Welsh speakers are largely concentrated in the north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd , Conwy County Borough , Denbighshire , Anglesey , Carmarthenshire , north Pembrokeshire , Ceredigion , parts of Glamorgan , and north-west and extreme south-west Powys . However, first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales. Welsh-speaking communities persisted well into

1183-468: A strong tendency towards regionalism , in which individuals greatly identify themselves culturally through their native province , city, region or dialect they speak. Flemings speak Dutch (specifically its southern variant , which is often colloquially called ' Flemish '). It is the majority language in Belgium, being spoken natively by three-fifths of the population. Its various dialects contain

1274-605: Is available throughout Europe on satellite and online throughout the UK. Since the digital switchover was completed in South Wales on 31 March 2010, S4C Digidol became the main broadcasting channel and fully in Welsh. The main evening television news provided by the BBC in Welsh is available for download. There is also a Welsh-language radio station, BBC Radio Cymru , which was launched in 1977. Flemish people Flemish

1365-688: Is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, which in turn is divided into Early and Late Modern Welsh. The word Welsh is a descendant, via Old English wealh, wielisc , of the Proto-Germanic word * Walhaz , which was derived from the name of the Celtic people known to the Romans as Volcae and which came to refer to speakers of Celtic languages, and then indiscriminately to

1456-736: Is spoken natively in Wales , by some in England , and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province , Argentina ). It is spoken by smaller numbers of people in Canada and the United States descended from Welsh immigrants, within their households (especially in Nova Scotia ). Historically, it has also been known in English as "British", "Cambrian", "Cambric" and "Cymric". The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 gave

1547-511: Is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of nearly all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion , although the tales themselves are certainly much older. It is also the language of the existing Welsh law manuscripts. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The Bible translations into Welsh helped maintain

1638-732: The Cynfeirdd or "Early Poets" – is generally considered to date to the Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was supposedly composed in the Hen Ogledd , raising further questions about the dating of the material and language in which it was originally composed. This discretion stems from the fact that Cumbric was widely believed to have been the language used in Hen Ogledd. An 8th-century inscription in Tywyn shows

1729-500: The 2016 Australian census , 1,688 people noted that they spoke Welsh. In the 2011 Canadian census , 3,885 people reported Welsh as their first language . According to the 2021 Canadian census , 1,130 people noted that Welsh was their mother tongue. The 2018 New Zealand census noted that 1,083 people in New Zealand spoke Welsh. The American Community Survey 2009–2013 noted that 2,235 people aged five years and over in

1820-466: The 2021 census , 7,349 people in England recorded Welsh to be their "main language". In the 2011 census, 1,189 people aged three and over in Scotland noted that Welsh was a language (other than English) that they used at home. It is believed that there are as many as 5,000 speakers of Patagonian Welsh . In response to the question 'Does the person speak a language other than English at home?' in

1911-702: The Belgian Revolution . Prior to this, the term " Vlamingen " in the Dutch language was in first place used for the inhabitants of the former County of Flanders. Flemish, however, had been used since the 14th century to refer to the language and dialects of both the peoples of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant . In 1830, the southern provinces of the United Netherlands proclaimed their independence. French-dialect speaking population, as well as

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2002-459: The England–Wales border . During the 11th and 12th centuries both invaders and defenders built more than fifty castles during a complex period of conflict, effectively to consolidate the line. The southernmost was Laugharne ; others included Wiston , Camrose , Narberth , and Roch . These are often referred to as "frontier castles" but they were in fact set back a considerable distance from

2093-538: The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of Welsh. The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel S4C in November 1982, which until digital switchover in 2010 broadcast 70 per cent of Channel 4's programming along with a majority of Welsh language shows during peak viewing hours. The all-Welsh-language digital station S4C Digidol

2184-635: The Netherlands , but are still host to people of Flemish descent and some continued use of Flemish Dutch. Namely, these are Zeelandic Flanders and the Arrondissement of Dunkirk (historically known as French Westhoek ). The people of North Brabant also share related ancestry. There were migrations of Flemish people to medieval and early modern Poland. The Flemming noble family of Flemish origin first settled in Pomerania and modern Poland in

2275-756: The Polish name for Italians) have a similar etymology. The Welsh term for the language, Cymraeg , descends from the Brythonic word combrogi , meaning 'compatriots' or 'fellow countrymen'. Welsh evolved from Common Brittonic , the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Celtic Britons . Classified as Insular Celtic , the British language probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and

2366-640: The United States spoke Welsh at home. The highest number of those (255) lived in Florida . Sources: Calls for the Welsh language to be granted official status grew with the establishment of the nationalist political party Plaid Cymru in 1925, the establishment of the Welsh Language Society in 1962 and the rise of Welsh nationalism in the later 20th century. Of the six living Celtic languages (including two revived), Welsh has

2457-535: The seal of Philip d'Alsace , count of Flanders of 1162. As of that date the use of the Flemish coat of arms ( or a lion rampant sable ) remained in use throughout the reigns of the d'Alsace, Flanders (2nd) and Dampierre dynasties of counts . The motto "Vlaanderen de Leeuw" (Flanders the lion) was allegedly present on the arms of Pieter de Coninck at the Battle of the Golden Spurs on July 11, 1302. After

2548-486: The "Flemish Islands". For instance, the city of Horta derives its name from Flemish explorer Josse van Huerter . Prior to the 1600s, there were several substantial waves of Flemish migration to the United Kingdom . The first wave fled to England in the early 12th century, escaping damages from a storm across the coast of Flanders, where they were largely resettled in Pembrokeshire by Henry I . They changed

2639-594: The "hugely important role", adding, "I look forward to working with the Welsh Government and organisations in Wales in developing the new system of standards. I will look to build on the good work that has been done by the Welsh Language Board and others to strengthen the Welsh language and ensure that it continues to thrive." First Minister Carwyn Jones said that Huws would act as a champion for

2730-483: The 13th century with the village of Buk becoming the first estate of the family in the region. The family reached high-ranking political and military posts in Poland in the 18th century, and Polish Princess Izabela Czartoryska and statesman Adam Jerzy Czartoryski were their descendants. There are several preserved historical residences of the family in Poland. Flemish architects Anthonis van Obbergen and Willem van den Blocke migrated to Poland, where they designed

2821-618: The 1870s, when Saint Boniface proved a popular destination for work in local flour mills, brick yards and railway yards. Similarly, Flemish were drawn to smaller villages in Manitoba , where jobs in farming were available. In the early 20th century, Flemish settled in significant numbers across Ontario , particularly attracted by the tobacco-growing industry, in the towns of Chatham , Leamington , Tillsonburg , Wallaceburg , Simcoe , Sarnia and Port Hope . The original County of Flanders encompassed areas which today belong to France and

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2912-596: The 1880s identified a small part of Shropshire as still then speaking Welsh, with the "Celtic Border" passing from Llanymynech through Oswestry to Chirk . The number of Welsh-speaking people in the rest of Britain has not yet been counted for statistical purposes. In 1993, the Welsh-language television channel S4C published the results of a survey into the numbers of people who spoke or understood Welsh, which estimated that there were around 133,000 Welsh-speaking people living in England, about 50,000 of them in

3003-536: The 1993 Act nor secondary legislation made under it covers the private sector, although some organisations, notably banks and some railway companies, provide some of their information in Welsh. On 7 December 2010, the Welsh Assembly unanimously approved a set of measures to develop the use of the Welsh language within Wales. On 9 February 2011 this measure, the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 ,

3094-486: The Assembly which confirms the official status of the Welsh language; which creates a strong advocate for Welsh speakers and will improve the quality and quantity of services available through the medium of Welsh. I believe that everyone who wants to access services in the Welsh language should be able to do so, and that is what this government has worked towards. This legislation is an important and historic step forward for

3185-432: The English colonists found that farming and feudalism were difficult to maintain on cold acid soils and exposed hillsides. When historians began to gain interest in the linguistic divide, they used the term "landsker", or "lansker", for example by Richard Fenton in 1810, though the term had been used much earlier by antiquarian George Owen of Henllys in 1603. It remains in common use. Local people may not be familiar with

3276-550: The Greater London area. The Welsh Language Board , on the basis of an analysis of the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study, estimated there were 110,000 Welsh-speaking people in England, and another thousand in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In the 2011 census , 8,248 people in England gave Welsh in answer to the question "What is your main language?" The Office for National Statistics subsequently published

3367-528: The Landsker line is Brandy Brook which runs through Newgale , remarked upon by Richard Fenton in his Historical Tour of 1810. The first beach north after the brook has the Welsh name Pen-y-Cwm. Welsh language Welsh ( Cymraeg [kəmˈraːiɡ] or y Gymraeg [ə ɡəmˈraːiɡ] ) is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people . Welsh

3458-644: The Southern Francophile elites. The efforts of this movement during the following 150 years, have to no small extent facilitated the creation of the de jure social, political and linguistic equality of Dutch from the end of the 19th century. After the Hundred Years War many Flemings migrated to the Azores . By 1490 there were 2,000 Flemings living in the Azores. Willem van der Haegen

3549-496: The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, all new signs have Welsh displayed first. There have been incidents of one of the languages being vandalised, which may be considered a hate crime . Since 2000, the teaching of Welsh has been compulsory in all schools in Wales up to age 16; this has had an effect in stabilising and reversing the decline in the language. Text on UK coins tends to be in English and Latin. However,

3640-704: The Welsh Language Scheme. The list of other public bodies which have to prepare Schemes could be added to by initially the Secretary of State for Wales, from 1993 to 1997, by way of statutory instrument . Subsequent to the forming of the National Assembly for Wales in 1997, the Government Minister responsible for the Welsh language can and has passed statutory instruments naming public bodies who have to prepare Schemes. Neither

3731-667: The Welsh language official status in Wales. Welsh and English are de jure official languages of the Welsh Parliament, the Senedd , with Welsh being the only de jure official language in any part of the United Kingdom, with English being merely de facto official. According to the 2021 census , the Welsh-speaking population of Wales aged three or older was 538,300 (17.8%) and nearly three quarters of

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3822-526: The Welsh language, though some had concerns over her appointment: Plaid Cymru spokeswoman Bethan Jenkins said, "I have concerns about the transition from Meri Huws's role from the Welsh Language Board to the language commissioner, and I will be asking the Welsh government how this will be successfully managed. We must be sure that there is no conflict of interest, and that the Welsh Language Commissioner can demonstrate how she will offer

3913-487: The Welsh of the 16th century, but they are similar enough for a fluent Welsh speaker to have little trouble understanding it. During the Modern Welsh period, there has been a decline in the popularity of the Welsh language: the number of Welsh speakers declined to the point at which there was concern that the language would become extinct. During industrialisation in the late 19th century, immigrants from England led to

4004-630: The Welsh-speaking heartlands, with the number dropping to under 50 per cent in Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire for the first time. However, according to the Welsh Language Use Survey in 2019–20, 22 per cent of people aged three and over were able to speak Welsh. The Annual Population Survey (APS) by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that as of March 2024, approximately 862,700, or 28.0 per cent of

4095-518: The acquisition of Flanders by the Burgundian dukes the lion was only used in escutcheons. It was only after the creation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands that the coat of arms (surmounted by a chief bearing the Royal Arms of the Netherlands ) once again became the official symbol of the new province East Flanders . The first sizeable wave of Flemish migration to Canada occurred in

4186-400: The administration and elites, feared the loss of their status and autonomy under Dutch rule while the rapid industrialization in the south highlighted economic differences between the two. Under French rule (1794–1815), French was enforced as the only official language in public life, resulting in a Francization of the elites and, to a lesser extent, the middle classes. The Dutch king allowed

4277-561: The anglicisation of the Welsh coast paralleled the anglicisation of Devon and Cornwall , perhaps concurrently. A 2003 DNA study showed that people in 'Little England' are genetically indistinguishable from the people of southern England. The frontier was not solely linguistic: there were also differences in customs (notably of inheritance) and in architecture. Owen characterised the cultural frontier in 1602 as both sharp and stable, and subsequent observers (with less local knowledge than Owen) have reiterated his description, and suggested that

4368-499: The area during this era, who would lay their cloths out in the sun to bleach them. These waves of settlement are also evidenced by the common surnames Fleming , Flemings, Flemming and Flemmings. In the United States , the cities of De Pere and Green Bay in Wisconsin attracted many Flemish and Walloon immigrants during the 19th century. The small town of Belgique was settled almost entirely by Flemish immigrants, although

4459-405: The boundary between English and Welsh Gower . The area to the south of the line was referred to in the 16th century as Anglia Transwalliana ( Little England beyond Wales ). In 1603, George Owen provided a snapshot description of the language boundary and 'Little England beyond Wales', and provided an antiquarian account of the settlement of English speakers in southwest Wales. This provides

4550-460: The census. In terms of usage, ONS also reported that 14.4 per cent (443,800) of people aged three or older in Wales reported that they spoke Welsh daily in March 2024, with 5.4 per cent (165,500) speaking it weekly and 6.5 per cent (201,200) less often. Approximately 1.7 per cent (51,700) reported that they never spoke Welsh despite being able to speak the language, with the remaining 72.0 per cent of

4641-414: The course of the 20th century this monolingual population all but disappeared, but a small percentage remained at the time of the 1981 census. Most Welsh-speaking people in Wales also speak English. However, many Welsh-speaking people are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain and the social context, even within

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4732-489: The creation of Old Welsh, Davies suggests it may be more appropriate to refer to this derivative language as Lingua Britannica rather than characterising it as a new language altogether. The argued dates for the period of "Primitive Welsh" are widely debated, with some historians' suggestions differing by hundreds of years. The next main period is Old Welsh ( Hen Gymraeg , 9th to 11th centuries); poetry from both Wales and Scotland has been preserved in this form of

4823-504: The culture and accent in south Pembrokeshire to such an extent, that it led to the area receiving the name Little England beyond Wales . Haverfordwest and Tenby consequently grew as important settlements for the Flemish settlers. In the 14th century, encouraged by King Edward III and perhaps in part due to his marriage to Philippa of Hainault , another wave of migration to England occurred when skilled cloth weavers from Flanders were granted permission to settle there and contribute to

4914-479: The decline in Welsh speakers particularly in the South Wales Valleys. Welsh government processes and legislation have worked to increase the proliferation of the Welsh language, for example through education. Welsh has been spoken continuously in Wales throughout history; however, by 1911, it had become a minority language, spoken by 43.5 per cent of the population. While this decline continued over

5005-400: The end of the eighteenth century. In 1939, the term was first applied to the linguistic frontier in southwest Wales. The linguistic boundary, in general, is neither visible nor permanent. Commentators have taken up the use of the word in this context in the last 50 years, so that in the 21st century it is usually understood to mean the language boundary. The language boundary is an example of

5096-591: The expense of English-speaking areas; in the central part of Pembrokeshire the shift of the Landsker southwards between 1600 and 1900 was in excess of 6 miles (10 km). Southwest Wales is very rich in Norman Castles. Some are deep within the Welsh zone (e.g. Newport , Cardigan , Cilgerran , Newcastle Emlyn , Carmarthen ), and some are deep in Little England (e.g. Pembroke , Carew , Manorbier , Haverfordwest , Tenby ). A number lie close to

5187-431: The following decades, the language did not die out. The smallest number of speakers was recorded in 1981 with 503,000 although the lowest percentage was recorded in the most recent census in 2021 at 17.8 per cent. By the start of the 21st century, numbers began to increase once more, at least partly as a result of the increase in Welsh-medium education . The 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey showed that 21.7 per cent of

5278-459: The frontier itself. In the heart of the Norman-dominated area, the two great fortresses were at Pembroke and Haverfordwest . There were other fortresses within the colonised area as well, including Manorbier , Carew and Tenby . The Landsker has changed position many times, first moving north into the foothills of Mynydd Preseli during the military campaigns of the Early Middle Ages, and then moving southwards again in more peaceful times, as

5369-411: The highest number of native speakers who use the language on a daily basis, and it is the Celtic language which is considered the least endangered by UNESCO . The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 provide that the Welsh and English languages be treated equally in the public sector, as far as is reasonable and practicable. Each public body is required to prepare for approval

5460-413: The highest percentage of residents giving Welsh as their main language. The census also revealed that 3,528 wards in England, or 46% of the total number, contained at least one resident whose main language is Welsh. In terms of the regions of England , North West England (1,945), London (1,310) and the West Midlands (1,265) had the highest number of people noting Welsh as their main language. According to

5551-400: The history of Welsh, with rather indistinct boundaries: Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh. The period immediately following the language's emergence is sometimes referred to as Primitive Welsh, followed by the Old Welsh period – which is generally considered to stretch from the beginning of the 9th century to sometime during the 12th century. The Middle Welsh period

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5642-527: The language already dropping inflections in the declension of nouns. Janet Davies proposed that the origins of the Welsh language were much less definite; in The Welsh Language: A History , she proposes that Welsh may have been around even earlier than 600 AD. This is evidenced by the dropping of final syllables from Brittonic: * bardos 'poet' became bardd , and * abona 'river' became afon . Though both Davies and Jackson cite minor changes in syllable structure and sounds as evidence for

5733-416: The language boundary (e.g. Roch , Wiston , Llawhaden , Narberth , Laugharne ) and are sometimes referred to as “frontier castles”, but the whole of Dyfed (the territory south of the River Teifi and west of the Towy and Gwili) was in the hands of Norman marcher lords. The line is noted for being sharp, and for having moved only slightly over the past several centuries. A visible boundary which represents

5824-431: The language, its speakers and for the nation." The measure was not welcomed warmly by all supporters: Bethan Williams, chairman of the Welsh Language Society, gave a mixed response to the move, saying, "Through this measure we have won official status for the language and that has been warmly welcomed. But there was a core principle missing in the law passed by the Assembly before Christmas. It doesn't give language rights to

5915-449: The language. As Germanic and Gaelic colonisation of Britain proceeded, the Brittonic speakers in Wales were split off from those in northern England, speaking Cumbric, and those in the southwest, speaking what would become Cornish , so the languages diverged. Both the works of Aneirin ( Canu Aneirin , c.  600 ) and the Book of Taliesin ( Canu Taliesin ) were written during this era. Middle Welsh ( Cymraeg Canol )

6006-408: The line remained close to that described by Owen. The first objective, statistically based description of the frontier was made in the 1960s, and showed a line similar to that described by Owen, although in some places it had moved north, while in others it had moved south. People in the frontier zone did not recognise the term “Landsker”, but were well aware of the location of the boundary. Rather than

6097-468: The modern period across the border in England. Archenfield was still Welsh enough in the time of Elizabeth I for the Bishop of Hereford to be made responsible, together with the four Welsh bishops, for the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Welsh. Welsh was still commonly spoken there in the first half of the 19th century, and churchwardens' notices were put up in both Welsh and English until about 1860. Alexander John Ellis in

6188-432: The north and south of the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire" in DNA signatures. The term Landsker is a word of Anglo-Saxon origin used in southwest England and along the anglicised South Wales coast. It signifies a permanent, visible boundary between two tracts of land, and may be a natural feature (e.g. a river) or an artificial feature (e.g. a hedge or a line of marker stones). In Wales , its official use became obsolete at

6279-448: The number of Welsh-language speakers to one million by 2050. Since 1980, the number of children attending Welsh-medium schools has increased, while the number going to Welsh bilingual and dual-medium schools has decreased. Welsh is considered the least endangered Celtic language by UNESCO . The language of the Welsh developed from the language of Britons . The emergence of Welsh was not instantaneous and clearly identifiable. Instead,

6370-402: The people of Wales in every aspect of their lives. Despite that, an amendment to that effect was supported by 18 Assembly Members from three different parties, and that was a significant step forward." On 5 October 2011, Meri Huws , Chair of the Welsh Language Board , was appointed the new Welsh Language Commissioner. She released a statement that she was "delighted" to have been appointed to

6461-412: The people of the Western Roman Empire . In Old English the term went through semantic narrowing , coming to refer to either Britons in particular or, in some contexts, slaves. The plural form Wēalas evolved into the name for their territory, Wales. The modern names for various Romance-speaking people in Continental Europe (e.g. Walloons , Valaisans , Vlachs / Wallachians , and Włosi ,

6552-436: The population in Wales said they had no Welsh language skills. Other estimates suggest that 862,700 people (28.0%) aged three or older in Wales could speak Welsh in March 2024. Almost half of all Welsh speakers consider themselves fluent, while 20 per cent are able to speak a fair amount. 56 per cent of Welsh speakers speak the language daily, and 19 per cent speak the language weekly. The Welsh Government plans to increase

6643-471: The population not being able to speak it. The National Survey for Wales, conducted by Welsh Government, has also tended to report a higher percentage of Welsh speakers than the census, with the most recent results for 2022–2023 suggesting that 18 per cent of the population aged 3 and over were able to speak Welsh, with an additional 16 per cent noting that they had some Welsh-speaking ability. Historically, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh. Over

6734-502: The population of Wales aged 3 and over, were able to speak the language. Children and young people aged three to 15 years old were more likely to report that they could speak Welsh than any other age group (48.4 per cent, 241,300). Around 1,001,500 people, or 32.5 per cent, reported that they could understand spoken Welsh. 24.7 per cent (759,200) could read and 22.2 per cent (684,500) could write in Welsh. The APS estimates of Welsh language ability are historically higher than those produced by

6825-407: The population of Wales spoke Welsh, compared with 20.8 per cent in the 2001 census , and 18.5 per cent in the 1991 census . Since 2001, however, the number of Welsh speakers has declined in both the 2011 and 2021 censuses to about 538,300 or 17.8 per cent in 2021, lower than 1991, although it is still higher in absolute terms. The 2011 census also showed a "big drop" in the number of speakers in

6916-409: The required fresh approach to this new role." Huws started her role as the Welsh Language Commissioner on 1 April 2012. Local councils and the Senedd use Welsh, issuing Welsh versions of their literature, to varying degrees. Road signs in Wales are in Welsh and English. Prior to 2016, the choice of which language to display first was the responsibility of the local council. Since then, as part of

7007-478: The revolt, the language reforms of 1823 were the first Dutch laws to be abolished and the subsequent years would see a number of laws restricting the use of the Dutch language. This policy led to the gradual emergence of the Flemish Movement , that was built on earlier anti-French feelings of injustice, as expressed in writings (for example by the late 18th-century writer, Jan Verlooy ) which criticized

7098-599: The shift occurred over a long period, with some historians claiming that it had happened by as late as the 9th century , with a watershed moment being that proposed by linguist Kenneth H. Jackson , the Battle of Dyrham , a military battle between the West Saxons and the Britons in 577 AD, which split the South Western British from direct overland contact with the Welsh. Four periods are identified in

7189-479: The term, but they recognise that the language divide stretching from St Bride's Bay to Carmarthen Bay remains very distinct. The differences in the proportion of Welsh speakers persists in the 21st century and is illustrated by the map derived from the 2011 census. Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics reported in 2015 "unexpectedly stark differences between inhabitants in

7280-541: The then booming cloth and woollen industries. These migrants particularly settled in the growing Lancashire and Yorkshire textile towns of Manchester , Bolton , Blackburn , Liversedge , Bury , Halifax and Wakefield . Demand for Flemish weavers in England occurred again in both the 15th and 16th centuries, but this time particularly focused on towns close to the coastline of East Anglia and South East England . Many from this generation of weavers went to Colchester , Sandwich and Braintree . In 1582, it

7371-557: The universe. The official flag and coat of arms of the Flemish Community represents a black lion with red claws and tongue on a yellow field ( or a lion rampant sable armed and langued gules ). A flag with a completely black lion had been in wide use before 1991 when the current version was officially adopted by the Flemish Community. That older flag was at times recognized by government sources (alongside

7462-526: The use of Welsh in daily life, and standardised spelling. The New Testament was translated by William Salesbury in 1567, and the complete Bible by William Morgan in 1588. Modern Welsh is subdivided into Early Modern Welsh and Late Modern Welsh. Early Modern Welsh ran from the 15th century through to the end of the 16th century, and the Late Modern Welsh period roughly dates from the 16th century onwards. Contemporary Welsh differs greatly from

7553-735: The use of both Dutch and French dialects as administrative languages in the Flemish provinces. He also enacted laws to reestablish Dutch in schools. The language policy was not the only cause of the secession; the Roman Catholic majority viewed the sovereign, the Protestant William I , with suspicion and were heavily stirred by the Roman Catholic Church which suspected William of wanting to enforce Protestantism . Lastly, Belgian liberals were dissatisfied with William for his allegedly despotic behaviour. Following

7644-405: The version with red claws and tongue). Today, only the flag bearing a lion with red claws and tongue is recognized by Belgian law, while the flag with the all-black lion is mostly used by Flemish separatist movements. The Flemish authorities also use two logos of a highly stylized black lion which show the claws and tongue in either red or black. The first documented use of the Flemish lion was on

7735-515: The “traditional” view: that the area was cleared of native Welsh by the Norman invaders in the early 12th century, and was planted with Flemings from elsewhere in England. However, Owen pointed out that there was no trace of Flemish custom or language in his time. In fact, traditional Pembrokeshire English is lexically related to the Early English of southwest England, and in all probability

7826-622: Was complete by around AD 550, and labelled the period between then and about AD 800 "Primitive Welsh". This Primitive Welsh may have been spoken in both Wales and the Hen Ogledd ('Old North') – the Brittonic-speaking areas of what are now northern England and southern Scotland – and therefore may have been the ancestor of Cumbric as well as Welsh. Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to

7917-558: Was estimated that there could have been around 1,600 Flemish in Sandwich, today almost half of its total population. London , Norwich and North Walsham , however, were the most popular destinations, and the nickname for Norwich City F.C. fans, Canaries, is derived from the fact that many of the Norfolk weavers kept pet canaries. The town of Whitefield , near Bury, also claims to owe its name to Flemish cloth weavers that settled in

8008-520: Was historically a geographical term, as all inhabitants of the medieval County of Flanders in modern-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands were referred to as "Flemings" irrespective of their ethnicity or language. The contemporary region of Flanders comprises a part of this historical county, as well as parts of the medieval duchy of Brabant and the medieval county of Loon , where the modern national identity and culture gradually formed. The sense of "Flemish" identity increased significantly after

8099-518: Was passed and received Royal Assent, thus making the Welsh language an officially recognised language within Wales. The measure: The measure required public bodies and some private companies to provide services in Welsh. The Welsh government's Minister for Heritage at the time, Alun Ffred Jones , said, "The Welsh language is a source of great pride for the people of Wales, whether they speak it or not, and I am delighted that this measure has now become law. I am very proud to have steered legislation through

8190-517: Was probably spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth . During the Early Middle Ages the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, thus evolving into Welsh and the other Brittonic languages. It is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Linguist Kenneth H. Jackson has suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern

8281-515: Was the original sea captain who brought settlers from Flanders to the Azores. Today many Azoreans trace their genealogy from present day Flanders. Many of their customs and traditions are distinctively Flemish in nature such as windmills used for grain, São Jorge cheese and several religious events such as the imperios and the feast of the Cult of the Holy Spirit . Within Belgium, Flemings form

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