109-504: Morcant Bulc was a Brythonic prince, probably a king, from Northern Britain , during the period between the end of the Roman Empire and the establishment of an English state during the early Middle Ages . Morcant appears in a line of Men of the North from Old Welsh pedigrees. He was apparently preceded by his father, Cuncar, and succeeded by his son, Coledauc. Nothing else
218-530: A first language is largely concentrated in the less urban north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd , inland Conwy and Denbighshire , northern and south-western Powys , the Isle of Anglesey , Carmarthenshire , North Pembrokeshire , Ceredigion , and parts of western Glamorgan , although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales. However, Cardiff is now home to an urban Welsh-speaking population (both from other parts of Wales and from
327-576: A "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain". There was much less migration into Britain during the subsequent Iron Age, so it is more likely that Celtic reached Britain before then. Barry Cunliffe suggests that a branch of Celtic was already being spoken in Britain and that the Bronze Age migration introduced the Brittonic branch. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , which
436-755: A British national identity only. Most residents of Wales (96 per cent, 2.9 million) reported at least one national identity of English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish, or British. A survey published in 2001, by the Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends at Oxford University (sample size 1161), found that 14.6 per cent of respondents described themselves as British, not Welsh; 8.3 per cent saw themselves as more British than Welsh; 39.0 per cent described themselves as equally Welsh and British; 20.2 per cent saw themselves as more Welsh than British; and 17.9 per cent described themselves as Welsh, not British. Forms of Christianity have dominated religious life in what
545-534: A Scottish ethnicity tick-box be included in the census in Scotland, and with this inclusion as many as 88.11% claimed Scottish ethnicity. Critics argued that a higher proportion of respondents would have described themselves as of Welsh ethnicity had a Welsh tick-box been made available. Additional criticism was levelled at the timing of the census, which was taken in the middle of the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth crisis . Organisers said that this had not affected
654-716: A Welsh Mormon settlement, lays claim to a greater proportion of inhabitants of Welsh descent than anywhere outside Wales itself. Malad's local High School is known as the "Malad Dragons", and flies the Welsh Flag as its school colours. Welsh people have also settled in New Zealand and Australia. Around 1.75 million Americans report themselves to have Welsh ancestry, as did 458,705 Canadians in Canada's 2011 census . This compares with 2.9 million people living in Wales (as of
763-528: A bard . The medieval Welsh form of Latin Britanni was Brython (singular and plural). Brython was introduced into English usage by John Rhys in 1884 as a term unambiguously referring to the P-Celtic speakers of Great Britain, to complement Goidel ; hence the adjective Brythonic refers to the group of languages. " Brittonic languages " is a more recent coinage (first attested in 1923 according to
872-547: A box describing themselves as of Scottish or of Irish ethnicity, an option not available for Welsh or English respondents. Prior to the census, Plaid Cymru backed a petition calling for the inclusion of a Welsh tick-box and for the National Assembly to have primary law-making powers and its own National Statistics Office . In the absence of a Welsh tick-box, the only tick-boxes available were 'white-British,' 'Irish', or 'other'. The Scottish parliament insisted that
981-542: A capital at Din Eidyn ( Edinburgh ) and extending from the area of Stirling to the Tyne. Offa's Dyke was erected in the mid-8th century, forming a barrier between Wales and Mercia . The process whereby the indigenous population of Wales came to think of themselves as "Welsh" (a name applied to them by Anglo-Saxon settlers ) is not clear. There is plenty of evidence of the use of the term Brythoniaid (Britons); meanwhile,
1090-640: A distinct Brittonic culture and language. Britonia in Spanish Galicia seems to have disappeared by 900 AD. Wales and Brittany remained independent for a considerable time, however, with Brittany united with France in 1532, and Wales united with England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 in the mid 16th century during the rule of the Tudors (Y Tuduriaid), who were themselves of Welsh heritage on
1199-562: A distinct genetic difference between those from northern and southern Wales, which was interpreted as the legacy of Little England beyond Wales . A study of a diverse sample of 2,039 individuals from the United Kingdom allowed the creation of a genetic map and the suggestion that there was a substantial migration of peoples from Europe prior to Roman times forming a strong ancestral component across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, but which had little impact in Wales. Wales forms
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#17327727569261308-765: A distinct genetic group, followed by a further division between north and south Wales, although there was evidence of a genetic difference between north and south Pembrokeshire as separated by the Landsker line . Speaking of these results, Professor Peter Donnelly , of the University of Oxford, said that the Welsh carry DNA which could be the most ancient in UK and that people from Wales are genetically relatively distinct. The population of Wales doubled from 587,000 in 1801 to 1,163,000 in 1851 and had reached 2,421,000 by 1911. Most of
1417-482: A profound genetic impact. Welsh people Modern ethnicities The Welsh ( Welsh : Cymry ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Wales who share a common ancestry, history and culture . Wales is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom . The majority of people living in Wales are British citizens . In Wales, the Welsh language ( Welsh : Cymraeg ) is protected by law. Welsh remains
1526-510: A self-designation derives from the post-Roman Era relationship of the Welsh with the Brythonic-speaking peoples of northern England and southern Scotland, the peoples of " Yr Hen Ogledd " (English: The Old North ). The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century. It is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan ( Moliant Cadwallon , by Afan Ferddig) c. 633 . In Welsh literature ,
1635-564: A smaller group of people, and the plural form of Wealh , Wēalas , evolved into the name for the territory that best maintained cultural continuity with pre-Anglo-Saxon Britain: Wales. The modern names for various Romance-speaking people in Continental Europe (e.g. Wallonia , Wallachia , Valais , Vlachs , and Włochy , the Polish name for Italy) have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves
1744-611: A sub-kingdom of Calchwynedd may have clung on in the Chilterns for a time. Novant , which occupied Galloway and Carrick, was soon subsumed by fellow Brittonic-Pictish polities by 700 AD. Aeron , which encompassed modern Ayrshire , was conquered by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria by 700 AD. Some Brittonic kingdoms were able to successfully resist these incursions: Rheged (encompassing much of modern Northumberland and County Durham and areas of southern Scotland and
1853-472: Is Cymry (plural) (singular: Cymro [m] and Cymraes [f]), and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales. These words (both of which are pronounced Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.ri] ) are descended from the Brythonic word kombrogi , meaning "fellow-countrymen". Thus, they carry a sense of "land of fellow-countrymen", "our country", and notions of fraternity. The use of the word Cymry as
1962-532: Is a focal point for many Welsh Hindus. There are about 2,000 Sikhs in Wales, with the first purpose-built gurdwara opened in the Riverside area of Cardiff in 1989. The Sabbatarian temperance movement was also historically strong among the Welsh; the sale of alcohol was prohibited on Sundays in Wales by the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881 – the first legislation specifically issued for Wales since
2071-671: Is known of him. However, historians have conjectured that his kingdom may have lain in Gododdin ( Lothian ), Alt Clut ( Strathclyde ) or Bryneich ( Northumberland ) in the late 6th century. Morcant's first name is a form of Morgan . It is possible that he may therefore be identified with other Morgans found elsewhere in the Life of St. Kentigern and the writings of Nennius : Britons (historical) The Britons ( * Pritanī , Latin : Britanni , Welsh : Brythoniaid ), also known as Celtic Britons or Ancient Britons , were
2180-536: Is now Wales for more than 1,400 years. Most Welsh people of faith are affiliated with the Church in Wales or other Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of Wales , Catholicism , and Russian Orthodox Christianity. Wales has a long tradition of nonconformism and Methodism . Some Welsh people are affiliated with either Buddhism , Hinduism , Judaism , Islam or Sikhism . In
2289-464: Is uncertain how many people in Wales considered themselves to be of Welsh ethnicity; the 2001 UK census did not offer 'Welsh' as an option; respondents had to use a box marked "Other". Ninety-six per cent of the population of Wales thus described themselves as being White British . Controversy surrounding the method of determining ethnicity began as early as 2000, when it was revealed that respondents in Scotland and Northern Ireland would be able to tick
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#17327727569262398-629: Is your country of birth? and How would you describe your national identity? (for the first time 'Welsh' and 'English' were included as options), What is your ethnic group? ('White Welsh/English/Scottish/Northern Irish/British' was an option) and Can you understand, speak, read or write Welsh? . As of the 2011 census in Wales, 66 per cent (2.0 million) of residents reported a Welsh national identity (either on its own or combined with other identities). Of these, 218,000 responded that they had Welsh and British national identity. Just under 17 per cent (519,000) of people in Wales considered themselves to have
2507-648: The Oxford English Dictionary ). In the early Middle Ages , following the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain , the Anglo-Saxons called all Britons Bryttas or Wealas (Welsh), while they continued to be called Britanni or Brittones in Medieval Latin . From the 11th century, they are more often referred to separately as the Welsh , Cumbrians , Cornish , and Bretons , as they had separate political histories from then. From
2616-480: The 2001 census ). There is no known evidence which would objectively support the legend that the Mandan , a Native American tribe of the central United States, are Welsh emigrants who reached North America under Prince Madog in 1170. The Ukrainian city of Donetsk was founded in 1869 by a Welsh businessman, John Hughes (an engineer from Merthyr Tydfil ) who constructed a steel plant and several coal mines in
2725-534: The British Isles , particularly Welsh people , suggesting genetic continuity between Iron Age Britain and Roman Britain, and partial genetic continuity between Roman Britain and modern Britain. On the other hand, they were genetically substantially different from the examined Anglo-Saxon individual and modern English populations of the area, suggesting that the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain left
2834-586: The Channel Islands . There they set up their own small kingdoms and the Breton language developed from Brittonic Insular Celtic rather than Gaulish or Frankish . A further Brittonic colony, Britonia , was also set up at this time in Gallaecia in northwestern Spain . Many of the old Brittonic kingdoms began to disappear in the centuries after the Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Gaelic invasions; Parts of
2943-670: The Farne Islands fell to the Anglo-Saxons in 559 AD and Deira became an Anglo-Saxon kingdom after this point. Caer Went had officially disappeared by 575 AD becoming the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of East Anglia . Gwent was only partly conquered; its capital Caer Gloui ( Gloucester ) was taken by the Anglo-Saxons in 577 AD, handing Gloucestershire and Wiltshire to the invaders, while the westernmost part remained in Brittonic hands, and continued to exist in modern Wales. Caer Lundein , encompassing London , St. Albans and parts of
3052-597: The Home Counties , fell from Brittonic hands by 600 AD, and Bryneich, which existed in modern Northumbria and County Durham with its capital of Din Guardi (modern Bamburgh ) and which included Ynys Metcaut ( Lindisfarne ), had fallen by 605 AD becoming Anglo-Saxon Bernicia. Caer Celemion (in modern Hampshire and Berkshire) had fallen by 610 AD. Elmet, a large kingdom that covered much of modern Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire and likely had its capital at modern Leeds,
3161-657: The Iron Age , though some archaeologists argue that there is no evidence for large-scale Iron Age migrations into Great Britain, in which case the Celticisation of Britain would have occurred through cultural diffusion. Most people in Wales today regard themselves as modern Celts , claiming a heritage back to the Iron Age tribes. When the Roman legions departed Britain around 400, a Romano-British culture remained in
3270-497: The Isle of Anglesey (19%). Among respondents between 16 and 74 years of age, those claiming Welsh ethnicity were predominantly in professional and managerial occupations. In advance of the 2011 UK Census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) launched a census consultation exercise. They received replies from 28 different Welsh organisations and a large proportion of these referred to Welsh ethnicity, language or identity. For
3379-682: The Norman Conquest , and several Normans encouraged immigration to their new lands; the Landsker Line dividing the Pembrokeshire "Englishry" and "Welshry" is still detectable today. The terms Englishry and Welshry are used similarly about Gower . Recent research on ancient DNA has concluded that much of Britain's Neolithic population was replaced by Beaker people in the Bronze Age . The British groups encountered by
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3488-806: The Old English of the Anglo-Saxons, and Scottish Gaelic , although this was likely a gradual process in many areas. Similarly, the Brittonic colony of Britonia in northwestern Spain appears to have disappeared soon after 900 AD. The kingdom of Ystrad Clud (Strathclyde) was a large and powerful Brittonic kingdom of the Hen Ogledd (the 'Old North') which endured until the end of the 11th century, successfully resisting Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic Scots and later also Viking attacks. At its peak it encompassed modern Strathclyde, Dumbartonshire , Cumbria , Stirlingshire , Lanarkshire , Ayrshire , Dumfries and Galloway , Argyll and Bute , and parts of North Yorkshire ,
3597-694: The Pretanoí or Bretanoí . Pliny 's Natural History (77 AD) says the older name for the island was Albion , and Avienius calls it insula Albionum , "island of the Albions". The name could have reached Pytheas from the Gauls . The Latin name for the Britons was Britanni . The P-Celtic ethnonym has been reconstructed as * Pritanī , from Common Celtic * kʷritu , which became Old Irish cruth and Old Welsh pryd . This likely means "people of
3706-727: The Scottish Borders ) survived well into the 8th century AD, before the eastern part peacefully joined with the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia – Northumberland by 730 AD, and the west was taken over by the fellow Britons of Ystrad Clud . Similarly, the kingdom of Gododdin , which appears to have had its court at Din Eidyn (modern Edinburgh ) and encompassed parts of modern Northumbria , County Durham , Lothian and Clackmannanshire , endured until approximately 775 AD before being divided by fellow Brittonic Picts, Gaelic Scots and Anglo-Saxons. The Kingdom of Cait , covering modern Caithness , Sutherland , Orkney , and Shetland ,
3815-691: The Welsh Government found that 718,000 people (nearly 35% of the Welsh population) have a family name of Welsh origin, compared with 5.3% in the rest of the United Kingdom, 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, and 3.8% in the United States, with an estimated 16.3 million people in the countries studied having at least partial Welsh ancestry. Over 300,000 Welsh people live in London . The names "Wales" and "Welsh" are modern descendants of
3924-555: The indigenous Celtic people who inhabited Great Britain from at least the British Iron Age until the High Middle Ages , at which point they diverged into the Welsh , Cornish , and Bretons (among others). They spoke Common Brittonic , the ancestor of the modern Brittonic languages . The earliest written evidence for the Britons is from Greco-Roman writers and dates to the Iron Age. Ancient Britain
4033-595: The 2001, around 7,000 classified themselves as following "other religions", including a reconstructed form of Druidism , which was the pre-Christian religion of Wales (not to be confused with the Druids of the Gorsedd at the National Eisteddfod of Wales). Approximately one third of the population, some 980,000 people, profess no religious faith whatsoever. The census showed that slightly fewer than 10% of
4142-588: The 20th century. Celtic Britain was made up of many territories controlled by Brittonic tribes . They are generally believed to have dwelt throughout the whole island of Great Britain , at least as far north as the Clyde – Forth isthmus . The territory north of this was largely inhabited by the Picts ; little direct evidence has been left of the Pictish language , but place names and Pictish personal names recorded in
4251-480: The 2nd century AD and the 4th century AD during the period of Roman Britain . Six of these individuals were identified as native Britons. The six examined native Britons all carried types of the paternal R1b1a2a1a and carried the maternal haplogroups H6a1a , H1bs , J1c3e2 , H2 , H6a1b2 and J1b1a1 . The indigenous Britons of Roman Britain were genetically closely related to the earlier Iron Age female Briton, and displayed close genetic links to modern Celts of
4360-599: The Ancient British seem to have had generally similar cultural practices to the Celtic cultures nearest to them on the continent. There are significant differences in artistic styles, and the greatest period of what is known as the "Insular La Tène" style, surviving mostly in metalwork, was in the century or so before the Roman conquest, and perhaps the decades after it. The carnyx , a trumpet with an animal-headed bell,
4469-659: The Anglo-Saxon word wealh , a descendant of the Proto-Germanic word walhaz , which was derived from the name of the Gaulish people known to the Romans as Volcae and which came to refer indiscriminately to inhabitants of the Roman Empire . The Old English -speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term to refer to the Britons in particular. As the Britons' territories shrank, the term came ultimately to be applied to
Morcant Bulc - Misplaced Pages Continue
4578-567: The British Isles after arriving from the continent in the 7th century BC. The language eventually began to diverge; some linguists have grouped subsequent developments as Western and Southwestern Brittonic languages . Western Brittonic developed into Welsh in Wales and the Cumbric language in the Hen Ogledd or "Old North" of Britain (modern northern England and southern Scotland), while
4687-414: The Britons and Caledonians in the north remained unconquered and Hadrian's Wall became the edge of the empire. A Romano-British culture emerged, mainly in the southeast, and British Latin coexisted with Brittonic. It is unclear what relationship the Britons had with the Picts , who lived outside of the empire in northern Britain, however, most scholars today accept the fact that the Pictish language
4796-409: The Brittonic state of Kernow . The Channel Islands (colonised by Britons in the 5th century) came under attack from Norse and Danish Viking attack in the early 9th century AD, and by the end of that century had been conquered by Viking invaders. The Kingdom of Ce , which encompassed modern Marr , Banff , Buchan , Fife , and much of Aberdeenshire , disappeared soon after 900 AD. Fortriu ,
4905-605: The Cumbrians of the Hen Ogledd ("Old North") in southern Scotland and northern England, and the remnants of the Pictish people in northern Scotland. Common Brittonic developed into the distinct Brittonic languages: Welsh , Cumbric , Cornish and Breton . In Celtic studies , 'Britons' refers to native speakers of the Brittonic languages in the ancient and medieval periods, "from the first evidence of such speech in
5014-739: The English language. Patagonian Welsh (Cymraeg y Wladfa) is a dialect of the Welsh language which is spoken in Y Wladfa in the Argentine region, Patagonia . There has been migration from Wales to the rest of Britain throughout its history. During the Industrial Revolution thousands of Welsh people migrated, for example, to Liverpool and Ashton-in-Makerfield . As a result, some people from England, Scotland and Ireland have Welsh surnames. Welsh settlers moved to other parts of Europe, concentrated in certain areas. During
5123-489: The English-speaking areas of Wales, many Welsh people are bilingually fluent or semi-fluent in the Welsh language or, to varying degrees, capable of speaking or understanding the language at limited or conversational proficiency levels. The Welsh language is descended from Brythonic, spoken across Britain since before the Roman invasion . In 2016, an analysis of the geography of Welsh surnames commissioned by
5232-574: The Industrial Revolution. The English were the most numerous group, but there were also considerable numbers of Irish; and smaller numbers of other ethnic groups, including Italians migrated to South Wales. Wales received other immigration from various parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations in the 20th century, and African-Caribbean and Asian communities immigrated particularly to urban Wales. In 2001, it
5341-600: The Iron Age and Roman era Britons showed strong similarities with both each other and modern-day Welsh populations, while modern southern and eastern English groups were closer to a later Anglo-Saxon burial. Another study, using Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon samples from Cambridgeshire, concluded that modern Welsh people carry a 30% genetic contribution from Anglo-Saxon settlers in the post-Roman period; however, this could have been brought about due to later migration from England into Wales. A third study, published in 2020 and based on Viking era data from across Europe, suggested that
5450-474: The Iron Age individuals were markedly different from later Anglo-Saxon samples, who were closely related to Danes and Dutch people . Martiano et al. (2016) examined the remains of a female Iron Age Briton buried at Melton between 210 BC and 40 AD. She was found to be carrying the maternal haplogroup U2e1e . The study also examined seven males buried in Driffield Terrace near York between
5559-494: The Isles of Scilly and Brittany are Brittonic, and Brittonic family and personal names remain common. During the 19th century, many Welsh farmers migrated to Patagonia in Argentina , forming a community called Y Wladfa , which today consists of over 1,500 Welsh speakers. In addition, a Brittonic legacy remains in England, Scotland and Galicia in Spain, in the form of often large numbers of Brittonic place and geographical names. Examples of geographical Brittonic names survive in
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#17327727569265668-466: The Jewish population of that area, which reached a peak of 4,000–5,000 in 1913, has declined; only Cardiff has retained a sizeable Jewish population, of about 2000 in the 2001 Census. The largest non-Christian faith in Wales is Islam, with about 22,000 members in 2001 served by about 40 mosques, following the first mosque established in Cardiff . A college for training clerics has been established at Llanybydder in West Wales . Islam arrived in Wales in
5777-476: The Middle Ages. From the early 1960s, local council areas were permitted to hold referendums every seven years to determine whether they should be "wet" or "dry" on Sundays: most of the industrialised areas in the east and south went "wet" immediately, and by the 1980s the last district, Dwyfor in the northwest, went wet; since then there have been no more Sunday-closing referendums. Despite Christianity dominating Wales, more ancient traditions persisted. In 1874 it
5886-417: The Roman Empire invaded Britain. The British tribes opposed the Roman legions for many decades, but by 84 AD the Romans had decisively conquered southern Britain and had pushed into Brittonic areas of what would later become northern England and southern Scotland. During the same period, Belgic tribes from the Gallic-Germanic borderlands settled in southern Britain. Caesar asserts the Belgae had first crossed
5995-478: The Romans were thus largely descended from these Beaker populations. The post-Roman period saw a significant alteration in the genetic makeup of southern Britain due to the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons; however, historical evidence suggests that Wales was little affected by these migrations. A study published in 2016 compared samples from modern Britain and Ireland with DNA found in skeletons from Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon era Yorkshire. The study found that most of
6104-415: The Southwestern dialect became Cornish in Cornwall and South West England and Breton in Armorica. Pictish is now generally accepted to descend from Common Brittonic, rather than being a separate Celtic language. Welsh and Breton survive today; Cumbric and Pictish became extinct in the 12th century. Cornish had become extinct by the 19th century but has been the subject of language revitalization since
6213-484: The US may have been 26 times greater than Welsh emigration), to many countries, including the US (in particular, Pennsylvania ), Canada and Y Wladfa in Patagonia , Argentina. Jackson County, Ohio was sometimes referred to as "Little Wales", and one of several communities where Welsh was widely spoken. There was a Welsh language press but by the late 1940s, the last Welsh language newspaper, y Drych began to publish in English. Malad City in Idaho , which began as
6322-463: The Welsh population are regular church or chapel goers (a slightly smaller proportion than in England or Scotland), although about 58% of the population see themselves as Christian in some form. Judaism has quite a long history in Wales, with a Jewish community recorded in Swansea from around 1730. In August 1911, during a period of public order and industrial disputes, Jewish shops across the South Wales coalfield were damaged by mobs. Since that time
6431-417: The Welsh trace, on average, 58% of their ancestry to the Brittonic people, up to 22% from a Danish-like source interpreted as largely representing the Anglo-Saxons, 3% from Norwegian Vikings, and 13% from further south in Europe such as Italy , to a lesser extent, Spain and can possibly be related to French immigration during the Norman period. A 2015 genetic survey of modern British population groups found
6540-401: The acquisition of Welsh is a gateway to better careers, according to research from the Welsh Language Board and Careers Wales. The Welsh Government identified media as one of six areas likely to experience greater demand for Welsh speakers: the sector is Wales's third-largest revenue earner. Although Welsh is a minority language , and thus threatened by the dominance of English, support for
6649-434: The ancestry of subsequent Iron Age people in this area, but not in northern Britain. The "evidence suggests that rather than a violent invasion or a single migratory event, the genetic structure of the population changed through sustained contacts between mainland Britain and Europe over several centuries, such as the movement of traders, intermarriage, and small-scale movements of family groups". The authors describe this as
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#17327727569266758-403: The areas the Romans had settled, and the pre-Roman cultures in others. The people in what is now Wales continued to speak Common Brittonic with significant influence from Latin , as did people in other areas of western and northern Britain; this language eventually evolved into Old Welsh . The surviving poem Y Gododdin is in early Welsh and refers to the British kingdom of Gododdin with
6867-401: The channel as raiders, only later establishing themselves on the island. 122 AD, the Romans fortified the northern border with Hadrian's Wall , which spanned what is now Northern England . In 142 AD, Roman forces pushed north again and began construction of the Antonine Wall , which ran between the Forth–Clyde isthmus, but they retreated back to Hadrian's Wall after only twenty years. Although
6976-414: The earliest use of the word Kymry (referring not to the people but to the land—and possibly to northern Britain in addition to Wales) is found in a poem c. 633 . The name of the region in northern England now known as Cumbria is derived from the same root. Only gradually did Cymru (the land) and Cymry (the people) come to supplant Brython . Although the Welsh language was certainly used at
7085-554: The early 16th century, and especially after the Acts of Union 1707 , the terms British and Briton could be applied to all inhabitants of the Kingdom of Great Britain , including the English , Scottish , and some Irish , or the subjects of the British Empire generally. The Britons spoke an Insular Celtic language known as Common Brittonic . Brittonic was spoken throughout the island of Britain (in modern terms, England, Wales, and Scotland). According to early medieval historical tradition, such as The Dream of Macsen Wledig ,
7194-508: The early 19th century, and founded towns in Labrador 's coast region; in 1819, the ship Albion left Cardigan for New Brunswick , carrying Welsh settlers to Canada; on board were 27 Cardiganian families, many of whom were farmers. In 1852, Thomas Benbow Phillips of Tregaron established a settlement of about 100 Welsh people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Internationally Welsh people have emigrated, in relatively small numbers (in proportion to population, Irish emigration to
7303-482: The first millennium BC, reaching Britain towards the end of this period. In 2021, a major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain during the Bronze Age , over a 500-year period from 1,300 BC to 800 BC. The migrants were "genetically most similar to ancient individuals from France" and had higher levels of Early European Farmers ancestry. From 1000 to 875 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain, making up around half
7412-452: The first millennium BC. More recently, John Koch and Barry Cunliffe have challenged that with their 'Celtic from the West' theory, which has the Celtic languages developing as a maritime trade language in the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural zone before it spread eastward. Alternatively, Patrick Sims-Williams criticizes both of these hypotheses to propose 'Celtic from the Centre', which suggests Celtic originated in Gaul and spread during
7521-423: The first time ever in British census history the 2011 Census gave the opportunity for people to describe their identity as Welsh or English. A 'dress rehearsal' of the Census was carried out on the Welsh island of Anglesey because of its rural nature and its high numbers of Welsh speakers. The Census, taken on 27 March 2011, asked a number of questions relating to nationality and national identity, including What
7630-427: The formerly Brittonic ruled territory in Britain, and the language and culture of the native Britons was thereafter gradually replaced in those regions, remaining only in Wales, Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Brittany , and for a time in parts of Cumbria, Strathclyde, and eastern Galloway. Cornwall (Kernow, Dumnonia ) had certainly been largely absorbed by England by the 1050s to early 1100s, although it retained
7739-418: The forms", and could be linked to the Latin name Picti (the Picts ), which is usually explained as meaning "painted people". The Old Welsh name for the Picts was Prydyn . Linguist Kim McCone suggests the name became restricted to inhabitants of the far north after Cymry displaced it as the name for the Welsh and Cumbrians . The Welsh prydydd , "maker of forms", was also a term for the highest grade of
7848-475: The growing Welsh-medium schools of Cardiff itself) due to the centralisation and concentration of national resources and organisations in the capital. For some, speaking Welsh is an important part of their Welsh identity. Parts of the culture are strongly connected to the language — notably the Eisteddfod tradition, poetry and aspects of folk music and dance. Wales also has a strong tradition of poetry in
7957-420: The increase came in the coal mining districts; especially Glamorganshire , which grew from 71,000 in 1801 to 232,000 in 1851 and 1,122,000 in 1911. Part of this increase can be attributed to the demographic transition seen in most industrialising countries during the Industrial Revolution , as death rates dropped and birth rates remained steady. However, there was also a large-scale migration into Wales during
8066-641: The issue. As many as a third of all properties in Gwynedd are bought by people from outside Wales. The issue of locals being priced out of the local housing market is common to many rural communities throughout Britain, but in Wales the added dimension of language complicates the issue, as many new residents do not learn the Welsh language. A Plaid Cymru taskforce headed by Dafydd Wigley recommended land should be allocated for affordable local housing, called for grants for locals to buy houses, and recommended that council tax on holiday homes should double. However,
8175-429: The language grew during the second half of the 20th century, along with the rise of Welsh nationalism in the form of groups such as the political party Plaid Cymru and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society). The language is used in the bilingual Welsh Parliament (Senedd) and entered on its records, with English translation. The high cost of translation from English to Welsh has proved controversial. In
8284-560: The largest Brittonic-Pictish kingdom which covered Strathearn , Morayshire and Easter Ross , had fallen by approximately 950 AD to the Gaelic Kingdom of Alba ( Scotland ). Other Pictish kingdoms such as Circinn (in modern Angus and The Mearns ), Fib (modern Fife ), Fidach ( Inverness and Perthshire ), and Ath-Fotla ( Atholl ), had also all fallen by the beginning of the 11th century AD or shortly after. The Brythonic languages in these areas were eventually replaced by
8393-598: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, a small wave of contract miners from Wales arrived in Northern France; the centres of Welsh-French population are in coal mining towns, and particularly the French department of Pas-de-Calais along with miners from many other countries. They tended to cluster in communities around their churches. Settlers from Wales (and later Patagonian Welsh) arrived in Newfoundland in
8502-538: The later Irish annals suggest it was indeed related to the Common Brittonic language . Their Goidelic (Gaelic) name, Cruithne , is cognate with Pritenī . The following is a list of the major Brittonic tribes, in both the Latin and Brittonic languages, as well as their capitals during the Roman period. The La Tène style , which covers British Celtic art , was late arriving in Britain, but after 300 BC
8611-541: The male side. Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isles of Scilly continued to retain a distinct Brittonic culture, identity and language, which they have maintained to the present day. The Welsh and Breton languages remain widely spoken, and the Cornish language , once close to extinction, has experienced a revival since the 20th century. The vast majority of place names and names of geographical features in Wales, Cornwall,
8720-630: The mid 11th century AD when Cornwall was effectively annexed by the English, with the Isles of Scilly following a few years later, although at times Cornish lords appear to have retained sporadic control into the early part of the 12th century AD. Wales remained free from Anglo-Saxon, Gaelic Scots and Viking control, and was divided among varying Brittonic kingdoms, the foremost being Gwynedd (including Clwyd and Anglesey ), Powys , Deheubarth (originally Ceredigion , Seisyllwg and Dyfed ), Gwent , and Morgannwg ( Glamorgan ). These Brittonic-Welsh kingdoms initially included territories further east than
8829-524: The mid 19th century, and it is thought that Cardiff's Yemeni community is Britain's oldest Muslim community, established when the city was one of the world's largest coal exporting ports. Hinduism and Buddhism each have about 5,000 adherents in Wales, with the rural county of Ceredigion being the centre of Welsh Buddhism. Govinda 's temple and restaurant, run by the Hare Krishnas in Swansea ,
8938-474: The modern borders of Wales; for example, Powys included parts of modern Merseyside , Cheshire and the Wirral and Gwent held parts of modern Herefordshire , Worcestershire , Somerset and Gloucestershire , but had largely been confined to the borders of modern Wales by the beginning of the 12th century. However, by the early 1100s, the Anglo-Saxons and Gaels had become the dominant cultural force in most of
9047-646: The names of rivers, such as the Thames , Clyde , Severn , Tyne , Wye , Exe , Dee , Tamar , Tweed , Avon , Trent , Tambre , Navia , and Forth . Many place names in England and Scotland are of Brittonic rather than Anglo-Saxon or Gaelic origin, such as London , Manchester , Glasgow , Edinburgh , Carlisle , Caithness , Aberdeen , Dundee , Barrow , Exeter , Lincoln , Dumbarton , Brent , Penge , Colchester , Gloucester , Durham , Dover , Kent , Leatherhead , and York . Schiffels et al. (2016) examined
9156-499: The native Britons south of Hadrian's Wall mostly kept their land, they were subject to the Roman governors , whilst the Brittonic-Pictish Britons north of the wall probably remained fully independent and unconquered. The Roman Empire retained control of "Britannia" until its departure about AD 410, although parts of Britain had already effectively shrugged off Roman rule decades earlier. Thirty years or so after
9265-562: The past the rules of the British Parliament forbade the use of Welsh in any proceedings. Only English was allowed as the only language all members were assumed to speak. In 2017, the UK government agreed to support the use of Welsh in the Welsh Grand Committee, although not in parliamentary debate in the house outside of this committee. In 2018 Welsh was used in the grand committee for the first time. Welsh as
9374-703: The people or their homeland. During their time in Britain , the ancient Romans encountered tribes in present-day Wales that they called the Ordovices , the Demetae , the Silures and the Deceangli . The people of what is now Wales were not distinguished from the rest of the peoples of southern Britain; all were called Britons and spoke Common Brittonic , a Celtic language . This language, and Celtic culture more generally, seems to have arrived in Britain during
9483-531: The post-Roman Celtic speakers of Armorica were colonists from Britain, resulting in the Breton language , a language related to Welsh and identical to Cornish in the early period, and is still used today. Thus, the area today is called Brittany (Br. Breizh , Fr. Bretagne , derived from Britannia ). Common Brittonic developed from the Insular branch of the Proto-Celtic language that developed in
9592-411: The pre-Roman Iron Age , until the central Middle Ages ". The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Britain was made by Pytheas , a Greek geographer who made a voyage of exploration around the British Isles between 330 and 320 BC. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the following centuries make frequent reference to them. The ancient Greeks called the people of Britain
9701-593: The predominant language in many parts of Wales, particularly in North Wales and parts of West Wales , though English is the predominant language in South Wales . The Welsh language is also taught in schools in Wales; and, even in regions of Wales in which Welsh people predominantly speak English on a daily basis, the Welsh language is spoken at home among family or in informal settings, with Welsh speakers often engaging in code-switching and translanguaging . In
9810-644: The predominant language in parts of Wales, particularly in North Wales and parts of West Wales. According to the 2001 census the number of Welsh speakers in Wales increased for the first time in 100 years, with 20.5% of a population of over 2.9 million claiming fluency in Welsh. In addition, 28% of the population of Wales claimed to understand Welsh. The census revealed that the increase was most significant in urban areas, such as Cardiff with an increase from 6.6% in 1991 to 10.9% in 2001, and Rhondda Cynon Taf with an increase from 9% in 1991 to 12.3% in 2001. However,
9919-754: The proportion of Welsh speakers declined in Gwynedd from 72.1% in 1991 to 68.7% in 2001, to 65.4% in 2011 and 64.4% in 2021. Similarly, in Ceredigion the percentage fell from 59.1% in 1991 to 51.8% in 2001, to 47.3% in 2011 and to 45.3% in 2021. Ceredigion saw a 19.5% influx of new residents between 1991 and 2001. The decline in Welsh speakers in much of rural Wales is attributable to non-Welsh-speaking residents moving to North Wales, driving up property prices above what locals may afford, according to former Gwynedd county councillor Seimon Glyn of Plaid Cymru , whose controversial comments in 2001 focused attention on
10028-560: The regions of modern East Anglia , East Midlands , North East England , Argyll , and South East England were the first to fall to the Germanic and Gaelic Scots invasions. The kingdom of Ceint (modern Kent) fell in 456 AD. Linnuis (which stood astride modern Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire) was subsumed as early as 500 AD and became the English Kingdom of Lindsey. Regni (essentially modern Sussex and eastern Hampshire )
10137-524: The remains of three Iron Age Britons buried ca. 100 BC. A female buried in Linton, Cambridgeshire carried the maternal haplogroup H1e , while two males buried in Hinxton both carried the paternal haplogroup R1b1a2a1a2 , and the maternal haplogroups K1a1b1b and H1ag1 . Their genetic profile was considered typical for Northwest European populations. Though sharing a common Northwestern European origin,
10246-513: The results. The foot-and-mouth crisis delayed the 2001 United Kingdom general election ; the first time since the Second World War that any event had postponed an election. In the census, 14% of the population took the 'extra step' to write in that they were of Welsh ethnicity. The highest percentage of those identifying as of Welsh ethnicity was recorded in Gwynedd (at 27%), followed by Carmarthenshire (23%), Ceredigion (22%) and
10355-638: The same census shows that 25% of residents were born outside Wales. The number of Welsh speakers in other places in Britain is uncertain, but there are significant numbers in the main cities, and there are speakers along the Welsh-English border . Even among Welsh speakers, very few people speak only Welsh, with nearly all being bilingual in English. However, a large number of Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. Some prefer to speak English in South Wales or
10464-567: The time of the Roman departure, the Germanic -speaking Anglo-Saxons began a migration to the south-eastern coast of Britain, where they began to establish their own kingdoms, and the Gaelic -speaking Scots migrated from Dál nAraidi (modern Northern Ireland ) to the west coast of Scotland and the Isle of Man. At the same time, Britons established themselves in what is now called Brittany and
10573-426: The time, Gwyn A. Williams argues that even at the time of the erection of Offa's Dyke, the people to its west saw themselves as Roman, citing the number of Latin inscriptions still being made into the 8th century. However, it is unclear whether such inscriptions reveal a general or normative use of Latin as a marker of identity or its selective use by the early Christian Church . There was immigration to Wales after
10682-476: The urbanised areas and Welsh in the North or in rural areas. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain (known in linguistics as code-switching ). Due to an increase in Welsh-language nursery education, recent census data reveals a reversal of decades of linguistic decline: there are now more Welsh speakers under five years of age than over 60. For many young people in Wales,
10791-577: The western Pennines , and as far as modern Leeds in West Yorkshire . Thus the Kingdom of Strathclyde became the last of the Brittonic kingdoms of the 'old north' to fall in the 1090s when it was effectively divided between England and Scotland. The Britons also retained control of Wales and Kernow (encompassing Cornwall , parts of Devon including Dartmoor , and the Isles of Scilly ) until
10900-553: The word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples , including the Welsh, and was the more common literary term until c. 1100 . Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh. Until c. 1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry , regardless of whether it referred to
11009-645: Was accompanied by wholesale population changes is still debated. During this time, Britons migrated to mainland Europe and established significant colonies in Brittany (now part of France), the Channel Islands , and Britonia (now part of Galicia , Spain). By the 11th century, Brittonic-speaking populations had split into distinct groups: the Welsh in Wales, the Cornish in Cornwall, the Bretons in Brittany,
11118-426: Was closely related to Common Brittonic. Following the end of Roman rule in Britain during the 5th century, Anglo-Saxon settlement of eastern and southern Britain began. The culture and language of the Britons fragmented, and much of their territory gradually became Anglo-Saxon , while the north became subject to a similar settlement by Gaelic -speaking tribes from Ireland. The extent to which this cultural change
11227-416: Was conquered by Gaelic Scots in 871 AD. Dumnonia (encompassing Cornwall , Devonshire , and the Isles of Scilly ) was partly conquered during the mid 9th century AD, with most of modern Devonshire being annexed by the Anglo-Saxons, but leaving Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly ( Enesek Syllan ), and for a time part of western Devonshire (including Dartmoor ), still in the hands of the Britons, where they became
11336-416: Was conquered by the Anglo-Saxons in 627 AD. Pengwern , which covered Staffordshire , Shropshire , Herefordshire , and Worcestershire , was largely destroyed in 656 AD, with only its westernmost parts in modern Wales remaining under the control of the Britons, and it is likely that Cynwidion, which had stretched from modern Bedfordshire to Northamptonshire, fell in the same general period as Pengwern, though
11445-452: Was likely fully conquered by 510 AD. Ynys Weith (Isle of Wight) fell in 530 AD, Caer Colun (essentially modern Essex) by 540 AD. The Gaels arrived on the northwest coast of Britain from Ireland, dispossessed the native Britons, and founded Dal Riata which encompassed modern Argyll , Skye , and Iona between 500 and 560 AD. Deifr (Deira) which encompassed modern-day Teesside, Wearside, Tyneside, Humberside, Lindisfarne ( Medcaut ), and
11554-430: Was made up of many tribes and kingdoms, associated with various hillforts . The Britons followed an Ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids . Some of the southern tribes had strong links with mainland Europe, especially Gaul and Belgica , and minted their own coins . The Roman Empire conquered most of Britain in the 1st century AD, creating the province of Britannia . The Romans invaded northern Britain , but
11663-562: Was originally compiled by the orders of King Alfred the Great in approximately 890, starts with this sentence: "The island Britain is 800 miles long and 200 miles broad. And there are in the island five nations; English, Welsh (or British), Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia, and first peopled Britain southward" ("Armenia" is possibly a mistaken transcription of Armorica , an area in northwestern Gaul including modern Brittany ). In 43 AD,
11772-607: Was reported as common for an officiant to walk in front of the coffin with a horse's skull, which may be a tradition linked with the Mari Lwyd tradition. The Welsh language is in the Insular Celtic family; historically spoken throughout Wales, with its predecessor Common Brittonic once spoken throughout most of the island of Great Britain. Prior to the 20th century, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh, with little or no fluent knowledge of English. Welsh remains
11881-467: Was used by Celtic Britons during war and ceremony. There are competing hypotheses for when Celtic peoples, and the Celtic languages, first arrived in Britain, none of which have gained consensus. The traditional view during most of the twentieth century was that Celtic culture grew out of the central European Hallstatt culture , from which the Celts and their languages reached Britain in the second half of
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