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Us Britons have managed to cause some remarkably odd outcomes, way beyond the usual Empire bollocks and this is an absolute belter. Welsh is a Brythonic langua

Us Britons have managed to cause some remarkably odd outcomes, way beyond the usual Empire bollocks and this is an absolute belter. Welsh is a Brythonic language, which is the most common class of languages spoken across what is now the UK(ish) that predates the Roman invasion in 55/54BC and 43 AD. It's way older than English. Other living examples include Scottish, Irish, Cornish (revived) and Bretton (off of France). There are, of course, dialects and so on. I think it is absolutely delightful that a small part of Patagonia speaks Welsh. In a world hell bent on painting itself beige this is a lovely thing. Diversity is important in all walks of life.

iandioch 1y ago
FWIW, Scottish and Irish (and their sister Manx) are not Brythonic, they are in the other branch of extant Celtic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic.
- elcritch 1y ago
  > Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic form the Goidelic languages, while Welsh, Cornish and Breton are Brittonic. All of these are Insular Celtic languages, Yeah though Brythonic and Goidelic both are considered to inherit from Insular Celtic. So it’s not completely off base. My fiancé is Welsh but only speaks a few words. Despite many Welsh not speaking it now there’s more active Welsh speakers than Irish Gaelic speakers! I spent some time in North Wales last summer where it’s still commonly spoken. It’s fascinating to hear Welsh. It’s not related to any Germanic or French or others so there’s little vocabulary shared with English aside from some loan words. Even the phonetics are quite strange sounding compared to other European languages. https://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2577.php https://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2577.ph...
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > It’s fascinating to hear Welsh. It’s not related to any Germanic or French or others so there’s little vocabulary shared with English aside from some loan words. Celtic is a branch of Indo-European, so the relationship exists. Naively, it's about as closely related to English (Germanic), and to French (Italic), as English is to French. The closest cognate that comes to mind between English and Welsh is "apple", afal in Welsh. If you believe the Italo-Celtic hypothesis, Welsh would be more closely related to French than English is. Browsing https://www.omniglot.com/language/celtic/connections/index.php https://www.omniglot.com/language/celtic/connections/index.p... shows some other cognates: Welsh enaid (soul) is cognate with Spanish alma (soul). Welsh asyn is "cognate" with English ass (the animal), in the sense that Celtic and Germanic each separately borrowed the word from Latin asinus and the modern words are inherited independently. For this reason, the word is also "cognate" with French âne. Welsh benyw (woman) is cognate with English queen (which used to mean "woman"). Welsh blodyn (flower) is cognate with English blossom. (And maybe also bloom.) Welsh buwch (cow) is cognate with English cow. (Although buwch really looks like it should be related to bovine, this does not appear to be the case. But we can see that the b- beginning the Welsh word here matches the b- beginning benyw, corresponding to kw- in English. This is also what happened in cow -- Celtic reduced gw- to b-. In this case, Germanic reduced gw- to k-; in queen, gw- became kw-.) Welsh bol (stomach) is cognate with English belly. And I haven't even gotten through the Bs. Cognates are fairly common. This wasn't even a list of Celtic words that are cognate with English words; it was a list of Celtic words that are cognate with other Celtic words.
    - elcritch 1y ago
      > as English is to French. For basic grammar sure, but English has what 30-40% of its vocabulary from French? There's also a lot of influence from Latin and Greek in English as well. Likely it's just less cross-cultural sharing from Welsh into English. We get much more exposed to more tidbits from romance languages or German in English than we do Welsh or Gaelic. > Italo-Celtoc hypothesis Fascinating! Something to read up on.
      - michaelscott 1y ago
        Yeah correct, the French relationship with modern English is much closer because of (among other reasons) the Norman conquest that happened long after the Indo-European split and much closer to our time
      - thaumasiotes 1y ago
        > but English has what 30-40% of its vocabulary from French? You have to be careful what you're counting when you quote figures like that. Here is your comment, but including only the words derived from French: ----- ... basic grammar sure, ............. influence ... Latin ...... just .... cultural .......... exposed† ..... Romance languages ................. † exposed is unlike "normal" French-derived words in English in that it is not derived from Old French; the equivalent from Old French is expound(ed), and even there I'm not sure why we have ex- instead of es-. I might credit exposed more to Latin than French. ----- Here's English: ----- for xxxx xxxx xxxx, but English has what 30 to 40 xxxx of its xxxx from French? There's also a lot of xxxx from xxxx and xxxx in English as well. Likely it's xxxx less xxxx-xxxx sharing from Welsh into English. We xxxx much more xxxx to more tidbits from xxxx xxxx or xxxx in English than we do Welsh or xxxx. xxxx! Something to read up on. ----- 53 / 71 words (including Welsh, but not Gaelic) are native English. (Welsh ultimately derives from the name of a Celtic tribe known to us from Roman writers. In Germanic, the name became a generic word for foreigners. I think it's fair to call it English; it was already like that in proto-Germanic. Gaelic is more recent.) 10 / 71 words, including the somewhat questionable exposed, are from French. 5 are Latin, two are Norse, and then there's Gaelic. Greek is not represented except in the -ic ending on Gaelic (or basic). If you're listening to someone speak English, knowing French is unlikely to be worth much.
  - elric 1y ago
    > Despite many Welsh not speaking it now there’s more active Welsh speakers than Irish Gaelic speakers! I wanted to learn Welsh when I was living in Wales back in the 00s, but I couldn't find anywhere to take lessons that wasn't ridiculously expensive. I picked up bits and bobs over the years, but hardly anyone speaks it on a regular basis in the south, so I never got that much exposure.
    - defrost 1y ago
      If you like a challenge or know any half decent private torrent trackers, there are a number of dual welsh | english audio and subtitled tv series about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Welsh_television_programmes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Welsh_television_progr...
    - nacnud 1y ago
      "Death Valley" is a recent gentle comedic crime detective series on the BBC (iPlayer), set in Wales and the characters frequently break into Welsh (with English subtitles). It's lovely to hear!
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > Scottish ...is not a term for any language. In Scotland, you might want to talk about Scots (a Germanic language) or Scots Gaelic (a Gaelic one). Annoyingly, "Irish Gaelic" (the English phrase) uses the pronunciation /geɪlɪk/ (first syllable rhymes with "pale"), while "Scots Gaelic" uses /gælɪk/ (first syllable rhymes with "pal").
  - Theodores 1y ago
    Scots is fascinating and the overlap with English is something those that live down south (England) don't really understand as it is more than an accent that is going on. Coupled with Scots there are accents, such as Glaswegian, which is very difficult for outsiders to understand. This is why Scottish people have their 'telephone voice' for when they need to communicate with English speakers that are not Scottish. 'Telephone voice' means speaking s-l-o-w-l-y and using words that are more widely understood, so 'wee' becomes 'little' or 'small'. In the parts of Wales where Welsh is spoken, an English person isn't going to understand a word of it unless hearing a word is for something new, so 'helicopter' is still 'helicopter'. Everyone that speaks Welsh can speak English just fine, with a Welsh accent, but there won't be substitute words, so 'yes' is 'yes', whereas in Scots, that will be 'aye'. As for Scots Gaelic, good point on the pronunciation. That language is on artificial life support, much like Welsh, where there has to be considerable government initiatives to keep it alive.
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      I have found some regional Scots to sound eerily like some variant of Danish.
      - walthamstow 1y ago
        Danish to me sounds like northern English, especially Yorkshire, which historically makes a lot of sense. Yorkshire people pronounce the O in phone as Ø.
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      > That language is on artificial life support, much like Welsh, where there has to be considerable government initiatives to keep it alive. I am endlessly amused by the introductions in this video, describing the significance of English in each guest's home country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dQiA8lz45c#t=378 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dQiA8lz45c#t=378 [Scotland] Scotland - it's quite a small country, there's not a large population, but we obviously we used to have Scots Gaelic, which was our national language but then, eh... something eh... [England pointedly looks in the other direction] another country came over and uh, kind of, uh... I think, honestly, the percentage of people who speak Scots Gaelic is one percent. But now everyone speaks English... [...] [Wales] We... are probably one of the most patriotic bred people here. That's a bold claim. [video cuts] that we have to be very proud of our culture and our language because, uh, similar history with Scotland... so our language was on the edge of dying out, but, it sounds really different to English. Most people don't know that [...] [Ireland] Oh, yeah, so... Ireland is similar with Wales and Scotland with the... [gestures to England] our friend... The Scotsman and the Irish girl speak only English, but the Welsh girl was raised speaking Welsh, so there does appear to be some comparative health.
School-Cotton 1y ago
> It's way older than English What does it mean for one language to be older than another? They are both Indo-European languages, so they are descended from a common ancestor and have each been continually evolving since then.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  What does it mean for me to be older than my sister, when we have exactly the same ancestry?
  - School-Cotton 1y ago
    It means you were born before her, but that analogy doesn't work, as there is no event in the known history of English or Welsh that corresponds in an obvious way to "being born". It's more like saying that humans are (as a species) older than bonobos -- it's not even clear what that means let alone whether or not it's true. There is no identifiable specific date at which people were speaking something recognizably "Welsh" or recognizably "English" (as opposed to proto-Indo-European). Both those languages have been evolving continuously, changing slightly every generation, from the point at which they were the same language thousands of years ago until today. Just like there is no specific identifiable date at which a generation of organisms was born that was bonobos or humans rather than proto-Great Apes.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      > Just like there is no specific identifiable date at which a generation of organisms was born that was bonobos or humans rather than proto-Great Apes. And yet you can talk about certain species being older than another can you not?
      - School-Cotton 1y ago
        No, I don't think you can. What would it mean?
kitd 1y ago
My father grew up speaking Welsh at home. Years later, on a family holiday to Brittany, we heard some local old men speaking Breton. My dad was able to understand much of what they were saying. I had never realised the languages were that close.
pbhjpbhj 1y ago
Cymraeg dates to many years after the Roman occupation. English was only established as the British language by Henry VII, so preceding it isn't hard.
foxglacier 1y ago
How is diversity of languages important or even good? Language only works when it's not diverse so people can understand each other.
- Daishiman 1y ago
  Language extends and limits thought. Languages can have remarkable differences in their expressiveness and that enriches the minds of those who speak them. It's not wonder that being a polyglot has supposed cognitive benefits.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    There are some who hold those beliefs, but they give only extremely weak arguments. It's hard to imagine that the benefits of learning and thinking in one language rather than another outweigh the benefits of learning a language like English that gives a person access to a vast literature and vast economic and social opportunities. I am not distressed by the thought of an adult's deciding to learn Welsh as a hobby just as I'm not distressed by an adult's spending time on any hobby, but it is painful for me to image a child's being taught an obscure language like Welsh out of some almost-certainly-false belief that it will give him or her access to powerful modes of thought that are unavailable to speakers of other languages. It strikes me as almost mistreating the child to restrict his intellectual, social and economic opportunities in this way (unless the child can pick up second and third languages easily, which is not most children). I'm not saying that I understand how a language interacts with a developing child's brain well enough to say with confidence that Welsh cannot grant anyone the ability to think in ways that are not possible in other languages. I am open to having my mind changed. But nothing I've ever read over many conversations even begins to change my mind. It's all very simplistic argumentation, e.g., "Society teaches us that diversity is good; so clearly linguistic diversity must be good", e.g., "<<Sapir-Whorf hypothesis>> sure is an impressive term probably coined by super-smart professors, so it is probably true".
    - Daishiman 1y ago
      Are you a polyglot or is this sheer speculation?

iandioch 1y ago

FWIW, Scottish and Irish (and their sister Manx) are not Brythonic, they are in the other branch of extant Celtic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic.

elcritch 1y ago
> Irish, Manx and Scottish Gaelic form the Goidelic languages, while Welsh, Cornish and Breton are Brittonic. All of these are Insular Celtic languages, Yeah though Brythonic and Goidelic both are considered to inherit from Insular Celtic. So it’s not completely off base. My fiancé is Welsh but only speaks a few words. Despite many Welsh not speaking it now there’s more active Welsh speakers than Irish Gaelic speakers! I spent some time in North Wales last summer where it’s still commonly spoken. It’s fascinating to hear Welsh. It’s not related to any Germanic or French or others so there’s little vocabulary shared with English aside from some loan words. Even the phonetics are quite strange sounding compared to other European languages. https://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2577.php https://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article2577.ph...
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > It’s fascinating to hear Welsh. It’s not related to any Germanic or French or others so there’s little vocabulary shared with English aside from some loan words. Celtic is a branch of Indo-European, so the relationship exists. Naively, it's about as closely related to English (Germanic), and to French (Italic), as English is to French. The closest cognate that comes to mind between English and Welsh is "apple", afal in Welsh. If you believe the Italo-Celtic hypothesis, Welsh would be more closely related to French than English is. Browsing https://www.omniglot.com/language/celtic/connections/index.php https://www.omniglot.com/language/celtic/connections/index.p... shows some other cognates: Welsh enaid (soul) is cognate with Spanish alma (soul). Welsh asyn is "cognate" with English ass (the animal), in the sense that Celtic and Germanic each separately borrowed the word from Latin asinus and the modern words are inherited independently. For this reason, the word is also "cognate" with French âne. Welsh benyw (woman) is cognate with English queen (which used to mean "woman"). Welsh blodyn (flower) is cognate with English blossom. (And maybe also bloom.) Welsh buwch (cow) is cognate with English cow. (Although buwch really looks like it should be related to bovine, this does not appear to be the case. But we can see that the b- beginning the Welsh word here matches the b- beginning benyw, corresponding to kw- in English. This is also what happened in cow -- Celtic reduced gw- to b-. In this case, Germanic reduced gw- to k-; in queen, gw- became kw-.) Welsh bol (stomach) is cognate with English belly. And I haven't even gotten through the Bs. Cognates are fairly common. This wasn't even a list of Celtic words that are cognate with English words; it was a list of Celtic words that are cognate with other Celtic words.
  - elcritch 1y ago
    > as English is to French. For basic grammar sure, but English has what 30-40% of its vocabulary from French? There's also a lot of influence from Latin and Greek in English as well. Likely it's just less cross-cultural sharing from Welsh into English. We get much more exposed to more tidbits from romance languages or German in English than we do Welsh or Gaelic. > Italo-Celtoc hypothesis Fascinating! Something to read up on.
    - michaelscott 1y ago
      Yeah correct, the French relationship with modern English is much closer because of (among other reasons) the Norman conquest that happened long after the Indo-European split and much closer to our time
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      > but English has what 30-40% of its vocabulary from French? You have to be careful what you're counting when you quote figures like that. Here is your comment, but including only the words derived from French: ----- ... basic grammar sure, ............. influence ... Latin ...... just .... cultural .......... exposed† ..... Romance languages ................. † exposed is unlike "normal" French-derived words in English in that it is not derived from Old French; the equivalent from Old French is expound(ed), and even there I'm not sure why we have ex- instead of es-. I might credit exposed more to Latin than French. ----- Here's English: ----- for xxxx xxxx xxxx, but English has what 30 to 40 xxxx of its xxxx from French? There's also a lot of xxxx from xxxx and xxxx in English as well. Likely it's xxxx less xxxx-xxxx sharing from Welsh into English. We xxxx much more xxxx to more tidbits from xxxx xxxx or xxxx in English than we do Welsh or xxxx. xxxx! Something to read up on. ----- 53 / 71 words (including Welsh, but not Gaelic) are native English. (Welsh ultimately derives from the name of a Celtic tribe known to us from Roman writers. In Germanic, the name became a generic word for foreigners. I think it's fair to call it English; it was already like that in proto-Germanic. Gaelic is more recent.) 10 / 71 words, including the somewhat questionable exposed, are from French. 5 are Latin, two are Norse, and then there's Gaelic. Greek is not represented except in the -ic ending on Gaelic (or basic). If you're listening to someone speak English, knowing French is unlikely to be worth much.
- elric 1y ago
  > Despite many Welsh not speaking it now there’s more active Welsh speakers than Irish Gaelic speakers! I wanted to learn Welsh when I was living in Wales back in the 00s, but I couldn't find anywhere to take lessons that wasn't ridiculously expensive. I picked up bits and bobs over the years, but hardly anyone speaks it on a regular basis in the south, so I never got that much exposure.
  - defrost 1y ago
    If you like a challenge or know any half decent private torrent trackers, there are a number of dual welsh | english audio and subtitled tv series about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Welsh_television_programmes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Welsh_television_progr...
  - nacnud 1y ago
    "Death Valley" is a recent gentle comedic crime detective series on the BBC (iPlayer), set in Wales and the characters frequently break into Welsh (with English subtitles). It's lovely to hear!
thaumasiotes 1y ago
> Scottish ...is not a term for any language. In Scotland, you might want to talk about Scots (a Germanic language) or Scots Gaelic (a Gaelic one). Annoyingly, "Irish Gaelic" (the English phrase) uses the pronunciation /geɪlɪk/ (first syllable rhymes with "pale"), while "Scots Gaelic" uses /gælɪk/ (first syllable rhymes with "pal").
- Theodores 1y ago
  Scots is fascinating and the overlap with English is something those that live down south (England) don't really understand as it is more than an accent that is going on. Coupled with Scots there are accents, such as Glaswegian, which is very difficult for outsiders to understand. This is why Scottish people have their 'telephone voice' for when they need to communicate with English speakers that are not Scottish. 'Telephone voice' means speaking s-l-o-w-l-y and using words that are more widely understood, so 'wee' becomes 'little' or 'small'. In the parts of Wales where Welsh is spoken, an English person isn't going to understand a word of it unless hearing a word is for something new, so 'helicopter' is still 'helicopter'. Everyone that speaks Welsh can speak English just fine, with a Welsh accent, but there won't be substitute words, so 'yes' is 'yes', whereas in Scots, that will be 'aye'. As for Scots Gaelic, good point on the pronunciation. That language is on artificial life support, much like Welsh, where there has to be considerable government initiatives to keep it alive.
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    I have found some regional Scots to sound eerily like some variant of Danish.
    - walthamstow 1y ago
      Danish to me sounds like northern English, especially Yorkshire, which historically makes a lot of sense. Yorkshire people pronounce the O in phone as Ø.
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    > That language is on artificial life support, much like Welsh, where there has to be considerable government initiatives to keep it alive. I am endlessly amused by the introductions in this video, describing the significance of English in each guest's home country: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dQiA8lz45c#t=378 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dQiA8lz45c#t=378 [Scotland] Scotland - it's quite a small country, there's not a large population, but we obviously we used to have Scots Gaelic, which was our national language but then, eh... something eh... [England pointedly looks in the other direction] another country came over and uh, kind of, uh... I think, honestly, the percentage of people who speak Scots Gaelic is one percent. But now everyone speaks English... [...] [Wales] We... are probably one of the most patriotic bred people here. That's a bold claim. [video cuts] that we have to be very proud of our culture and our language because, uh, similar history with Scotland... so our language was on the edge of dying out, but, it sounds really different to English. Most people don't know that [...] [Ireland] Oh, yeah, so... Ireland is similar with Wales and Scotland with the... [gestures to England] our friend... The Scotsman and the Irish girl speak only English, but the Welsh girl was raised speaking Welsh, so there does appear to be some comparative health.

School-Cotton 1y ago

> It's way older than English What does it mean for one language to be older than another? They are both Indo-European languages, so they are descended from a common ancestor and have each been continually evolving since then.

AlecSchueler 1y ago
What does it mean for me to be older than my sister, when we have exactly the same ancestry?
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  It means you were born before her, but that analogy doesn't work, as there is no event in the known history of English or Welsh that corresponds in an obvious way to "being born". It's more like saying that humans are (as a species) older than bonobos -- it's not even clear what that means let alone whether or not it's true. There is no identifiable specific date at which people were speaking something recognizably "Welsh" or recognizably "English" (as opposed to proto-Indo-European). Both those languages have been evolving continuously, changing slightly every generation, from the point at which they were the same language thousands of years ago until today. Just like there is no specific identifiable date at which a generation of organisms was born that was bonobos or humans rather than proto-Great Apes.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    > Just like there is no specific identifiable date at which a generation of organisms was born that was bonobos or humans rather than proto-Great Apes. And yet you can talk about certain species being older than another can you not?
    - School-Cotton 1y ago
      No, I don't think you can. What would it mean?

kitd 1y ago

My father grew up speaking Welsh at home. Years later, on a family holiday to Brittany, we heard some local old men speaking Breton. My dad was able to understand much of what they were saying. I had never realised the languages were that close.

pbhjpbhj 1y ago

Cymraeg dates to many years after the Roman occupation. English was only established as the British language by Henry VII, so preceding it isn't hard.

foxglacier 1y ago

How is diversity of languages important or even good? Language only works when it's not diverse so people can understand each other.

Daishiman 1y ago
Language extends and limits thought. Languages can have remarkable differences in their expressiveness and that enriches the minds of those who speak them. It's not wonder that being a polyglot has supposed cognitive benefits.
- hollerith 1y ago
  There are some who hold those beliefs, but they give only extremely weak arguments. It's hard to imagine that the benefits of learning and thinking in one language rather than another outweigh the benefits of learning a language like English that gives a person access to a vast literature and vast economic and social opportunities. I am not distressed by the thought of an adult's deciding to learn Welsh as a hobby just as I'm not distressed by an adult's spending time on any hobby, but it is painful for me to image a child's being taught an obscure language like Welsh out of some almost-certainly-false belief that it will give him or her access to powerful modes of thought that are unavailable to speakers of other languages. It strikes me as almost mistreating the child to restrict his intellectual, social and economic opportunities in this way (unless the child can pick up second and third languages easily, which is not most children). I'm not saying that I understand how a language interacts with a developing child's brain well enough to say with confidence that Welsh cannot grant anyone the ability to think in ways that are not possible in other languages. I am open to having my mind changed. But nothing I've ever read over many conversations even begins to change my mind. It's all very simplistic argumentation, e.g., "Society teaches us that diversity is good; so clearly linguistic diversity must be good", e.g., "<<Sapir-Whorf hypothesis>> sure is an impressive term probably coined by super-smart professors, so it is probably true".
  - Daishiman 1y ago
    Are you a polyglot or is this sheer speculation?