The history of the Welsh language () spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh.
Origins Welsh evolved from British (Common Brittonic), the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Britons. Alternatively classified as Insular Celtic or P-Celtic, it probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and was probably spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth.Koch, pp. 291–292. During the Early Middle Ages, the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, evolving into Welsh and the other Brythonic languages (Breton, Cornish, and the extinct Cumbric). It is not clear when Welsh became distinct.Koch, p. 1757.
Primitive Welsh (550–800) Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around 550, and labelled the period between then and about 800 "Primitive Welsh". This Primitive Welsh may have been spoken in Wales, western England, and the Hen Ogledd ('Old North'), the Brythonic-speaking areas of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, and may therefore have been the ancestor of Cumbric as well as Welsh. Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time.
Old Welsh (800–1150)
The Welsh language in documents predating around 1150. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to 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.
Middle Welsh (12th–14th centuries)
Middle Welsh () 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 manuscripts of Welsh law. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker.
The famous cleric Gerald of Wales tells the story of King Henry II of England. During one of the King's many raids in the 12th century, Henry asked an old man of Pencader, Carmarthenshire, whether he thought the Welsh language had any chance:
My Lord king, this nation may now be harassed, weakened and decimated by your soldiery, as it has so often been by others in former times; but it will never be totally destroyed by the wrath of man, unless at the same time it is punished by the wrath of God. Whatever else may come to pass, I do not think that on the Day of Direst Judgement any race other than the Welsh, or any other language, will give answer to the Supreme Judge of all for this small corner of the earth.
Early Modern Welsh (1500–1588) Modern Welsh can be divided into two periods. The first, Early Modern Welsh, ran from the early 15th century to roughly the end of the 16th century.
In the Early Modern Welsh Period use of the Welsh language began to be restricted, such as with the passing of Henry VIII's 1536 Act of Union. Through this Act Wales was governed solely under English law. Only 150 words of this Act were concerned with the use of the Welsh language. Section 20 of the Act banned the use of the language in court proceedings and those who solely spoke Welsh and did not speak English could not hold government office. Wales was to be represented by 26 members of parliament who spoke English. Outside certain areas in Wales such as South Pembrokeshire, the vast majority of those living in Wales did not speak English, meaning that interpreters were regularly needed in order to conduct hearings. Before passing the Act many gentry and government officials already spoke English; however, the Act codified the class ruling of the English language, with numbers who were fluent in English rising significantly after its passing. The Act's primary function was to create uniform control over the now united England and Wales; however, it laid a foundation for the superiority of classes through the use of language. Welsh was now seen as a language spoken by the lower working classes, with those from higher classes seen superior and given roles in government for choosing to speak English over Welsh. This part of the Act was not repealed until 1993 under the Welsh Language Act.
Late Modern Welsh begins (1588) Late Modern Welsh began with the publication of William Morgan's translation of the Bible in 1588. Like its English counterpart, the King James Version, this proved to have a strong stabilizing effect on the language, and indeed the language today still bears the same Late Modern label as Morgan's language. Of course, many changes have occurred since then.
18th century In the 18th century Wales experienced the Welsh Methodist revival, and the growth of nonconformist denominations in Wales. Methodism promoted the idea of personal and individual reading of the Bible and scriptures, and that every person should be able to read the Bible. Consequently this encouraged mass literacy in Wales, most prominently with Griffith Jones' circulating schools (Welsh: Ysgolion cylchynol), which were three month courses taught by Jones to teach people to read and which travelled around Wales. They taught children in the day and both men and women in the evenings. His efforts were funded primarily by Bridget Bevan, and the education was conducted entirely through the Welsh language which was the only language for the poorer people they were educating. By Griffith Jones’s death in 1761, a total of 3,495 Circulating Schools had been conducted all over Wales. These schools continued to circulate until 1771, by which time the schools had educated over 200,000 people, more than half the Welsh population at the time. This made Wales the country with the highest rate of literacy in the world at the time.
The success of these school attracted international attention, with the Russian Empress Catherine the Great commissioned a report on the schools with a view to creating a similar system in Russia.
William Williams Pantycelyn was another prominent figure of the Methodist revival, and he was most prominent for his Welsh language writings primarily his hymns, but he also wrote poetry and prose as well. His most well known hymn is "Arglwydd, arwain trwy'r anialwch" (English: "Lord, lead thou through the wilderness"). This was soon translated into English by Peter Williams as "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" or "Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer". It is usually sung to the tune Cwm Rhondda by John Hughes.
19th century
The 19th century was a critical period in the history of the language and one that encompassed many contradictions. In 1800 Welsh was the main spoken language of the vast majority of Wales, with the only exceptions being some border areas and other places which had seen significant settlement, such as south Pembrokeshire; by the 1901 census, this proportion had declined to a little over half of the population, though the large increase in the total population over the century (due to the effects of industrialisation and in-migration) meant that the total number of Welsh speakers grew throughout the 19th century, peaking in the 1911 census at over one million even as the proportion of the Welsh population that could speak Welsh fell below 50% for the first time.J. W. Aitchison and H. Carter. Language, Economy and Society: The changing fortunes of the Welsh Language in the Twentieth Century. Cardiff. University of Wales Press. 2000.
Especially when compared to other stateless languages in Europe, Welsh boasted an extraordinarily active press, with poetry, religious writing, biography, translations, and, by the end of the century, novels all appearing in the language, as well as countless newspapers, journals and periodicals. An ongoing interest in antiquarianism ensured the dissemination of the language's medieval poetry and prose (such as the Mabinogion). A further development was the publication of some of the first complete and concise Welsh dictionaries. Early work by Welsh lexicographic pioneers such as Daniel Silvan Evans ensured that the language was documented as accurately as possible. Modern dictionaries such as (the University of Wales Dictionary) are direct descendants of these dictionaries.
Despite these outward signs of health, it was during the nineteenth century that English replaced Welsh as the most widely spoken language within the country. Wales, particularly the South Wales Coalfield, experienced significant population growth and in-migration (primarily from England and Ireland), which changed the linguistic profile of some areas (though other areas would remain Welsh-speaking despite the changes).
Learning English was enthusiastically encouraged; in contrast, Welsh was not taught or used as a medium of instruction in schools, many of which actively discouraged the use of Welsh using measures such as the Welsh Not. Welsh held no official recognition and had limited status under the British state. It did not become officially recognised as the language of Wales until the passing of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. Welsh was increasingly restricted in scope to the non-conformist religious chapels, who would teach children to read and write in Sunday schools. Individuals such as Matthew Arnold championed the virtues of Welsh literature whilst simultaneously advocating the replacement of Welsh as the everyday language of the country with English, and many Welsh speakers themselves such as David Davies and John Ceiriog Hughes advocated bilingualism, if not necessarily the extinction of Welsh.
By the end of the nineteenth century, English came to prevail in the large cities of south-east Wales. Welsh remained strong in the north-west and in parts of mid-Wales and south-west Wales. Rural Wales was a stronghold of the Welsh language, and so also were the industrial slate-quarrying communities of Caernarfonshire and Merionethshire.See: R. Merfyn Jones, The North Wales Quarrymen, 1874–1922. Bethesda and Dinorwig were the largest slate quarries in the world and the largest industrial concerns in North Wales. Welsh was the working language of the quarries and of the North Wales Quarry Workers' Union. It was also the language of the quarry communities. Many of the leading Welsh literary figures of the late 19th and 20th centuries had their roots in these quarrying communities – e.g. Kate Roberts; T. H. Parry-Williams; R. Williams Parry; Thomas Parry; W. J. Gruffydd; R. Silyn Roberts; T. Rowland Hughes; Ifor Williams; Gwenlyn Parry – as did a number of leading Welsh-speaking Labour MPs, including Cledwyn Hughes and Goronwy Roberts. Even in the industrial south east, the continuing strength of the Welsh language led the Independent Labour Party in 1911 to include Welsh-language pages in the Merthyr Pioneer – edited at Keir Hardie's request by T. E. Nicholas (Niclas y Glais). Many of the nonconformist churches throughout Wales were strongly associated with the Welsh language.
The defacto Welsh national anthem, 'Hen Wlad fy Nhadau' was composed in January 1856. The words were written by Evan James and the tune composed by his son, James James, both residents of Pontypridd.
20th century
Early census findings By the 20th century, the numbers of Welsh speakers were shrinking at a rate which suggested that the language would be extinct within a few generations.