Download or read book The Welsh Language written by Janet Davies and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The existence of the Welsh-language can come as a surprise to those who assume that English is the foundation language of Britain. However, J. R. R. Tolkien described Welsh as the 'senior language of the men of Britain'. Visitors from outside Wales may be intrigued by the existence of Welsh and will want to find out how a language which has, for at least fifteen hundred years, been the closest neighbour of English, enjoys such vibrancy, bearing in mind that English has obliterated languages thousands of miles from the coasts of England. This book offers a broad historical survey of Welsh-language culture from sixth-century heroic poetry to television and pop culture in the early twenty-first century. The public status of the language is considered and the role of Welsh is compared with the roles of other of the non-state languages of Europe. This new edition of The Welsh Language offers a full assessment of the implications of the linguistic statistics produced by the 2011 Census. The volume contains maps and plans showing the demographic and geographic spread of Welsh over the ages, charts examining the links between words in Welsh and those in other Indo-European languages, and illustrations of key publications and figures in the history of the language. It concludes with brief guides to the pronunciation, the dialects and the grammar of Welsh.

Download or read book The Four Ancient Books of Wales Containing the Cymric Poems Attributed to the Bards of the Sixth Century written by William Forbes Skene and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Why Wales Never Was written by Simon Brooks and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written as an act of protest in a Welsh-speaking community in north-west Wales, Why Wales Never Was combines a devastating analysis of the historical failure of Welsh nationalism with an apocalyptic vision of a non-Welsh future. It is the ‘progressive’ nature of Welsh politics and the ‘empire of the civic’, which rejects both language and culture, that prevents the colonised from rising up against his colonial master. Wales will always be a subjugated nation until modes of thought, dominant since the nineteenth century, are overturned. Originally a comment on Welsh acquiescence to Britishness at the time of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the book’s emphasis on the importance of European culture is a parable for Brexit times. Both deeply rooted in Welsh culture and European in scope, Why Wales Never Was brings together history, philosophy and politics in a way never tried before in Wales. First published in Welsh in 2015, Why Wales Never Was affirms the author’s reputation as one of the most radical writers in Wales today.

Download or read book Welsh Plural written by Darren Chetty and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the most exciting writers in and from Wales consider the future of Wales and the UK and their place in it. What does it mean to imagine Wales and ‘The Welsh’ as something both distinct and inclusive? In Welsh (Plural), some of the foremost Welsh writers consider the future of Wales and their place in it. For many people, Wales brings to mind the same old collection of images – if it’s not rugby, sheep and leeks, it’s the 3 Cs: castles, coal, and choirs. Heritage, mining and the church are indeed integral parts of Welsh culture. But what of the other stories that point us toward a Welsh future? In this anthology of essays, authors offer imaginative, radical perspectives on the future of Wales as they take us beyond the clichés and binaries that so often shape thinking about Wales and Welshness. Includes essays from Charlotte Williams (A Tolerant Nation?), Joe Dunthorne (Submarine, The Adulterants), Niall Griffiths (Sheepshagger, Broken Ghost), Rabab Ghazoul (Gentle / Radical Turner Prize Nominee), Mike Parker (On the Red Hill), Martin Johnes (Wales Since 1939, Wales: England’s Colony?), Kandace Siobhan Walker (2019 Guardian 4th Estate Prize Winner), Gary Raymond (Golden Orphans, Wales Arts Review, BBC Wales), Darren Chetty (The Good Immigrant), Andy Welch (The Guardian), Marvin Thompson (Winner 2021 UK Poetry Prize), Durre Shahwar (Where I’m Coming From), Hanan Issa (My Body Can House Two Hearts), Dan Evans (Desolation Radio), Shaheen Sutton, Morgan Owen, Iestyn Tyne, Grug Muse and Cerys Hafana.

Download or read book Wales Says Yes written by Richard Wyn Jones and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wales Says Yes provides the definitive account and analysis of the March 2011 Welsh referendum. Drawing on extensive historical research, the book explains the background to the referendum, why it was held, and what was at stake. The book also explains how the rival Yes and No campaigns emerged, and the varying degree of success with which they functioned. Through a detailed account of the results, and analysis of survey evidence on Welsh voters, the book explains why Wales voted Yes in March 2011. Finally, it considers what that result may mean for the future of both Wales and the UK.

Download or read book Life in a Welsh Countryside written by Alwyn D. Rees and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text describes and analyzes the culture of rural Wales through an investigation of the lives of the inhabitants of a parish in the Welsh countryside. An account of the economic life of the people and of the farms and cottages they lived in provides a background for a study of family life, the social significance of blood-ties, the activities of youth, the social intercourse between scattered farms and the interplay between rural neighbourhoods and hamlets. The latter part of the book deals with the role of religion, the social implications of denominationalism, leisure-time activities, the attitude of tenant to landlord, the connection between religion and politics, and the factors affecting social status and prestige.

Download or read book In the Shadow of the Pulpit written by M. Wynn Thomas and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2009-10-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ranging from the nineteenth-century to the present, this book explores several central aspects of the ways in which the English-language poetry and fiction of Wales has responded to what was, for a crucial period of a century or so, the dominant culture of Wales: the culture of Welsh Nonconformity. In the introduction, the author reflects on why no sustained attempt has hitherto been made to investigate one of the formative cultural influences on modern 'Anglo-Welsh' literature, the Nonconformist inheritance. The importance of addressing this strange and significant cultural deficit is then explained, and a preliminary attempt made to capture something of the spirit of Welsh Nonconformity. The succeeding chapters address and seek to answer such questions as: What exactly did the Welsh chapels believe and do? Why have the English-language writers of Wales, from Caradoc Evans and Dylan Thomas to R.S. Thomas and the authors of today, been so fascinated by them? How accurate are the impressions we've been given of chapel life and chapel people in the English-language poetry and fiction of Wales? The answers offered may alter our views both of the Welsh Nonconformist past and of Welsh writing in English. One of the ideas advanced is that many of Wales' most important writers went to war with the preachers in their texts, and that their work is therefore the site of cultural struggle. Theirs was a war in words waged to determine who would have the last word on modern Welsh experience.

Download or read book Wales Unchained written by Daniel G. Williams and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How was Welshness defined in the past? How do the Welsh define themselves today? Are discourses of race, class, gender and language compatible with one another? What are the political and cultural consequences of thinking of our identities in these terms? "Wales Unchained" explores the categories which have informed, and continue to inform, ideas of Wales and Welshness. In engaging discussion of figures such as Rhys Davies, Dylan Thomas, Raymond Williams, Aneurin Bevan and Gwyneth Lewis it aims to differentiate the aesthetic and political implications of identities based on class, language, race and gender. The volume explores the interaction between these elements in Welsh culture and society, and asks us to think anew about the bases of our conceptions of self and community. "

Download or read book Devolution in Wales written by John Gilbert Evans and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1937-1979 was a distinctive period in the political history of Wales. It began with a demand by MPs from all parties that a secretary of state be appointed, and ended in 1979 with the referendum on a Welsh assembly, the 'end of a era' in the words of Lord Cledwyn. This book shows how devolution was an issue in Welsh politics during the period under review, how British governments responded to devolutionists' demands, and how much was eventually conceded. Early on, two important developments were the setting up in 1949 of the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire and the appointment in 1951 of a minister for Welsh Affairs. Significantly the Council recommended in 1957 that a secretary of state be appointed and Labour acted on that proposal in 1964. The book examines the changing pattern of Labour thinking with regard to Wales and also the various nationalist challenges that threatened its dominance in the 1960s and 1970s. The referendum on the Labour government's devolution proposals is seen as bringing to an end a period in which both Labour and Conservative governments had been forced into a consideration of Welsh matters, and had been made to think about the precise way in which Wales should be administered within the British system.

Download or read book The Welsh in Iowa written by Cherilyn A Walley and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Welsh in Iowa is the history of the little known Welsh immigrant communities in the American Midwestern state of Iowa. Dr. Walley’s book identifies what made the Welsh unique as immigrants to North America, and as migrants and settlers in a land built on such groups. With research rooted in documentary evidence and supplemented with community and oral histories, The Welsh in Iowa preserves and examines Welsh culture as it was expressed in middle America by the farmers and coal miners who settled or passed through the prairie state as it grew to maturity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This work seeks to not only document the Welsh immigrants who lived in Iowa, but to study the Welsh as a distinct ethnic group in a state known for its ethnic heritage.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature written by Geraint Evans and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-18 with total page 857 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a comprehensive single-volume history of literature in the two major languages of Wales from post-Roman to post-devolution Britain.

Download or read book Welsh Americans written by Ronald L. Lewis and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1890, more than 100,000 Welsh-born immigrants resided in the United States. A majority of them were skilled laborers from the coal mines of Wales who had been recruited by American mining companies. Readily accepted by American society, Welsh immigrants experienced a unique process of acculturation. In the first history of this exceptional community, Ronald Lewis explores how Welsh immigrants made a significant contribution to the development of the American coal industry and how their rapid and successful assimilation affected Welsh American culture. Lewis describes how Welsh immigrants brought their national churches, fraternal orders and societies, love of literature and music, and, most important, their own language. Yet unlike eastern and southern Europeans and the Irish, the Welsh--even with their "foreign" ways--encountered no apparent hostility from the Americans. Often within a single generation, Welsh cultural institutions would begin to fade and a new "Welsh American" identity developed. True to the perspective of the Welsh themselves, Lewis's analysis adopts a transnational view of immigration, examining the maintenance of Welsh coal-mining culture in the United States and in Wales. By focusing on Welsh coal miners, Welsh Americans illuminates how Americanization occurred among a distinct group of skilled immigrants and demonstrates the diversity of the labor migrations to a rapidly industrializing America.

Download or read book Glue written by Irvine Welsh and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2001-05-17 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic novel about the bonds of friendship from the author of Trainspotting. The story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh projects, Glue is about the loyalties, the experiences, and the secrets that hold friends together through three decades. The boys become men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer, driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally, exceedingly thin-skinned and vulnerable to catastrophe at every turn. We follow their lives from the seventies into the new century—from punk to techno, from speed to E. Their mutual loyalty is fused in street morality: Back up your mates, don't hit women, and, most important, never snitch—on anyone. Glue has the Irvine Welsh trademarks—crackling dialogue, scabrous set pieces, and black, black humor—but it is also a grown-up book about growing up; about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.

Download or read book Wales written by Jan Morris and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jan Morris's magnificent book celebrates Wales and all things Welsh. Written as a deeply personal study, it reflects the rich bilingual literature and folklore of Wales, the buildings and wonderfully varied landscapes, the national character and humour, the historical predicaments and the political condition of this small but extraordinary country. Jan Morris is a distinguished historian as well as being one of the world's leading travel-writers. Her passionate love of Wales makes this a unique evocation.

Download or read book The Welsh Girl written by Peter Ho Davies and published by HMH. This book was released on 2013-08-16 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A WWII-era Welsh barmaid begins a secret relationship with a German POW in this “beautiful” novel by the author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (Ann Patchett). Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Set in the stunning landscape of North Wales just after D-Day, this critically acclaimed debut novel traces the intersection of disparate lives in wartime. When a prisoner-of-war camp is established near her village, seventeen-year-old barmaid Esther Evans finds herself strangely drawn to the camp and its forlorn captives. She is exploring the camp boundary when an astonishing thing occurs: A young German corporal calls out to her from behind the fence. From that moment on, the two begin an unlikely—and perilous—romance. Meanwhile, a German-Jewish interrogator travels to Wales to investigate Britain’s most notorious Nazi prisoner, Rudolf Hess. In this richly drawn and thought-provoking “tour de force,” all will come to question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity (The New Yorker). “If you loved The English Patient, there’s probably a place in your heart for The Welsh Girl.” —USA Today “Davies’s characters are marvelously nuanced.” —Los Angeles Times “Beautifully conjures a place and its people, in an extraordinary time . . . A rare gem.” —Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs “This first novel by Davies, author of two highly praised short story collections, has been anticipated—and, with its wonderfully drawn characters, it has been worth the wait.” —Booklist, starred review

Download or read book Postcolonial Wales written by Jane Aaron and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of diverse essays discussing the culture and politics of post-devolution Wales. 10 black-and-white illustrations.

Download or read book The Arthur of the Welsh written by Rachel Bromwich and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description: This volume is unique in offering a comprehensive discussion of the Arthurian legend in Medieval Welsh literature. Little, if anything, is known historically of Arthur, yet for centuries the romances of Arthur and his court dominated the imaginative literature of Europe in many languages. The roots of this vast flowering of the Arthurian legend are to be found in early Welsh tradition and this volume gives an account of the Arthurian literature produced in Wales, in both Welsh and Latin, during the Middle Ages. The distinguished contributors offer a comprehensive view of recent scholarship relating to Arthurian literature in early Welsh and other Brythonic sources.