Wilisc sprǣc
{{Languagebox_begin | name= Ƿielisc | nativename=Cymraeg}}
{{Languagebox_spoken | value = [[Wēalas|Ƿēalas]], [[Argentina]], [[Englaland]], [[Geānlǣhtan Rīcu American]], [[Canada]], [[Australia]], [[Nīwe Sǣland|Nīƿe Sǣland]]}}
{{Languagebox_speakers | value = 580,000}}
{{Languagebox_ranking | value = -}}
{{Languagebox_genetic_begin}}
{{Languagebox_genetic_1 | value = [[Indo-Europisc geþēodan|Indo-Europisc]]}}
{{Languagebox_genetic_2 | value = [[Celtisc geþēodan|Celtisc]]}} 
{{Languagebox_genetic_3 | value = [[Bretwielisc geþēodan|Insular]] }}
{{Languagebox_genetic_4 | value = [[Brythonisc geþēodan|Brythonisc]]}}
{{Languagebox_genetic_5 | value = '''Ƿielisc'''}}
{{Languagebox_genetic_end}}
{{Languagebox_section_official_status}}
{{Languagebox_official_language | value = [[Wēalas|Ƿēalas]]}}
{{Languagebox_regulated | value = -}}
{{Languagebox_section_language_codes}}
{{Languagebox_iso_1 | value = cy}}
{{Languagebox_iso_2 | value = cym, wel}}
{{Languagebox_sil | value = WLS}}
{{Languagebox_end}}

Sēo '''Ƿielisce sprǣc''' (''Cymraeg'', ''y Gymraeg'') is geþēode in þǣm [[Brythonisc sprǣc|Brythoniscan]] undergeþēodcynne, in þǣm [[Celtisc sprǣc|Celtisc]] geþēodcynne.  Man hīe spricþ gecyndelīce in þǣm ƿesternan scēatum [[Brytten]]e, gehāten [[Wēalas|Ƿēalas]] (''[[Cymru]]''), and in þǣm [[Chubut Cumb]]e, Ƿieliscan landbūnesse in þǣm scēate [[Patagonia|Patagonie]] in [[Argentina|Argentine]].

Þǣr sind ēac sume Ƿielisce spreceras in [[Englaland]]e, in þǣm [[Geānlǣhtan Rīcu American|Geānlǣhtum Rīcum American]], [[Canada]]n, and [[Australia|Australie]], and in þǣre ƿorulde þurh.

<!-- MAN SCEALL ÞES AWENDAN
==Status==

The [[2001]] census gives a figure of 20.5% of the population of Wales as Welsh speakers (up from 18.5% in [[1991]]), out of a population of about 3 million; however, it appears that about a third of the population of Wales has immigrated within the last 30 years.

Even among the Welsh-speakers, few residents of Wales are monolingual in Welsh.  However, a large number of Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English.  Spreceres cyre his sprǽce cann vary according to the subject domain (known in linguistics as [[code-switching]]).

Although Welsh is a minority language, and thus threatened by the dominance of [[English language|English]], support for the language grew during the second half of the [[twentieth century]], along with the rise of [[nationalism|nationalist]] political organisations such as the political party [[Plaid Cymru]] and [[Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg]] (the Welsh Language Society).

Welsh as a first language is largely restricted to the less urban north and west of Wales, principally [[Gwynedd]], [[Merioneth]], [[Anglesey]] (M&ocirc;n), [[Carmarthenshire]], North [[Pembrokeshire]], [[Ceredigion]], and parts of West [[Glamorgan]].

Welsh is very much a living language. It is used in conversation every day, and seen in Wales everywhere. Local government (including the [[Welsh Assembly]]) uses Welsh as its official language, public bodies issue official literature and publicity in Welsh versions (e.g. letters to parents from schools, library information, and council information) and all road signs in Wales are in English and Welsh, including the Welsh versions of place names (although some of these are recent inventions based on the English names).

[[image:wales.cardiff.slow.arp.750pix.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Bilingual road markings in Wales]]

The UK government has ratified the [[European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages]] in respect to Welsh.

The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel [[S4C]] in November [[1982]], which broadcasts exclusively in Welsh during peak viewing hours. The main evening television news provided by the [[BBC]] can be found [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/live/newyddion.ram here] (Real Media).

Given the British Government's current plans (December [[2001]]) to ensure that all immigrants know English, it remains to be seen if Welsh will be considered a separate case. At present, a knowledge of either Welsh, English or [[Scottish Gaelic]] is sufficient for [[naturalisation]] purposes and it is believed that this policy will be continued in any proposed changes to the law.

==Stǣr and development==

Like most languages, there are identifiable periods within the history of Welsh, although the boundaries between these are often indistinct.

The earliest extant sources of a language identifiable as Welsh go back to about the [[6th century]], and the language of this period is known as ''Early Welsh''. Very little of this language remains.  The next main period, somewhat better attested, is ''Old Welsh'' ([[9th century|9th]] to [[11th century|11th]] centuries); this was the language of the laws of [[Hywel Dda]], as well as some [[poetry]] from both Wales and [[Scotland]].  As Anglo-Saxon colonisation of Great Britain proceeded, the Celtic-speakers in Wales were split off from those in northern England, speaking [[Cumbrian language|Cumbrian]], and those in the south-west, speaking what would become [[Cornish language|Cornish]], and so the languages diverged.

''Middle Welsh'' (or ''Cymraeg Canol'') is the label attached to the Welsh of the [[12th century|12th]] to [[14th century|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. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker.

Modern Welsh can be divided into two periods. The first, ''Early Modern Welsh'' ran from the [[14th century]] to roughly the end of the [[16th century]], and was the language used by [[Dafydd ap Gwilym]].  '''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 of the Bible|King James Version]], this proved to have a strong stabilising effect on the language, and indeed the language today still bears the same ''Late Modern'' label as Morgan's language. Of course, many minor changes have occurred since then.

==Grammar==

As well as sharing many of the characteristics of other [[Indo-European]] languages (such as a masculine and feminine [[grammatical gender]]), Welsh has a number of distinctive grammatical features, shared by other Celtic languages.  Hér sind féawe:
* ''[[Initial consonant mutation]]''. The first letter of a word in Welsh may change depending on grammatical context. For example, the word for "stone" is "carreg", but "the stone" is "y garreg" (soft mutation), "my stone" is "fy ngharreg" (nasal mutation) and "her stone" is "ei charreg" (aspirate mutation). The examples show usage in the [[standard language]]; usage of the nasal and aspirate mutations varies in spoken Welsh.
* ''[[Inflected language|Inflected]] (or [[Grammatical conjugation|conjugated]]) [[preposition]]s''. Most prepositions in Welsh change their form when followed by a [[pronoun]]. For example, "to Eleri" is "i Eleri", but "to him" is "iddo fe" and "to her" is "iddi hi".
* ''No [[indefinite article]]''. So "cath" can mean "cat" or "a cat".  (A [[definite article]] does exist, however.  Thus, "y gath" means "the cat".)
* ''[[genitive case|Genitive]] construction.'' The genitive in Welsh is formed by putting two noun phrases next to each other, the owner coming ''second''. This is almost analogous to a silent English "of". So English "The cat's mother," or "mother of the cat," becomes Welsh "mam y gath" - literally, "mother the cat"; "the man's car's windows" is "ffenestri car y dyn" &mdash; literally, "windows car the man".
* ''Possessives as object [[pronoun]]s''. The Welsh for "I like Rhodri" is "Dw i'n hoffi Rhodri" ("I am liking Rhodri"), but "I like ''him''" is "dw i'n ''ei'' hoffi fe" - literally, "I am ''his'' liking him"; "I like ''you''" is "dw i'n ''dy'' hoffi di" ("I am ''your'' liking you"), etc.
* ''Significant use of [[auxiliary verb]]s''. While English can either use verbs directly (e.g. ''I go'') or with the aid of an auxiliary verb (''I am going'', here using ''to be'' as the auxiliary), Welsh inclines very strongly towards the latter use. In the [[present tense]] all verbs are used with the auxiliary ''bod'' (to be), so ''dwi'n mynd'' is literally ''I am going'', but also means simply ''I go''. In the [[past tense|past]] and [[future tense|future]] tenses, there are [[inflected language|inflected]] forms of all verbs, but it is more common in speech to use the '''verbnoun''' (''berfenw'', loosely equal to the [[infinitive]] in English) together with the inflected form of ''gwneud'' (to do), so ''I went'' can be ''mi es i'' or ''mi wnes i fynd'' and ''I will go'' can be ''mi &aacute; i'' or ''mi wna i fynd''. There is also a future form using the auxiliary ''bod'', giving ''fydda i'n mynd'' (perhaps best translated as ''I will be going'') and an [[imperfect tense]] (a continuous/habitual past tense) also using ''bod'', with ''roeddwn i'n mynd'' meaning ''I used to go/I was going''.

==Pronunciation guide==
<table border="1" style="font-family: Arial Unicode MS, Lucida Sans Unicode, sans-serif;">
<tr><td>a</td><td>As in father</td></tr>
<tr><td>c</td><td>As in cat</td></tr>
<tr><td>ch</td><td>[[Voiceless uvular fricative]] (or [[voiceless velar fricative|velar]]). Similar to German ch, Spanish j, and can be pronounced as the Scottish would pronounce lo<em>ch</em></td></tr>
<tr><td>dd</td><td>Soft, as th in that: ''ddogfen'' (document) DHOG-ven. [[IPA]] uses an [[Eth (letter)|eth]] /&eth;/; [[SAMPA chart for English|SAMPA]] [<tt>D</tt>], not [<tt>T</tt>] or [<tt>d</tt>]</td></tr>
<tr><td>f</td><td>As in of</td></tr>
<tr><td>ff</td><td>As in off</td></tr>
<tr><td>g</td><td>As in get, gone</td></tr>
<tr><td>ll</td><td>[[Lateral voiceless alveolar fricative]]. Found also in [[Navajo]], where it is written as crossed l and in some (north-west) caucasian languages where it is spelled l followed by the hard sign ([[Cyrillic alphabet]]). The [[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]] signifies this sound as l with belt (may or may not render as &#620; or [[Image:Xsampa-K2.png]]); [[X-SAMPA]] uses an uppercase K. This sound used to exist in English as ''hl'' &mdash; the Old English word for "loaf" was "hlaf", /&#620;af/</td></tr>
<tr><td>mh</td><td>m followed by aspiration</td></tr>
<tr><td>nh</td><td>n followed by aspiration</td></tr>
<tr><td>ngh</td><td>ng followed by aspiration</td></tr>
<tr><td>rh</td><td>r followed by aspiration</td></tr>
<tr><td>si</td><td>sh when followed by a vowel (a,e,i,o,u,w,y), e.g. "''Sipsiwn''" (Gypsies) is pronounced ''sip-shoon''</td></tr>
<tr><td>th</td><td>Hard as th in think. [[IPA]] uses a [[theta]] /&theta;/; [[SAMPA chart for English|SAMPA]] [<tt>T</tt>], not [<tt>D</tt>]</td></tr>
<tr><td>u</td><td>Same as i (in southern dialects), or as an unrounded u (northern dialects)</td></tr>
<tr><td>w</td><td>As oo in soon. Also forms diphthongs: ''well'', ''pwy'', ''brown'' (which rhymes with English grown, not brown).</td></tr>
<tr><td>y</td><td>As either vowel in the English word sunny, depending on position in the word</td></tr>
</table>

The stress in spoken Welsh is almost invariably on the penultimate syllable of a word; the few exceptions are indicated by the presence of an [[acute accent]] ('''&acute;'''), e.g. '''ffarw&eacute;l''' (''farewell'') - pronounced far-WEL. 

The placing of a [[diaeresis]] ('''&uml;''') above a vowel indicates that it is to be pronounced fully, not as part of a [[diphthong]], e.g. '''copïo''' (''to copy'') - pronounced cop-EE-o, not COP-yo). 

By far the commonest written accent in Welsh is the [[circumflex]] accent ('''&circ;''', known in Welsh as ''to bach'' or "little roof") which can appear above any of the seven vowels, a,e,i,o,u,w,y, to indicate that it is pronounced long, e.g. '''tîm''' (''team'') - pronounced TEEM. 

The positioning of the stress means that related words or concepts (or even plurals) can sound quite different, as syllables are added to the end of a word and the stress moves correspondingly, e.g.:
*Ysgrif &mdash; "US-griv" - an article or essay
*Ysgrifen &mdash; "us-GREE-ven" - writing
*Ysgrifeniadau &mdash; "us-griv-en-IAD-ai" - writings
*Ysgrifenedig &mdash; "us-griv-en-ED-ig" - written
*Ysgrifennu &mdash; "us-gri-VEN-ni" - to write
*Ysgrifennydd &mdash; "us-gri-VEN-ith" - a secretary
*Ysgrifennyddes &mdash; "us-gri-ven-UTH-es" - a female secretary
*Ysgrifenyddion &mdash; "us-gri-ven-UTH-ion" - secretaries

The connection between the Welsh word ''Ysgrif'' and the Latin ''Scribo'' is fairly clear, taking sound shifts similar to [[Grimm's Law]] into account.

Þá bócstafas ''j, k, q, v, x,'' and ''z'' do not exist in Welsh other than in anglicised forms like the name "Jones" and in other borrowings such as "garej" &mdash; garage. '''See [[Welsh alphabet]].'''

==Dialects==
Like any natural language, Wielisc hæfþ a number of different [[dialect]]s.

These are very evident in the spoken, and to a lesser extent the written, language. A convenient, if slightly simplistic, classification is into ''North Walian'' and ''South Walian'' forms (or "Gog" and "Hwntw" based on the word for North, ''gogledd'', and the South Walian word for "them over there"). The differences between dialects encompass vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar, although particularly in the last regard the differences are in fact relatively minor.

An example of the difference between North and South Walian usage would be the question "Do you want a cup of tea?". In the North this would typically be ''"Dach chi isio panad?"'', while in the South the question ''"Dych chi'n moyn dishgled?"'' would be more likely. An example of a pronunciation difference between Northern and Southern Welsh is the tendency of Southern dialects to "lisp" the letter "s", e.g. ''mis'', a month, would tend to be pronounced ''mees'' in the north, and ''meesh'' in the south.

In fact, the difference between dialects of modern spoken Welsh pale into insignificance compared to the difference between the spoken and literary languages. The latter is significantly more formal and is the language of Welsh translations of the [[Bible]], amongst other things (although the ''Beibl Cymraeg Newydd'' &mdash; New Welsh Bible &mdash; is significantly less formal than the traditional 1588 Bible). Although the question "do you want a cup of tea?" is not likely to occur in literary Welsh usage, if it did it would be along the lines of ''"a oes arnoch eisiau cwpanaid o de?"'', the corresponding spoken form would be ''"Chi eisiau paned o de?"''.

Amongst the characteristics of the literary, as against the spoken, language are a higher dependence on inflected verb forms, a shift in the usage of some of the tenses, a reduction in the explicit use of pronouns (since the information is usually conveyed in the verb/preposition inflections) and a greatly reduced tendency to substitute [[English language|English]] loanwords for native Welsh words.

[[Breton language|Breton]] and [[Cornish language|Cornish]] are quite closely-related languages.

==Wielisc in leornunge==
Man brycþ Wielisc in leornunge, and many Welsh universities are bilingual, most notably the [[University of Wales at Bangor]].
leornumghūs cildru in Wales sceallon leornan Wielisc oþ ieldum 16 wintra.
-->
{{betwuxwici|code=cy}}
==Sēo ēac==
*[[Getalu Brythoniscra sprǣca]]
*[[Wielisc Trahte|Ƿielisc Trahte]]
*[http://cy.wikipedia.org/ Ƿielisc Ƿicipǣdia]
*[[List of Wielisc principal areas by percentage Wieliscre sprǣce|List of Wielisc principal areas by percentage Ƿieliscre sprǣce]]
*[[Sprǣca in þǣm Geanlǣhtan Cynerīce]]

== Ūtƿeardliċan bendas ==

* [http://cy.wikipedia.org/ Ƿielisc Ƿicipǣdia]
* [http://www.gwybodiadur.co.uk gwybodiadur]
* [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Welsh-english/ Ƿielisc – Ƿebsteres Nīƿe Englisc Ƿordbōc] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060420003935/http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Welsh-english/ |date=2006-04-20 }}
<!-- MAN SCEALL ÞES AWENDAN
* The definitive historical dictionary of Welsh is Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (University of Wales Dictionary of the Welsh Language) http://www.cymru.ac.uk/geiriadur/ Work in progress on the Second Edition, including an embryonic on-line version, is at http://www.cymru.ac.uk/geiriadur/gpc_pdfs.htm
* [http://www.cymru.ac.uk/canolfan/ The University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies]
-->

[[Flocc:Sprǣca]]
[[Flocc:Wielisc sidaþing]]
Sēo Ƿielisce sprǣc (Cymraeg, y Gymraeg) is geþēode in þǣm Brythoniscan undergeþēodcynne, in þǣm Celtisc geþēodcynne.  Man hīe spricþ gecyndelīce in þǣm ƿesternan scēatum Bryttene, gehāten Ƿēalas (Cymru), and in þǣm Chubut Cumbe, Ƿieliscan landbūnesse in þǣm scēate Patagonie in Argentine.

Þǣr sind ēac sume Ƿielisce spreceras in Englalande, in þǣm Geānlǣhtum Rīcum American, Canadan, and Australie, and in þǣre ƿorulde þurh.

Sēo ēac
Getalu Brythoniscra sprǣca
Ƿielisc Trahte
Ƿielisc Ƿicipǣdia
List of Wielisc principal areas by percentage Ƿieliscre sprǣce
Sprǣca in þǣm Geanlǣhtan Cynerīce

 Ūtƿeardliċan bendas 

 Ƿielisc Ƿicipǣdia
 gwybodiadur
 Ƿielisc – Ƿebsteres Nīƿe Englisc Ƿordbōc 

Flocc:Sprǣca
Flocc:Wielisc sidaþing