Welsh English, or Wenglish

I have been slowly sifting through Celtic Radio (and exam period is nearly over, so will soon be even more into Celtic Radio!) and I've seen sections about the English of the Celtic nations as well as the native languages.

Wales does in fact have its own variation of English, which has no official status and to write in a document would be most unprofessional. However, it is a spoken language and to give you an idea of the langauges of Wales, when my American friend came to visit me in Swansea, we were in a restaurant and the waiter asked her a question IN ENGLISH, and she replied, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Welsh".

When coming to Wales, it might be an idea to understand some Welsh English as well as Standard Welsh.
I am in fact considering writing a short story in Welsh English, because Welsh writers often experiment with the Welsh dialects, I might experiment a bit with the English dialects!

Welsh English is often known as Wenglish and you can even buy books on it. Noteably, Talk Tidy.

Generally, Welsh English is the English Language with Welsh grammatical rules and some Welsh words. We use far more Welsh words than Standard English and of course the letter LL exists in our version of English!!

Here are some words in Welsh English:
clem = clue
is it? = really?
cawl = soup
bara = bread
aber = estuary
the bont = the bridge
the graig = a rocky hill

Some Welsh English words are unclear whether they are actually Welsh or not. A lot of people who do not speak a word of Welsh do not realise that they are pronouncing things the Welsh way. These tend to be words like game, train, open, close.

Do write a story in Welsh English. I want to read it!

Actually I love to hear the Welsh speak English with the Welsh accent. I'm always dissapointed when news casters of BBC Wales speak like the English without trace of Welshness.

One interviewer, she was speaking English but when she said 'Caernarfon', she rolled her r's so beautifully that I was shocked!

The British do much of the same as well. I have heard "is it" countless times! And many other words like that which an American might have no idea of, but which are perfectly understandable in England. Kind of like pidgeon English, right? Or what we would call Spanglish. I speak more Spanglish than I do Spanish it seems, lol! When speaking to Latinos in the area, I will say half of what I want to say in Spanish, and fill in what I don't know in English

Huw Edwards who usually present the BBC 10 o'clock National and Internationaol news has a Welsh accent and is in fact from my area. Tune into BBC1 at 2200 GMT!

Another good journalist is Rhun ap Iorwerth who is the political correspondant for both BBC Wales and BBC Cymru. His accent is incredibly Welshy and is Northern... so will give you an idea of the Northern accent (Huw Edwards being southern of course... I have met Huw actually on several occasions).

By the way, referring to is it?, I say this all the time and when I lived in England, the English were constantly correcting me. "That doesn't make sense, Charles".

It also annoyed me that they called me Charles! I prefer to be called Siarls.

Did they really? That is wild. When I was over there the other week, I heard it a lot. My boyfriend said it once or twice himself.

But if they were to go on about things not making sense, they ought to start with that whole two spigots in a sink thing. That made no sense to me at all !! I either burnt the skin off my hands or froze it, lol!

Ahh youth. That's the way it used to be here. Still is in some older houses.

What's spigots in a sink?

My English friends were often correcting my grammar and pronunciation of words. For example, I can't say "you". It doesn't exist in my dialect of Welsh or English. So when saying words like, "dubious", I got a lot of free (and unwanted) elocution lessons.

seperate faucets for hot and cold in a sink threw me for a loop too, on my visit to Ireland. I'm used to two valves, but I expect it to mix and all come from the same pipe. That way I don't have to partially fill the sink just to adjust temperature for washing my hands...

when talking about 'is it', are you referring to things like "The price is cheaper there is it?"

I heard that quite frequently on my visit, and had no problem with it. I'm not used to hearing it, but I understood it without trouble and enjoied hearing it. Some things like that I sometimes think may be a more correct word order in general. English is so wardsbackards screwed up that it's not funny. At least as we Americans speak it anyways..

I ask "Is it?" to almost any statement, examples...

My friend I went to Swansea today
Me in a surprised toneOh, is it? I was working today.
My friend in a sympathetic toneAww, is it?

I can't remember the exact conversation, but I said, "Is it?" when one of my friends said something that surprised me. One of my friends at the time (with whom I've since fallen out) began to shout at me, correcting me:

"It's not is it, that doesn't make sense, Charles. You say either did you? or really?"

I told her to f*** off and stop correcting my language - I'll speak the way I want to and no one will tell me how to speak.

ahh. That might throw me for a loop too then. I'll have to be on the look out perhaps, so I don't end up completely confused if I encounter it

/me explicitly changed a word to more common English in this, We're talking about Welsh specificly here, not general odd, local twists of words like "Cornfugled"

Mr first encounter with Welsh "Is it?" was in the old black and white version of "How Green Was My Valley." I though it extremely charming!

I was so excited when Frasier mentioned "How Green Was My Valley". Wales gets so little mention in America!

It's because in Welsh, "Is it?" is a perfectly reasonable response. I think the way you say it varies from region to region, but here in the Lliw Valley, we say "Yfe?" (combination of ydy and fe). I've heard people say "Yw e?" and "Ydy e?" and God knows what the North says.

Siarls, I found news clips of Huw Edwards and Rhun ap Iorwerth. I coudn't have known Edwards had a Welsh accent without knowing he was Welsh. O, I loved hearing Rhun! But still his accent was modified for a reporter, I think. I've heard other non-media Welsh people speak English with such Welsh flavor. They tend to stress on the last syllables of English words: beautiful - beautiFUL. And they roll their r's. (All to my delight!)