ELL: The Welsh Language Society (long)

Tom McClive mcclive at acsu.buffalo.edu
Sat Apr 3 15:43:53 UTC 1999


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Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 10:43:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Tom McClive <mcclive at acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Subject: ELL: The Welsh Language Society (long)
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First of all, thanks to everyone who wanted to hear about the Welsh
Language Society.  I didn't expect such responses, which makes me believe
that I probably didn't word my original thoughts well enough.

For instance, a few years ago, the Society launched a "fax war", sending
continuous faxes to the corporate communications manager of the Marks &
Spencers retail store chain, asking him to clarify his policy on
dual-language signs and check-writing facilities (as there was some
question to whether Welsh would be employed).  There would be nothing
wrong with posting this episode on endangered-languages-L, and discussing
how such activism could help a language or how retail chains policies
could hurt a language, but I believe it would be a bit beyond the pale to
continue to grouse about Marks & Spencer in particular, bringing up
non-language related issues, and suggest that everyone in the world not
shop there.  Then if someone objected, I could claim that no one
understands the conditions in which the Welsh must live, and suggest that
all of you get out of your ivory towers more.


But enough about that.  Let's move on.

Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (The Welsh Language Society) is run out of a
very small office in Aberystwyth, Wales.  The society has four full-time
employees and is supported by donations, membership fees, and fundraising.
There are around 2,000 dues-paying members in local branches, called
cells, around Wales.

It's roots go back to one instance in 1936, when three men, Saunders
Lewis, a literary critic and university professor, D.J. Williams, an
author on Welsh literature, and Lewis Valentine, the first president of
the Welsh political party Plaid Cymru, surrendered and were arrested for
burning down Royal Air Force buildings in Penyberth, Caernarfonshire, a
Welsh-speaking district. While the initial public reaction was horror
towards this act of terrorism, they managed to focus attention on the
legal status of Welsh by insisting that the trial be in Welsh, and that
the jurors be Welsh-speaking.  They also ridiculed the British military,
who seemed unable to understand why people did not want a bombing range in
the center of a Welsh-speaking peninsula.

Fast-forward to 1962, when Saunders Lewis (one of the three men above)
gave a famous speech entitled 'Tynged yr Iaith' (The Fate of the
Language). In his speech, he went over the history of language oppression
and lamented that the Welsh, now and historically, have done little to
defend their language.  He criticized both the English and the Welsh, for
their actions and inaction, while declaring that it is not too late to
save Welsh but that "It will be nothing less than a revolution to restore
the Welsh language in Wales today.  Success is only possible through
revolutionary methods."

After this inspiration, the Society was formed that year at the summer
institute of the Welsh nationalist political party Plaid Cymru.  It was
composed mostly of university students, most of them initially non-violent
but very active in preserving the language.  It was one of the first
groups that was formed to be purely dedicated to civil disobedience.
Their first activities were organizing various protests or any other act
that would secure a summons from the police so that they could demand that
the process be done in Welsh.

The Society next turned to other institutions run by the state, making
post office forms their next target.  They have since worked on such
issues as providing court hearings in Welsh, providing road signs in
Welsh, and the passage of Welsh language acts in Parliament.  They also
were involved in the struggle to obtain a license for a Welsh-medium
television station, a goal that was finally realized only through
activism.  Recently that have targeted education, demanding a
democratically elected education council for Wales, and language
communities, proposing a property act that would help Welsh-speaking
communities stay that way, despite the rising property costs due to
English immigration.

Thus, the Society was formed for the sole purpose of activism, but has
been slowly moving into the realm of legislation.  They are involved at
governmental and community levels.

They publish a periodical entitled "Y Tafod Trydanaidd" (The Dragon's
Tongue).  It used to be on-line, at
http://www.aber.ac.uk/~iis5/tafod.html, but the university at Aberystwyth
is revamping it's web server lately, and the site is (temporarily?) down.



Tom McClive
mcclive at acsu.buffalo.edu
State University of New York at Buffalo


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