The 1891 census was the first to collect information about the language spoken by the people of Wales, and is therefore a particularly reliable source for historians analyzing the socio-economic structure of Weslh- and English-language ability and the process of language change in Wales at the end of the 19th century.

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.

This study presents a compendium of statistical material relating to the Welsh language in the 19th century. Divided into five sections, the statistical findings are presented in tabular form, together with explanatory maps. The volume offers a mirror to the changing linguistic character of Wales in a critical period in its history.

This volume presents a comprehensive introduction to the connection between language and ethnicity.

Fully revised and updated, this book is a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute guide to help you make the most of UK census records in your family history research. This practical handbook shows you how to interpret the records to discover intricate details of your ancestors' lives, but also explores how and why information on names, addresses, family relationships and occupations was gathered. Intriguing case studies reveal why problems occur and what may be hidden between the lines, while photographs and screenshots illustrate the records themselves and the websites which provide access to them. This new edition of Census has been updated to cover: · the many innovations on the main census websites, which have all added new census data and made changes to their facilities in the six years since the first edition; · the complete records of the 1911 census for England, Wales and Scotland, now available on both official and other commercial sites; and · all the surviving Irish census records, which have now been digitised in their entirety. Hands-on and incisive, Census considers online access to the returns in detail, covering both free and commercial sites, along with discussion of search techniques and the problems of transcription errors. A tour of key census sites reveals the most useful facilities and best quality images, as well as offline sources in the form of microfilm, CDs and DVDs. Census is an invaluable guide to this unique historical resource.

This book is the first comprehensive, research-based description of the development, structure, and use of Welsh English, a contact-induced variety of English spoken in the British Isles. Present-day accents and dialects of Welsh English are the combined outcome of historical language shift from Welsh to English, continued bilingualism, intense contacts between Wales and England, and multicultural immigration. As a result, Welsh English is a distinctive, regionally and sociolinguistically diverse variety, whose status is not easily categorized. In addition to existing research, the present volume utilizes a wide range of spoken corpus data gathered from across Wales in order to describe the phonology, lexis, and grammar of the variety. It includes discussion of sociolinguistic and cultural contexts, and of ongoing change in Welsh English. The place that Welsh English occupies in relation to other Englishes in the Inner and Outer Circles is also analysed. The book is accessible to the non-specialist, but of particular use to scholars, teachers, and students interested in English in Wales, Britain, and the world. It provides an unparelleled resource on this long-standing and vibrant variety.