Galês
Keywords: Galês, 1588, 1982, 1991, 2001, Argentina, Austrália
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| Galês (Cymraeg) | |
| Falado em: | País de Gales, Argentina, Inglaterra, Estados Unidos, Canadá, Austrália, Nova Zelândia |
|---|---|
| Total de Falantes: | 580.000 |
| Classificação: | Abaixo das 100 mais faladas |
| Genética Classificação: | Indo-Européias Céltico |
| Status Oficial | |
| Idioma Oficial de: | País de Gales |
| Regulamentado por: | - |
| Códigos de Idiomas | |
| ISO 639-1 | cy |
| ISO 639-2(B) | wel |
| ISO 639-2(T) | cym |
| SIL | WLS |
- Redirecionado de Galês, este artigo descreve o idioma Galês. Para mais significados, veja Galês (disambiguação).
O Galês (Cymraeg ou y Gymraeg), não confundir com o dialeto Galês do Inglês, é um ramo Bretônico do Céltico falado nativamente na parte ocidental da Bretanha conhecida como País de Gales (Cymru), e no Vale Chubut, uma colônia de imigrantes Galeses na Patagônia na região da Argentina.
Existem também alguns falantes do idioma Galês na Inglaterra, nos Estados Unidos, Austrália e através do mundo todo.
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Estado
O censo de 2001 apurou que 20.5% da população do País de Gales são falantes do Galês (mais do que os 18.5% em 1991) numa população de aproximadamente 3 milhões de pessoas; entretanto, parece que aproximadamente um terço da população do País de Gales imigrou nos últimos 30 anos.
Mesmo dentre os falantes do Galês, alguns cidadãos Galeses falam apenas Galês. Entretanto, um grande número de falantes do Galês se sentem mais confortáveis ao se expressarem em Galês do que em Inglês. A preferência de idioma de um falante pode variar de acordo o domínio do assunto em questão (conhecido na linguística como mudança de código).
Apesar do Galês ser uma linguagem minorizada, e portanto ameaçada pela predominância do Inglês, o apoio à linguagem cresceu durante a segunda metade do século 20, juntamente com o surgimento de organizações políticas nacionalistas tais como o partido político Plaid Cymru e o Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (a Sociedade da Língua Galesa).
O uso do Galês como linguagem principal está concentrar-se nas regiões menos urbanizadas ao norte e ao oeste do País de Gales, principalmente Gwynedd, Merioneth, Anglesey (Môn), Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire do Norte, Ceredigion, e algumas partes ocidentais de Glamorgan, apesar de falantes nativos e falantes fluentes poderem ser encontrados por todo o País de Gales.
O Galês ainda é um idioma ainda bastante ativo, milhares de pessoas conversam usando-o e ele pode ser visto por todos os lados no País de Gales. O governo local (inclusive a Assembléia Galesa) usa o Galês como idioma oficial, órgãos públicos emitem literatura oficial e publicidade em versões Galesas (por exemplo, cartas das escolas para os pais, informação bibliotecária, e as informações do conselho) e toda a sinalização de trânsito no País de Gales está em Inglês e Galês, incluindo as versões Galesas de nomes de lugares (apesar de que a maioria delas são invenções recentes criadas com base nos nomes Ingleses).
O Galês também possui uma presença substancial na Internet, mas altamente influenciada pelos órgãos públicos: a percentagem de frequência de buscas por palavras Galesas nas ferramentas de buscas se comparadas aos seus equivalentes ingleses tende a ficar muito próxima de 0.1% para termos formais como addysg/education, cymdeithas/society or llywodraeth/government, mas apenas cerca de 0.01% para termos usados no dia a dia tais como buwch/cow, eirlaw/sleet ou cyllell/knife.
Wales.cardiff.slow.arp.750pix.jpg
O governo britânico ratificou o Carta Européia para Idiomas Regionais ou de Minorias em respeito ao Galês.
A linguagem adquiriu grande proeminência desde a criação do canal de televisão S4C em Novembro de 1982, que é apresentada exclusivamente em Galês no horário nobre. As principais notícias da noite fornecidas pela BBC podem ser vistas em aqui (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.
History 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 to 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, and those in the south-west, speaking what would become Cornish, and so the languages diverged.
Middle Welsh (or Cymraeg Canol) is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 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, 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
Phonology
| Letter(s) | IPA | Name |
| a | a | â |
| b | b | bi |
| c | k | ec |
| ch | x | ech |
| d | d | di |
| dd | ð | edd |
| e | ɛ | ê |
| f | v | ef |
| ff | f | eff |
| g | g | eg |
| ng | ŋ | eng |
| h | h | hets |
| i | ɪ | î |
| l | l | el |
| ll | ɬ | ell |
| m | m | em |
| n | n | en |
| o | ɔ | ô |
| p | p | pi |
| ph | f | ffi, yff |
| r | ri | r |
| rh | r̥ | rhi |
| s | s | es |
| t | t | ti |
| th | θ | eth |
| u | ɨ, i | û |
| w | ʊ | ŵ |
| y | ɨ, i, ə | ŷ |
- h indicates [ʰ] in mh, nh, and ngh.
- ph is only used as a result of aspirate mutation.
- y indicates [ə] in monosyllabic words or non-final syllables, but [ɨ] or [i] everywhere else.
- u and y are ususally pronounced [ɨ] in North Wales and [i] in South Wales.
- si indicates [ʃ] when followed by a vowel.
Vowels also come in long variants; these are often marked with a circumflex.
| Letter | IPA |
| â | aː |
| ê | eː |
| î | iː |
| ô | oː |
| û | ɨː, iː |
| ŵ | uː |
| ŷ | ɨː, iː |
Welsh also has diphthongs:
| Letters | IPA |
| ae | a |
| ai | aɪ |
| au | aɪ but as plural ending a, e |
| aw | aʊ |
| ei | əɪ |
| eu | ə |
| ew | əʊ |
| ey | ə |
| oe | ɔ |
| oi | ɔ |
| ou | ɔ |
| ow | ɔ |
| uw | |
| wy | ʊ |
| yw | |
- The pronunciation on the left is used in North Wales, the one on the right in South Wales.
The following are only used in foreign loanwords.
| Letter | IPA |
| j | ʤ |
| ts | ʧ |
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 (´), e.g. ffarwél.
The placing of a diaeresis (¨) above a vowel indicates that it is to be pronounced fully, not as part of a diphthong, e.g. copïo (to copy) - pronounced [kɔˈpiːɔ], not *[ˈkɔpjɔ].
Welsh also uses a grave accent to mark vowels that should be short, when a long vowel would normally be expected, eg pas [paːs] 'a cough', pàs [pas] 'a pass/permit'; mwg [muːg] 'a smoke', mẁg [mʊg] 'a mug' [1].
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 — [ˈəsgriv] - an article or essay
- Ysgrifen — [əsˈgriven] - writing
- Ysgrifeniadau — [əsgriveˈnjada] - writings
- Ysgrifenedig — [əsgriveˈnedig] - written
- Ysgrifennu — [əsgriˈvenɨ] - to write
- Ysgrifennydd — [əsgriˈvenɨð] - a secretary
- Ysgrifennyddes — [əsgriveˈnəðes] - a female secretary
- Ysgrifenyddion — [əsgriveˈnəðjon] - secretaries
(Note also how adding a syllable to ysgrifennydd to form ysgrifennyddes changes the pronunciation of the second "y". This is because the pronunciation of "y" depends on whether or not it is in the final syllable.)
The connection between the Welsh word ysgrif and the Latin scribo is fairly clear, taking diachronic sound shifts into account.
Morphology
Initial Consonant Mutation
Initial consonant mutation is a phenomenon common to all Celtic languages. The first letter of a word in Welsh may change depending on grammatical context (such as when the grammatical object directly follows the grammatical subject), or when preceded by certain words, e. g. i, yn, and a. Welsh has three mutations: the soft mutation, the nasal mutation, and the aspirate mutation:
| Basic | Soft | Nasal | Aspirate |
| p | b | mh | ph |
| b | f | m | |
| t | d | nh | th |
| d | dd | n | |
| c | g | ngh | ch |
| g | 0 | ng | |
| m | f | ||
| ll | l | ||
| rh | r |
A blank cell indicates that the letter is not affected.
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; the soft mutation is slowly supplanting the nasal and aspirate mutations as the mechanism behind the mutations ceases to be understood.
The Article
Welsh has no indefinite article. The definite article, which precedes the words it modifies and whose usage differs little with that of English, has the forms y, yr, and 'r. The rules governing their useage are:
- When the word begins with a vowel, yr is used, e. g. yr ardd.
- When the previous word ends in a vowel, regardless of the quality of the word following, 'r is used, e. g. mae'r gath tu allan. This rule takes precedence over the other two.
- In all other places, y is used, e. g. y bachgen.
Nouns
Like most other Indo-European languages, all nouns belong to a certain grammatical gender. In Welsh there are two genders: masculine and feminine. Aside from nouns whose gender is clear from the meaning (e. g. mam 'mother' is feminine), there is no pattern and gender simply must be learnt.
In Welsh, noun plurals are unpredictable and formed in several ways. Some nouns form the plural with an ending (usually -au), e. g. tad and tadau. Others form the plural through vowel change, e.g. bachgen and bechgyn. Still others form their plurals through some combination of the two, e. g. chwaer and chwiorydd.
Genitive relationships are expressed by apposition. The genitive in Welsh is formed by putting two noun phrases next to each other, the possessor 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" — literally, "windows car the man". In Welsh the thing possessed never takes the article.
Pronouns
The Welsh pronouns are:
| Singular | Plural | ||
| First Person | i | ni | |
| Second Person | ti, di | chi | |
| Third Person | Masculine | e, o | nhw |
| Feminine | hi, ho | ||
Verbs
In Welsh, the majority of tenses make use of an auxiliary verb, usually bod 'to be.' It is conjugated irregularly:
| Declarative | Interrogative | Negative | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||
| Present | First Person | (ry)dw | (ry)dyn | ydw | ydyn | dw | dyn |
| Second Person | (r)wyt, — | (ry)dych | wyt | ydych | dwyt | dych | |
| Third Person | mae | maen | oes | ydy | dydy | dyn | |
| Past | First Person | bues | buon | fues | fuon | fues | fuon |
| Second Person | buest | buoch | fuest | fuoch | fuest | fuoch | |
| Third Person | buodd | buon | fuodd | fuon | fuodd | fuon | |
| Imperfect | First Person | roeddwn | roedden | oeddwn | oedden | doeddwn | doedden |
| Second Person | roeddet | roeddech | oeddet | oeddech | doeddet | doeddech | |
| Third Person | roedd | roeddyn | oedd | oeddyn | doedd | doeddyn | |
| Future | First Person | bydda | byddwn | fydda | fyddwn | fydda | fyddwn |
| Second Person | byddi | byddwch | fyddi | fyddwch | fyddi | fyddwch | |
| Third Person | bydd | byddan | fydd | fyddan | fydd | fyddan | |
- ddim is added after the pronoun for negative forms of bod.
Other Features of Welsh Grammar
- Inflected (or conjugated) prepositions. 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 relationships expressed by apposition. 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" — literally, "windows car the man".
- Possessives as object pronouns. 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 verbs. 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 and future tenses, there are 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 á 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.
Dialects
Like any natural language, Welsh has a number of different dialects.
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 — New Welsh Bible — 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 loanwords for native Welsh words.
Breton and Cornish are quite closely-related languages.
Welsh in education
Welsh is used in education, and many Welsh universities are bilingual, most notably the University of Wales, Bangor. School children in Wales must learn Welsh up to the age of 16.
See also
- List of Brythonic languages
- Welsh Tract
- The Welsh language version of Wikipedia
- List of Welsh principal areas by percentage Welsh language
- Languages in the United Kingdom
- Welsh Language Board
- Association of Welsh Translators and Interpreters
- Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
External links
- One possible source for research is http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk/geraint.jones/about.welsh/
- The gwybodiadur (literally 'informationary') provides wide ranges of information on all aspects of the Welsh language at http://www.gwybodiadur.co.uk
- Welsh–English Dictionary
- 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
- The University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies