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Welsh (Cymraeg)
Welsh is a Celtic language spoken as a community language in Wales (Cymru) by about 659,000 people, and in the Welsh colony (Y Wladfa) in Patagonia, Argentina (yr Ariannin) by several hundred people. There are also Welsh speakers in England (Lloegr), Scotland (yr Alban), Canada, the USA (yr Unol Daleithiau), Australia (Awstralia) and New Zealand (Seland Newydd). Welsh is fairly closely related to Cornish and Breton, and more distantly related to Irish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic.
At the beginning of the 20th century about half of the population of Wales spoke Welsh as an everyday language. Towards the end of the century, the proportion of Welsh speakers had fallen to about 20%. According to the 2001 census 23% of the population, 659,301 people, can speak the language and a total of 797,717 people, 28% of the population, claim to have some knowledge it.
According to a survey carried out by S4C, the Welsh language TV channel, the number of Welsh speakers in Wales is around 750,000, and about 1.5 million people can 'understand' Welsh. In addition there are an estimated 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London area.
The earliest known examples of Welsh literature are the poems of Taliesin, which feature Urien of Rheged, a 6th century king in what is now southern Scotland, and Aneirin's Y Gododdin, a description of a battle between Celts and Northumbrians which occurred in about 600 AD. Nobody knows for sure when these works were composed or when they were first written down. Before then, whenever then was, all writing in Wales was in Latin.
Today there are radio stations and a TV channel, that broadcast entirely or mainly in Welsh. There are also weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines. About 500 books in Welsh are published annually, and there is a thriving Welsh language music scene. There are a number of Welsh language theatre groups, and regular eisteddfodau or cultural festivals are held throughout Wales.
All school pupils in Wales study Welsh as a first or second language for 12 years, from the ages 5 to 16. The first school to use Welsh as the medium of instruction was set up in Aberystwyth in 1939. There are currently about 448 primary schools and 53 secondary schools in Wales that teach entirely or mainly throught the medium of Welsh. There is also a Welsh-medium school in London. Some courses at Welsh universities and colleges are taught through Welsh, and there are numerous Welsh courses for adults throughout Wales.
The Welsh alphabet (Yr Wyddor Gymraeg)A a = "a" < Vowel
B b = "bi"
C c = "ec"
Ch ch = "éch"
D d = "di"
Dd dd = "édd"
E e = "e" < Vowel
F f = "éf"
Ff ff = "éff"
G g = "ég"
Ng ng = "éng"
H h = "aets"
I i = "i" < Vowel
L l = "él"
Ll ll = "éll"
M m = "em"
N n = "én"
O o = "o" < Vowel
P p = "pi"
Ph ph = "ffi/yff" (Depending on what part of Wales you come from)
R r = "ér"
Rh rh = "rhi"
S s = "és"
T t = "ti"
Th th = "éth"
U u = "u" < Vowel
W w = "w" < Vowel
Y y = "y" < Vowel
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Notes (Nodion)- Where letters have two pronunciations, the first is used in North Wales and the second in South Wales.
- Long vowels are usually marked with a circumflex accent (to bach) though some are not.
- Short vowels are sometimes marked with a grave accent in places where they would normally be long.
- y = [ə] in monosyllables, non-final syllables and particles, [ɨ/̬ɪ] elsewhere, e.g. ynys ['ənɨ̬s / 'ənɪs]
- au = [a] or [e] when used as a plural ending, e.g. treigladau [trəi'glada / trəi'glade]
- si = [ʃ] when followed by a vowel, e.g. siarad ['ʃarad]
- j [ʤ] is sometimes used in words borrowed from English, such as garej and jeli
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Mutations (Treigladau)Welsh has a system of mutations which affects the initial letters of words. This feature is common to all Celtic languages and can make it difficult to find words in dictionaries. The nasal mutation (treiglad trwynol) and aspirate mutation (treiglad llaes) present few difficulties, but there are over 20 different occasions when soft mutation (treiglad meddal) occurs.
Man, I fucking hate Treigladau... :/
That's the basic of the Welsh language. It's harder than English, yo~
Edit: "Mutations" are used when the prior word is one of the following: am (for), ar (on), at (at <.<), gan (by), dros (over), drwy (through), heb (by), i (the), o (that), wrth (near), dan (under), hyd (long/length). There are a few others, exceptions like the "i before e except after c" rule. Treigladau will ALWAYS be the one that that will fuck you up in the Welsh language, because it changes the words so much, often changing their meaning completely.
Also, literal translations of Welsh into English won't always work, because a lot of the time, the meaning of the words are rearranged to make sense in the Welsh language, and when translated won't make sense in the English sense. Example: 'Mae gan Kevin siocled brown' = 'He has Kevin chocolate brown' is the literal translation, where as the correct translation would be "Kevin has brown chocolate"; the English to Welsh literal translation would sound both neanderthalic in its sense, and actually wouldn't make any sense in the first place.
Also, "Mae" doesn't only mean "he"... It's a contextual word, meaning that it fits and changes it's meaning to whatever context it's put in. It can mean 'he', 'she', 'it', 'the', 'they', 'I', 'them' ... All spin-offs of some form of person association.
Fucking language.
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lol
Yea I think he's loosing it. 
Oh man I love these emoticons 
