This paper discusses an ambitious study of adult learners of Welsh in north Wales. Over 1,000 people have taken part in the project, which is studying the experiences of learners throughout the region over a period of three years. This is the most comprehensive study of its kind in the field. The work is led by the North Wales Welsh for Adults Centre and the ESRC Centre for Bilingualism Research at Bangor University. Between September 2008 and August 2010, two questionnaires were distributed to beginners on all north Wales providers’ courses. The results of those questionnaires are discussed below, including aspects such as the learners’ background, their reasons for learning Welsh, their experiences during their course and their satisfaction with the provision. The history of Welsh for Adults is outlined and the research is set in the context of language revitalization and planning in Wales and beyond.

Hanner can mlynedd ar ôl boddi Tryweryn, trefnwyd cynhadledd i gasglu ynghyd a gwerthfawrogi’r gwaddol celfyddydol a ysbrydolwyd gan foddi’r cwm mewn cynhadledd deuddydd mewn lleoliad arbennig nid nepell o Dryweryn. Yn ystod y gynhadledd, traddodwyd darlithoedd gan Dafydd Iwan a Manon Eames, a chafwyd arddangosfa aml-gyfrwng unigryw yn dogfennu hanes y boddi, a’r cynnyrch celfyddydol a grëwyd yn ei sgil.  Cafwyd hefyd gyfle i ymweld â Thryweryn a chlywed am brofiadau ac atgofion Aeron Prysor Jones am foddi’r cwm, yn ogystal â mwynhau detholiad o’r ddrama Porth y Byddar gan Manon Eames, o dan gyfarwyddyd Siwan Llynor. Noddwyd y gynhadledd gan y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol a Phrifysgol Bangor.

This article presents a detailed analysis of the views of experienced Welsh for Adults (WfA) tutors on learners’ pronunciation and the attention paid to teaching pronunciation in the sector. The data were collected by distributing an on-line questionnaire to experienced tutors in different parts of Wales, and by conducting focus groups with a sample of these tutors in two specific locations in Wales. The aims of the research are to establish how tutors perceive learners’ pronunciation difficulties and to what extent they are adequately trained to assist learners in this challenging aspect of language learning. The extent to which various aspects of pronunciation (e.g. producing specific sounds and intonation) affect learners’ ability to communicate effectively outside the classroom is also examined. A series of recommendations is presented at the end of the article which suggest how the WfA sector can improve its provision with regard to pronunciation. These recommendations concern the provision of courses, the training needed by tutors, resources that could be developed, the extracurricular activities that could take place, as well as further research which could inform pedagogy in the sector.

The high central vowel, or the ‘northern u’ as it is informally called, is well known to be a characteristic feature of northern Welsh. Generally in north Wales, a clear contrast is heard between pairs such as ‘tŷ’ / ‘ti’ and ‘sur’ / ‘sir’. Conversely, since this contrast is neutralised in the south, these words are homophones, and are always pronounced with the high front vowel ‘i’. The main aim of this study therefore is to analyse quantitatively the way in which this contrast between ‘northern u’ and ‘southern i’ is lost in parts of mid-Wales. Consequently, the results will show the complex patterns of variation that arise in one particular ‘transition zone’, namely the Tywyn district, and demonstrate how speakers’ use of the high central vowel in this area is conditioned to a considerable extent by specific linguistic factors. Finally, this article will postulate that the interchange between the high front and the high central vowels is also related to variation in the length of diphthongs, and the implications of this theory will be probed.

The Welsh language has several features in its grammar which are crosslinguistically very unusual. This paper looks at five such features, at their rarity in the languages of the world and at their place in Welsh grammar. It shows that the textual frequency of each feature, in corpora of spoken and written Welsh, is declining. These five features, which had been stable in Welsh since the earliest records well over a thousand years ago, have in the lifetime of older speakers become optional or obsolescent in the spoken language: the grammar of the language has changed. Welsh is likely changing because of bilingualism. Along with the recent increase in the public use of Welsh has come an increase in the use of English in the everyday lives of Welsh speakers. The average Welsh-speaker now speaks more English than Welsh, outside the family at least. Speaking a second language fluently and regularly HAS been shown to affect the speaker's first language, probably to lessen the psychological load in constantly switching between the two languages. It is argued that in such a situation cross-linguistically unusual features are inherently more susceptible to loss. Finally, the paper looks very briefly at possible future developments.

This article uses theatre as a lens in order to examine the cultural exchange between Wales and the Khasi and Jaiñtia Hills that is rooted in the history of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Overseas Mission present in north-east India between 1841 and 1969. Focusing on Khasi plays from the colonial period as well as an example of Welsh missionary performance staged in Wales in 1929, the article considers the extent to which Welsh conceptions of theatre and drama influenced native performances in the Khasi Hills, and correspondingly, to what extent the missionaries’ perception of India influenced the idea and the representation of the country in Welsh performative portrayals.

This article analyses the relationship between Welsh and English speakers in pub scenes in two contemporary novels set in south Wales, namely Y Tiwniwr Piano by Catrin Dafydd (2009) and The Book of Idiots by Christopher Meredith (2012), in light of philosophical theories about the ‘other’ and otherness. The development of the concept of the ‘other’ is traced by considering the work of philosophers and cultural theorists such as Georg Hegel, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon and Homi Bhabha. Turning to the work of Charlotte Williams and Simon Brooks, the article argues that both Welsh and English speakers in Wales can experience otherness, and the novels are then analysed to explore how this is reflected in contemporary fictional texts. The article draws conclusions about the significance of otherness to contemporary Welsh imagination and identity and suggests how other philosophical ideas could help us find common ground between Wales’s two main language communities.

Mae’r llawlyfr hwn yn esbonio beth yw technolegau iaith ac yn ddisgrifio rhai o’r cydrannau mwyaf sylweddol yn ogystal â cheisio egluro’r dulliau a ddefnyddir i'w gwireddu. Mae wedi’i fwriadu ar gyfer myfyrwyr, datblygwyr, academyddion, swyddogion polisi, ac eraill sydd heb gefndir yn y maes ond sydd eisiau deall mwy am feysydd pwysig prosesu iaith naturiol, deallusrwydd artiffisial, technoleg cyfieithu a thechnoleg lleferydd. Mae'r llawlyfr hefyd ar gael ar wefan Porth Technolegau Iaith Cenedlaethol Cymru. Ysgrifennwyd gan swyddogion o Uned Technolegau Iaith, Prifysgol Bangor, a Cymen Cyf gyda chymorth grant bach gan y Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol.

In many places, devolution has created new regional arenas within which minority nationalist parties have been highly successful in mobilising support for their national projects. However, scholars have paid scant attention to how minority nationalist parties have adapted as they have become major players in regional politics. This article examines such process of adaptation in the cases of two minority nationalist parties: Plaid Cymru in Wales and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego in Galicia. It is argued that the experiences of these parties in adapting to passing the thresholds of representation, relevance and government in their respective regions are far from unique. Rather, they reflect the challenges that any political party faces when it makes the transition from protest to power.

The core argument of the essay is that it would be worth setting Saunders Lewis’ important early play, Gwaed yr Uchelwyr, in the context of several anglophone Welsh novels published at the turn of the nineteenth century that sought to assess the relevance of the culture of the indigenous gentry of Wales to the new nation celebrated by the Cymru Fydd movement. It is argued that familiarity with these texts could assist us to grasp the subtlety and rich ambivalence of the play’s ideological stance.

This article compares the renowned letters of Kate Roberts and Saunders Lewis with the correspondence of two leading nineteenth-century French authors, Gustave Flaubert and George Sand, considering the value and purpose of letters between authors. In addition to widening our understanding of Roberts and Lewis’s works, the article also places the Sand-Flaubert correspondence in a new context, and considers the development of authorial correspondence over the decades. It draws original conclusions by revealing that literary letters continue to play a key role for writers in the twentieth century: offering encouragement and advice, a means of escape from current circumstances, and an important tool in the struggle against the emptiness of modern society.

‘D.J. a fi’ draws on aspects of the work of Welsh author D.J. Williams and examines their potential to inspire the creation and inform the analysis of contemporary site-specific performance. Williams’s memoir, The Old Farmhouse, provides unique insights into the landscape of childhood, the located nature of memory, the dramaturgy of storytelling and the role of the teller. The author employs these insights to develop and suggest a number of practical and theoretical approaches to the use of biography, family history, domestic architecture and local knowledge in devised performance. Referring extensively to his own work, ‘Bubbling Tom’ (2000), a peripatetic solo performance staged in the village of his own upbringing in rural Lincolnshire: a guided tour of the places he knew at the age of seven – he discusses the importance of Williams’s work in inspiring dramatic forms that seek to reveal the grain of experience by addressing the intimate and familiar, the details of everyday life and its fabric.