How to Speak WELSH ENGLISH: The Accent the Vocabulary and the History

All you want to know about Welsh English aka WENGLISH. The expressions, the words the vocabulary. How the Welsh language has influenced the Welsh language.
Thanks to Bill Hicks from North Wales and @ImproveYourAccent for taking part in this video.
This is part 4 of the series accents of Great Britain check out the others on our playlist.
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eepurl.com/izRKww
00:00 Wenglish
00:30 The History of the Welsh language and Welsh English
06:22 Welsh words and expressions used in Welsh English
07:30 English words and expressions unique to Welsh English
08:46 Grammar unique to Welsh English
09:18 The Welsh accent
13:08 Hwyl nawr!
#wenglish
CREDITS
By Map_Gaels_Brythons_Picts.png: User:Asarlaíderivative work: MarieStockholm (talk) - Map_Gaels_Brythons_Picts.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
By CelticBrain - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
By QuartierLatin1968 - Own work. This file was derived from: Celtic Nations.svg(uploaded by OsgoodeLawyer)., CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
By Elevatorrailfan - This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file:, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...

[@WelshAmericanChannel]

"Hello from the Welsh American Channel. Just want to let you know that we Welsh Americans are also interested in what is going on in Wales and WENGLISH. Cymru am byth!""

[@jimmymorrison8314]

Very enjoyable. Excellent insight to the differences of accents and pronunciations. Da iawn. Diolch!

[@jimmymorrison8314]

That was meant for the comments. 😁🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿✌️

[@gotaro69]

THAT'S EPIC!! I've been waiting for something like this

[@LetThemTalkTV]

I'm glad you liked it.

[@veroortega2479]

I love to listen to your lessons, I was in south Wales three years ago and I loved the accent. Greetings from Mexico ❤🎉

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thanks, glad you liked it.

[@user-om2ti8jj1f]

Thank you, Gidon and Luke! Very informative and interesting to watch!

[@user-xy7xm3dt2y]

Your knowledge astonishes me!

[@gruu]

Love your channel man, can’t get enough of these dialect/language history vids!!

[@ImproveYourAccent]

Some extra information about gemination (consonant doubling) in the Welsh language: it's phonetic rather than phonemic. However, it used to be phonemic in the past.

[@user-om2ti8jj1f]

Gemination is phonemic in Italian e.g. "ano" means "anus" while "anno" means "year" or "pene" means "penis" while "penne" means "pens". It can be challenging for Italian learners, if your native language doesn't have double consonant sounds. It's like "shit" and "sheet" or "bitch" and "beach" in English-English learners often think they're pronounced the same because many languages don't have the contrast between /ɪ/ and /i:/ like English does,

[@nHans]

​@@user-om2ti8jj1f Yes, I still remember the hilarity that ensued when the late QE2 described the year 1992 as an _‘annus horribilis,’_ but did not sufficiently geminate the first word 🤣

[@nHans]

Hey, kudos for pronouncing the "R" properly when you said at 10:33 _"Non-rhotic means that we only pronounce an _*_R_*_ type sound when there's a vowel sound afterwards."_ Other non-rhotic speakers end up saying _"... we only pronounce an _*_Ah_*_ type sound ..."_ - which sounds very funny to me, given my heavy rhotic upbringing. Even funnier: When non-rhotic speakers complain that Japanese doesn't have the "Ah" sound 🤣. But I digress.

[@user-om2ti8jj1f]

@@nHans I've heard that Japanese speakers struggle to distinguish English "r" and "l" so they can pronounce "road" and "load" or "rain" and "lane" the same and that it's because Japanese has neither the English "r" nor the English "l" sound, but has a sound which is similar to both. I don't know Japanese, though, it's just what I've heard.

[@nHans]

​@@user-om2ti8jj1f I too don't know Japanese, but I too have heard the same thing-that Japanese doesn't have the English "R" [ɹ̠] and "L" [l] sounds. Some years ago, I worked in Japan as an IT consultant. All the Japanese people whom I communicated with in the course of my work-we used English-were proficient or bilingual in English. Sure enough, while they don't say "R" or "L" like native English speakers, I didn't have a problem understanding them. They avoid saying the "R" sound as much as possible, quite like the non-rhotic English speakers. Their "L" is close enough to the native English pronunciation. I'm from India, so I myself roll (trill) my "R" as [r], and my "L" is dental: [l̪]. Consequently, my Japanese colleagues didn't have trouble distinguishing "R" from "L" when I spoke. But my (friendly) dig was not at the Japanese; it was at non-rhotic English speakers who say that Japanese doesn't have the "Aah" sound. That's ridiculous-Japanese certainly has the "Aah" /ɑː/ sound 🤣. Obviously, the non-rhotic speakers mean to say that Japanese doesn't have the [ɹ̠] sound, but-in an ironic pot v. kettle situation-they themselves are unable to say [ɹ̠] unless "R" is followed by a vowel sound!

[@AnnaAnna-uc2ff]

Very interesting. Thank you.

[@Sal.K--BC]

Finnish & Estonian also has doubled consonants (ie. consonant gemination).

[@ArtBlade]

Nice vid, thank you, Gideon :) When I was running around in Wales, I was completely puzzled when looking at street names and even named houses/manors: those names were a) enormously long and b) looked as if the signs were created by some freak accident like someone knocked over a box full of mostly consonants and just printed it as it was. I'd have had tongue surgery if I had continued to try to pronounce them. The city name in your weather forecast example however takes the biscuit. lol

[@petarnovakovich240]

The Welsh language has extra vowels than English. We have the 5 English vowels of a, e, i, o, & u, but we also use w & y as vowels. Our alphabet is also slightly different, a, b, c, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u, w, y. We don't have j, k, q, v, x or z. The dd is pronounced as a hard th as in the, then etc. Single f is pronounced as a hard v sound, where the ff is pronounced as a soft f sound. there is no j sound in Welsh. We use c as the k sound, c is never pronounced like a soft s. The LL sound is very hard to describe, you have to hear it really. for a q sound, we'd use cw. for x we'd use cs as in tacsi, which is the Welsh for taxi. There is no z sound.

[@ArtBlade]

@@petarnovakovich240thank you, very interesting :) have a nice weekend matey

[@deepalipundir4945]

Very informative video

[@user-nv8py8wr6t]

I'm FASCINATED!!! I really enjoy learning through these videos, do you have another social media account where I can find you?

[@Exayevie]

I honestly think Welsh is my favorite accent on the whole British Isles

[@jennytorlage676]

just love these videos. helps a South African understand more about the English language

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thanks, glad you liked it

[@isabelatence7035]

This series is fantastic, people don't imagine how many stories this series has, I'm glad I watched all of the series, interesting origin of the name London and River Thames, new to all the content, I imagined couples from different regions getting together communicate, thank you for the participation of the cool teachers🤩🤩

[@LetThemTalkTV]

So pleased you like the series. I think even most Londoners don't know the etymology of London and the Thames. A few more videos in the series still to come.

[@isabelatence7035]

​@@LetThemTalkTVI'm curious about the origins of English words, one of which I'll send in the newsletter, see you soon!

[@bacca71]

The introductory graphics (charts and maps) were very helpful. Had to pause and study them a bit before moving on. Pronouncing Welsh though seems extremely difficult for an English speaker. As would be reading a lot of road signs in Wales. Fascinating. Thank you!

[@LetThemTalkTV]

You're right. Pronouncing Welsh is difficult. That's why I needed help for this video.

[@wilhelmvonn9619]

There are some sounds that are unfamiliar to English speakers but I think the main problem is that Welsh spelling is confusing. Some letters mean different sounds in the two languages.

[@ftumschk]

@mvonn9619 Once you know how the letters sound - which, give or take, aren't all that different from English - then pronouncing Welsh words is quite straightforward, as the writing is more-or-less "phonetic"... you just say what you see. For instance, Welsh just doesn't have ambiguities like the "gh" in caught, dough/daughter, aghast, laughter/slaughter, etc. Vowels are always "flat" and "pure" - they can be short or long (a bit like omicron and omega in Greek), in which case a diacritical mark will tell them apart, but Welsh vowels are never diphthongs. For example "rhost", "post" and "tost" (with a short "o") always rhyme with English "lost" or "cost", but never with "pOWst" or "mOWst" (as in "post/most")

[@jackdaniels9855]

Great video. Good to know some info on my bloodline's history

[@peteymax]

A very interesting video, thank you. Tidy is used in the southeast of Ireland in exactly the same way. I thought ‘now in a minute’ was exclusively Irish until you shared that today. Dinner is din-ner here too.

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thanks good to get it from an Irish perspective. I thought there might be some overlap.

[@desj2584]

The Irish say "now in a minute" as well ? theres me thinking it is only us Welsh

[@peteymax]

@@desj2584 Yep, we use that expression a lot. Maybe there’s a commonality in a direct translation from Irish and Welsh which have some things in common.

[@tonyjones9442]

Hello, I'm Welsh - from the Celtic North Wales. I'm a bit confused here, but I am not at the same time. This video is more about the affect of Welsh on English spoken by English speaking Welsh people. I think if you came to the North West of Wales Wenglish would mean something the other way round. Basically, Wenglish here, is Sentences in mostly in welsh with the influence of English which makes it sound like broken Welsh but maintains a structure. This video is accurate for South Wales. Thats the problem in Wales, It's not actually one 'country' and Cardiff in the populated south East of Wales seems to form opinions of non welsh of Wales.

[@pl443]

Very interesting backstory.

[@fuckdefed]

Good to see you mentioning the influence of the Welsh accent on Brummie, especially South Wales, two clear examples of this are the way we say ‘year’ as ‘yur’ and ‘tooth’ as ‘tuth’ (with a PUT vowel, not a CUT vowel). We don’t go quite as far as the South Walians in some respects though, the sentence: “Look here, I’ve had an earache all year so I can’t hear you.” sounds like “Look yur, I’ve ad a yurache all yur so I can’t yur you.” in Welsh English.

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thanks it's interesting to read you take on it.

[@user-cc2ux9ew1r]

Fascinating lesson Gideon! I have been to Wales when I went the good old Blighty. I visited Llandudno, Conway, Snowdonia, Abersoch, Abergele, llanbedrog, pwllheli ! Great place albeit a cold one. Now tell me why is the lesson of * ought to * taking toooooo long ? 🤔 Are you aving a Turkish ? Been waiting since last year ! 😀

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Nice, I hope you liked it in Wales... you know these projects take much longer than planned.

[@user-cc2ux9ew1r]

It's only one WORD!! Are you having a giraffe Gideon ? Just get on with it ! Don't wanna hear any ifs or buts or make a song snd dance about it 🕺💃🕺😀😀

[@user-cc2ux9ew1r]

You're too kind !

[@juarezalmeida8423]

Thanks for this video. Lovely. But, you know, it felt incomplete, meaning short, compared with the other ones. Was it cut in two parts? Cheers.

[@carldavies3086]

South walian here. Dwt mean small here and iechyd dda means good health.. regionally and towns have different accents and " language "

[@D.S.handle]

How do you find these clips that you use as examples?

[@jimmymorrison8314]

Very enjoyable. Diolch.

[@abdallahgamal6250]

How can I join to your classes for learning more English lessons?

[@lw.1579]

As a Welsh speaker from North Wales, from experiance the differences between the north and south is that the North accent is softer/sharper/ more nasally, as mentioned in the video the R is more pronounced, with the south the ending of a word is typically drawn out for longer with somewhat of an upward inflection, when i speak to South Walians they sound more Italian to me, perhaps the Latin influence, wherea's i'm told i sound more Scottish . The North doesnt really use much of that slang in the video besides Bechod and Ych a fi, we typically use 'Iawn' as a greeting which means alright/you alright. -Diolch-

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Thanks, it's good to get your perspective. I'm not an expert in all the regional Welsh accents. I hope you enjoyed the video nonetheless.

[@martinhughes2549]

My Nain made me a Panad. She made me some bara brith.Bendigedig!! Afterwards we walked up the Bonc. Y nigh!! I drank too much tea and was caught short and had to go to the ty Bach. Perfectly understandable English there.... My grandmother made me a cup of tea, made me a cake , super! Then we walked up up the bank/hill.ok? I drank too much tea and had to use the toilet.

[@tonyjones9442]

@@LetThemTalkTV It's not just accents. North and South Wales were two different Celtic tribes, and the difference still exists to this day. Annybyniaeth i Gogledd cymru o Caerdydd!!!

[@phylbrake3719]

We should remember that Wenglish, the English dialect of the South Wales Valleys, is a recent phenomenon, heavily influenced by Welsh pronunciation, syntax and vocabulary. It's really the broken English taught by nearly monoglot Welsh speakers to their children at the beginning of the twentieth century, a process which is still ongoing in other parts of Wales. 😢 This situation arose from a number of social, demographic factors and political decisions that combined to militate against the Welsh language. However, the fight back has begun in earnest, and a recent Welsh Government survey estimate that well over three quarter of a million people can speak Welsh, with Welsh education and mass media contributing to this increase. 😊

[@user-cc2ux9ew1r]

Next time I am in Neuilly-sure- seine, or The Gros Caillou Paris. I will make sure l 'll pop in to your school for a Yorkshire tea / matcha latte 😋

[@LetThemTalkTV]

Please do!

[@hglundahl]

1:19 _"after the Romans departed"_ You mean after the Roman _legions_ departed? St. Patrick and Coroticus probably each considered himself a Roman, that's why St. Patrick tells Coroticus, "like you act, you are not a Roman, you are a cocitizen of the Devils" ... Ambrosius Aurelianus and Artorius arguably considered themselves as Roman.

[@brennanceltic]

Pity, you didn't mention the "valleys accent". Much stronger than "normal" accents.

[@TheGrmany69]

What I see is that there is plenty of room for dialects comming from Welsh but I think the language is influenced by old English or Saxon. It's clear the forms of English are approximations to the prosody of this one. Edit: in 8:37 you can see this as both are speaking with a Welsh prosody but one has an adaptation to the lexicon giving the form that is more " posh " wereas the other one, the woman, is speaking with a pronunciation that is approaching to actual English prosody (rothic in my opinion.) Thank you for reading my little rant

[@richardmathews6236]

I have always considered Wenglish to be primarily Welsh suffused with English loan words rather than English with Welsh loan words and structure. Perhaps it may vary between different areas with different emphasis?

[@marcusdekker]

Hi there, would you like to make a video about all the different English accents and how they are perceived to class. Yes class, you have a class system in England. (I am Dutch and we Dutch believe we don't have a class system in this country and look down upon a country that does have a class system as a backward country). Here a few points (from personal experience) to consider. 1.Why does Monty Don (from gardeners world) pronounce the word "year" as he does? 2. actors in England learn to speak in a certain accent, they train for it. But what accent? What accent is appropriate? What accent is accepted; this must change through the years as well e.g. the BBC news, is that the standard? 3. i believe that people like to convey by their accent to which school they went (wherein some schools are better then others; the sign of a class system) 4. I am not talking about Welsh, or Scottish etc (English is so rich i love it) but propper English English (what does that even mean?) Thank you for your videos, i do enjoy them.

[@fuckdefed]

‘Yur’ is the best pronunciation and it was quite widely said throughout England and Wales in the speech of traditional RP speakers (which is approxomately what Month Don is, though he’s not quite that posh) but also in many regional accents like those of South Wales, the West Midlands, the West Country (SW England) and Geordies (NE England). Unfortunately the more boring ‘year’ said to rhyme with ‘ear’ is taking over now though, apart from in certain places like South Wales, Birmingham and Newcastle. Many Welsh people say it with a slightly different vowel though, basically ‘yoor’, and many Geordies say it as ‘yare’.

[@sarvin4471]

Sorry, I just wanted to note how funnily ironic it is that you look down on a country with class systems. Sounds classist 😂😂

[@hglundahl]

I wonder if Tolkien's love for Welsh started because of the Birmingham accent he heard as a child?

[@Doochos]

whose hat is that cap? now in a minute. There are some great welshisms.

[@Gynra]

Spoken Wenglish all my life, I have. By the way, I've never heard any Welsh person say "look you". I thought that was a Shakespearean invention put into the mouth of Fluellen (Llewellyn) in Henry V, but I could be wrong, isn't it, bach?

[@OceanChild75]

Well… I live 15 minute drive away from Flintshire (North Wales) and I’ve learnt more from this video than I have done since moving to the UK 😂 Here is a funny story to you and anyone interesting in reading it: about a year ago I was queuing in a bank branch in Liverpool (so let’s say 40 mins drive from Wales) and the Karen in front of me was "seeing her arse" (as Northerners love to say… Not sure it is a thing Londoners would say, in other words got very upset) because the woman behind the counter said she could not cash her cheque written in Welsh 🤣 may I add that the woman claimed she had travelled from LONDON to cash the cheque as she swore she was told in a London branch "the closer you are to Wales the more likely they are to accept your cheque" true story!!

[@irenejohnston6802]

My husband's birth certificate is printed in Welsh. He was born in No.2 Elm Cottages, Cartrefle, St Asaph in 1941. His mother was a teenage, married evacuee from Liverpool.

[@LetThemTalkTV]

It's funny that someone would write a cheque in Welsh in London. I like the idea though, I'll try next time. Though I don't write many cheques these days.

[@richardmathews6236]

The amount of disconnect from Welsh there is on the other side of the border astounds me. My ex MIL from the Wirral was virulently ignorant of the language of Wales. When I pointed out to her, her home town meant Island of the Welsh (Wallasey) and that her husband was buried in Llandegan’s church (Landican) she nearly went apoplectic. Oh how I miss riling her.

[@OceanChild75]

@@richardmathews6236 wow well I’ve been quite ignorant myself!! I’ve been living on the Wirral since 2016 and I am familiar with both Wallasey and Landican cemetery but I didn’t know these places had names of Welsh origin! Everyday is a school day 😇

[@richardmathews6236]

@@OceanChild75 the Wirral (Cilgwri in Welsh) is one of the sites of the Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen in the early Medieval manuscript ‘The White Book of Rhydderch’ where Culhwch, Cei (Kay), Gwalchmei (Gawain) and Arthur (yep him) go on a quest to find a magic ouzel. Lots of old Welsh names (as mentioned in the video) throughout England and Scotland. Almost like a linguistic substrate with other languages over laying them.

[@AndreiBerezin]

I never knew I wanted to know Welsh English, but here is where the bach I am

[@yoaiou]

I knew you'd come.

[@marcwithasea]

I use the expression "a tidy sum" meaning a lot of money. Is that from Welsh English?

[@ftumschk]

I think it's the other way around. "English English" used to use tidy to mean "good, nice" (as in a "tidy [good] sum of money"), but eventually settled on "tidy = neat". Welsh English has preserved the alternative meaning of "tidy = good, nice", but it originated in "English English".

[@jameshumphreys9715]

Sometimes you hear the response Is it but not sounding like a question, and sometimes doesn't make sense, You could ask, They pass their driving test Is it !

[@truthbeforeopinions941]

The second one is more correct than the first. English words used to mean something different by English speaking Welsh people. That’s the closest thing to Correct “Wenglish”. The first lot are just actual Welsh words!

[@cs_fl5048]

So few Welsh speakers... and so many dialects..not just Northern vs Southern Welsh.

[@Vladimir-hq1ne]

"Keltic" and "Celtic"... :) All the best to Bretons.

[@PhilHoraia]

I seem to remember my late father, a South Walian, saying ych a fi, albeit in a mangled form, somewhat in the sense of '(something) mucky'. '(That's) ackavee!'. :)) Out of humour.

[@merelha5930]

It looks (and probably sounds?) similar to the Dutch word akkefietje (a small problem/unpleasant task/small conflict) and the Frisian akkefytsje (job/unpleasant task). The -tje is diminutive, but besides that it sounds really similar

[@szymonbaranowski8184]

har-ry pot-ter same in polish

[@OmerKose-tq1is]

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[@MENSA.lady2]

I lived on the English side of the Bristol Channel for many years. About 20 miles from Wales,. I still don't understand a word of Welsh and in most cases a Welsh man or woman I cannot understand even if they are speaking English..

[@spraguesean]

Are you hard of hearing 😂

[@dlewis2446]

Most of these examples are a bit off, and I'm being polite. Not understanding the divide between north and south is particularly ignorent, it's almost a different language to the valleys and west Wales.

[@mtv3234]

Welsh: "Collect Water from Weles." American: "What? Collect Water From Wales?" W: "Collect it from Weles." A: "From 'Wells?' Collect water -" W: "'No, Weles.'" A: "'Wheels?' Collect water from 'Wheels?'" W: "Weles." A: "Whales!?"

[@fuckdefed]

It tends to be ‘wee-allllls’ with the ‘l’ around ten times longer than in standard English! You do hear a similar ‘l’ sound in Western Ireland and North East England though.

[@mtv3234]

@@fuckdefed Yes!

[@thomasnoaotearoa]

Corrections:

[@thomasnoaotearoa]

All languages are equally as old as far as we know since we don't know when language started. For example the English language didn't suddenly start existing when the English invaded Britain; it was spoken before in the Netherlands and just divulged from Dutch into English in England. The map you showed is a true map but its from after the invasions had already started. All of the island of Britain (+ Brittany) spoke Common Brythonic except for the north which spoke Pictish which was a very similar language to Common Brythonic. They spoke Brythonic until the Irish invaded from the north to replace the native Britons with Irishmen speaking Irish which then later developed into Scottish Gaelic and the English invaded from the south creating England. Wales is all that's left of native Britain. I think that since another Celtic people: the Irish were also the colonisers its important to distinguish between them and call the Welsh "Brythonic" and the Irish and Scottish "Gaelic" instead of calling them all celtic.

[@namonef]

Can you put IPA texts? So that i can read the pronunciation better.

[@elespiritudelradium4805]

That's why I didn't understand English when I lived in Swansea. 🧢👍🇲🇽

[@WelshAmerican1483]

Abertawe

[@drychaf]

A South Walian here - Sorry, but your choice of a North Walian for this video was a big mistake. Apart from 'bechod', he's reading what were/are mainly South Walian (Valleys) phrases and characteristics, and he's reading many of them as if he's never heard of them before. His emphases let him down, as they are often in the wrong place, and always unconvincing. What he's reading is correct, but how he's reading it, no.

[@MrQwerty71770]

so Yoda speaks Wenglinsh

[@DerekLangdon]

Puerile garbage…And what does how the Welsh language has influenced the Welsh language mean? Is that what they call double Dutch by any chance?