American Reacts to the History of Wales and the Welsh People
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- Опубліковано 22 вер 2023
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In this video I react to the history of Wales summarized. I never knew that so much of Welsh history was Celtic. It's really amazing how Wales was able to keep its culture intact for so long. Even today, Wales is part of the UK, but the unique Welsh identity seems to be strong, including nearly 1/3 of the people in Wales being able to speak the traditional Welsh language. Wales has a very rich and complicated history and I look forward to learning more in the future.
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• History Summarized: Wales
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First...(hurray) - BUT Steve... PLEASE pronounce it Wales (LIKE the mammals - 'whales') NOT 'wells' (like a water or wishing 'well') - I have mentioned this before and you are NOT the only American that does it - so don't feel too bad! 😎
❤ Hey... You are sooo right... And I have tried to tell Steve this exact fact too... It is _not_ "Wells" (like Tunbridge Wells) but it _is_ _Wales_ (exactly like the animal whales, but without the 'h' so _don't_ sound the 'Wh' as it isn't there !!
My jaw gets so tense whenever I hear _WALES_
wrongly pronounced as "WELLS"
(... and I'm getting jaw-ache !! 😮😢☹️)
Cymru
It's annoying in a funny way, I'm not trying to have a go at Steve but comon how does Wales look like Wells to even try and promounce it Wells!
You are soo right the
pronunciation of Wales annoyed me every time Steve said it. Thank you for bringing it to his attention
@@brigidsingleton1596 I agree. I thought to start with Steve was going to talk about Wells the city in Somerset or wells to extract water. Quite surprised when it turned out to be the country of Wales🤣
Thanks for your interest in Wales/Cymru - you can’t look into mining in Wales without looking at the Aberfan disaster. It’s a tragic incident that shaped a lot of our recent culture here over the last 50 years
my family were very involve din the rescue and aftermath of the disaster as they were in the Salvation Army, drove trucks and some were miners. One uncle came off night shift to dig that morning. An uncle saw it happen, in the rear view mirror of his lorry. He had just picked up a load of stones from a quarry. he ditched the load by the side of the road and realising they would need lorries off he went to it. An aunt and uncle helped run one f the temporary mortuaries.. assisting relatives and the police during the identification process. One 18 year old female cousin was met at work by her Father and step mum who did the mortuary work.. with her uniform to change into. She made tea and sandwiches for days on end. donning wellingtons and climbing with another girl up mounds with tea urns and buckets fll of mugs and sandwiches. Other uncles dug and dug. Mothers and Fathers were there.. digging with their bare hands which were bleeding right after it happened. Terrible. I was living in England. My Mother was Welsh and we heard it on a tv newsflash. i think it was Half Term. We had just walked in the door after shopping and always asked for permission to put the tv on. Mum and Dad were in the kitchen putting the shopping away. I saw the newsflash. I was 9, and my brother 7. I saw the graphic in black and white which had Merthyr Tydfil on it. My Welsh family live there.. Mum's home town.. so I called them in. My mother collapsed.. her legs went from under her. Her brother, as far as we knew, was living in Aberfan with his wife's mother and their then two children.. both slightly younger than I and at that school. None of us were on the phone. We had to wait for a letter to ay all ws well.. they had moved out of the village a week or so earlier .. we didn't yet know. It still all breaks my heart and I wasn't even there. It shattered the entire UK and worldwide. Some years later I was at the community centre in Aberfan, built by donations from around the world. On every visit to Merthyr we would pass the sobering sight of the large umber of white headstones on the hillside where the dead are buried. Terrible.
😢
actually, the uncle who had moved his familky out of the village not long before the disaster was driving the quarry lorry that morning. Every, regular as clockwork, he passed a school bus on irs way to the village. This particular morning the bus was late. He knew the driver. He finally saw it coming the other way .. towards the village and they pulled up and my uncle was joshing with him about being late for school. the driver said.. one little girl hadn't turned up.. so being a country area he waited for her. That one little girl being late had saved the bus load of children that morning as they didn;t get to school in time. that is what he told me. They heard a roar.. he saw the face fo the bus driver look shocked so looked in his mirrors and saw it come down. the black terrible hell whch fell on the school and village and the farm house. The driver said. I'm taking these children back to their homes .. and my uncle said.. yes and I am dumping this load.. they will need lorries down there. All jokes and joshing forgotten in the utter horror of the moment.
Tha Aberfan disaster was 1966, 57 years ago. Tragically, it's still fresh in the memory.
I will see what I can find on it, thanks!
I’m a native Welshmen thanks for showing interest in my country 🏴
Hello from Wales!
So, as a fluent Welsh speaker, I'll give you a little help. Draig is the Welsh word for dragon and coch is the word for red. It should be correctly stated as "y ddraig goch" (the red dragon), otherwise it would just be "draig goch" (a red dragon). Coch becomes goch because of a mutation, don't worry about it, Welsh loves to pull shenanigans like this and it's part of the fun of learning the language. I was fortunate to go through Welsh school, so I learned it passively when I was young.
As for how to pronounce "y ddraig goch". A "dd" in Welsh is pronounced as "th", so it would be pronounced like this: e th-r-ae-g g-oh-ch
The first e is pronounced as the e in the word "the". The last ch pronounced as the same in loch, which you'd hear in Scotland.
It's nice to see you react to the culture of my country, I'd love to see you react to Yma o Hyd sometime. It's a very popular Welsh folk-song and it covers some of the things mentioned in this video. The English did a pretty good job at trying to eradicate the Welsh language and Welsh culture, but we still prevailed in the end. Yma o Hyd translates as being "still here" and relates to the struggle of the Welsh people throughout time.
Did you get all that Steve,
ugain yn rhy araf
@@ray-wm7yd
Yn fy marn i? Dw i'n cytuno!
Thanks for your comment! I will see about adding that to my list of things to check out :)
@@ray-wm7ydPREGETHWCH!
I am a Welsh woman. Always good to see international recognition.
I love Wales, lived there for 2 years, beautiful country, brilliant people
Just smells of animal shite xD
Another fact about Wales is the idea of the NHS was largely based on small scale 'Health Unions' which existed in Wales.
The first of which was in Tredegar, which is where my dad’s family came from. It was part of a dream my grandfather and others had as doctors were so hard to access in an emergency in Wales, and in mining areas there were bound to be emergencies let alone the ordinary human ones, mining was very dangerous. I can remember him on a visit to see us in England responding to me being given a spoonful of orange juice concentrate (which I loved) with ‘Isn’t it marvellous!’. He was of course referring to the NHS. And of course it was and is an absolute marvel in spite of every effort to destroy it.
Yes, with Nye Bevan credited as its founder.
@@lindyashford7744didn't know that about Tredegar and I'm only 5 min away in Rhymney. 👍
@@barryevans7 just down the road….
@@lindyashford7744 I live in Tredegar, There are a few things about Nye Bevan here but you would never guess the NHS was sort of invented here.
Look up the lyrics to the song Yma o Hyd, to get a sense of the fiery determination to survive all attempts to keep us down. The Normans had to build a lot of castles to try and contain the Welsh, but they failed and left us a great tourist attraction instead 😄
Oh dear history was lost on you.
Edward the First built most of the castles, including Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech. Oh, and Beaumaris.
Yes, that's the chap. Whose family house originated in Anjou and Normandy.
So by that logic Owain Glyndwr was a Roman? His family house was of Roman descent. Welsh must hate the Anglo-Saxon supporting Glyndwr@@BlueTexel
They failed? You’re still controlled by Norman’s hundreds of years latet
I was brought up speaking only Welsh at home, it wasn't until I started school that I learned English, I can still remember not understanding what the English speaking kids next door to me were saying. And I still find it very difficult to speak to my Sister in English it just feels wrong, so we only speak in Welsh. Also like many people in South Wales both my Grandfathers worked underground digging coal.
Moved to rural wales when I was 5 all my neighbours only spoke Welsh no English, we all played together and somehow understood each other 😂 as we got older he learnt English and I learnt to understand broken welsh. As I got older my mates would generally speak Welsh and I’d speak back in English to their Welsh was funny
That’s interesting I’m a valley’s native and we often mix the two languages
If you're interested in history, especially the medieval struggle for independence, look up the story of Owain Glyndwr, who almost achieved full Welsh independence from England in the early 1400's. His name is still revered here, and he is very much a tragic hero.
I'm lucky enough to live in caerphilly. We have the 2nd largest castle in the whole of Europe. It also has a leaning tower that leans more than the tower of pisa
I love the trebuchets at Caerphilly Castle
@@kerryjones7191 I love the guy trying to hold up the tower
Hang on now butt, Lucky and Caerphilly can not possibly go in the same sentence. 🤣
@SuperBC10 it's far better than a lot of places I can think of. At least I'm not surrounded by concrete
Native Welsh 🏴 women here. Thanks for showing interest in my country, i have to say im proud of my roots 😊. As others the have suggested you should check out the popular folk song Yma O Hyd as well as the translation; that song speaks volumes about Wales 🏴❤️
Pennsylvania was almost named New Wales and still has some street names in Welsh.
Relatives of my Grandparents lived in Scranton
I'm from North Wales in Pennsylvania but now live in the original North Wales, in Snowdonia.
What are the Welsh village names? I live in llanddewi-brefi, Wales wales. SY25
@@b.millar5831careful there. The nationalists will tell you off 🤣
@@LG-Musique true that! I married one of them 🤦🤣
Wales is the only country in the UK, that embraces welsh as its first tongue, yet pays a lot to encourage the English and welcome them, on every sign post, shop greeting to say This is Wales but we embrace you. The Welsh are a wonderful people, you may enter any school in England, and you will see many other languages, yet never Welsh, they are the most beautiful, inclusive part of the UK and should be celebrated .
thank you for this message. im welsh and its sad that most of the time our history is sidelined and just lumped in with england.
You adopted me Zoe, I love you all, and thankful that my Grandsons , are Welsh also@@zoddieoddie7759
Yes probably learn Urdu in school but not any native language - bet they don't even teach the origins of English , so God help any other original language
nope we have 15 languages posted in every English school , none of them welsh, here's to the minorities lol@@CarolWoosey-ck2rg
I am a Scot, but my favourite accents have to be the Welsh ones. It's pleasant to listen to whenever I hear one.
I also have some cousins in Wales, but I haven't been there yet.
South is much better than north, much more going on. Unless you’re climbing snowdon that’s a nice area.
Actually something in that, that is why a lot of call centres are in south Wales, people find the accent friendly
In a current British survey the Welsh accent was voted the third most appealing.
Irish was no.1, the Brummie accent was last!
Love the Scottish accent too ❤
Yes North wales tends to have better scenery and is more for a relaxing holiday whereas south tends to be more populated and not as representative of welsh culture but does have more things to do, west wales is the most welsh but has the least going on, sweet spot is probably anglesey
The Welsh identity is pretty unique with its Celtic connection. They have a unique tartan style, they produce Whisky with the correct spelling, and they frequently punch above their weight when it comes to producing sporting greats and legendary thespians. My biggest regret about Wales is I've only visited twice, and both times I've ended up in a Tesco carpark after hillwalking. As Tesco carparks go, Wales has some of the best. Almost as nice as the one in Fort William.
Not Celtic
well said. My Mother was Welsh and I have been there countless times. I still have cousins an an elderly uncle is still alive. I miss them all so much.. those that have passed on. Lovely, warm people with a lyrical sense of speaking and being and thinking. I was always until 18 months ago when the last Uncle who called me it Maria Bach.. little Maria I think.. I am English but of course half the culture in our house was Welsh. the other half Irish. One wonders about dna. I had it checked a few years ago 94.4 percent Welsh and Irish.. that will do me nicely. A surprise. but not a surprise really as we are all mainly a mixture.. mainly.. middle eastern and Finnish. Where my family come from, and my Mother's generation, she an her siblings at school in th 20s, 30s and 40s.. certainly when she started school in 1929 the children were beaten.. little 5 year olds, if they spoke Welsh. there was a concerted effort to eradicate it like it was a disease or from vermin. We all know that sort of thing happened across the world and is terrible. Consequently, the old people and her parents not wanting the little ones coming home beaten with hard smacks and stricks every day stopped speak Welsh. and thus to wipe out a language in South Wales. Of course it remained elsewhere. I can make a good fist at pronouncing place names due to spending a lot of time thre as a child and young person.. on lholidays with family and my Mother at home in England guiding me. I alway felt my Welsh cousins were better educated at school.. or it may have been because it was by rote in the 60s and I never encountered it myself in England.
Go back.. I urge you.. see its many faces.
Maybe find a Sainsbury's car park.. lol.
You've been to Fort William but somehow missed all of the Celtic connections Scotland, particularly, the Highlands, has. Wales is no more Celtic than Scotland, they've just been allowed to flourish in it, whereas the Scots were shamed for it (by both the English and their Scottish fanboys).
@@Thurgosh_OG
OK dokey. My Scots/Celtic ancestors were sold into slavery by those English and Welsh. *In the mid 18th century, because they didn't want to be anything other than Scots*
Welsh tartan is a very recent thing, the first Welsh tartan was registered in 2000.
There is evidence of whisky production as far back as the 4th century though, so it’s possible that the Welsh were actually producing whisky before Scotland. The Welsh spelling is wysgi, which is much closer to the modern spelling of whisky than the Gaelic usquebaugh. Either way, the distilling process is very likely to have come to the UK via monks from mainland Europe.
As for your ancestors being sold into slavery by the English and Welsh… a slightly simplistic view don’t you think? Especially given Scotland’s record regarding what you are referring to as slavery, but was actually indentured servitude. Ordinary people from all four countries of the UK were treated appallingly by the ruling classes of all four countries of the UK. James VI kicked off the Clearances, etc, before he even became King of England, and his children and grand children and other descendants continued the mistreatment. They also didn’t treat the English and Welsh poor any better than they treated the Scottish and Irish poor.
There is still massive prejudice for welsh language. News reporters often say names wrong in the national news . If there is a film the person comes from “wales” never a town in wales. Even though everyone else comes from a english or a Scottish city. People learn to say
Zaporizhzhia or Dovzhansk but faced with common Welsh town oh no that’s far to much. Let’s make a joke about Welsh having no vowels. (It has more than the English language!)
In non-Welsh speakers defence, Zaporizhzhia is way easier to pronounce given that the roman letters sound like I'd expect. Welsh on the other hand uses the same letters but for completely diferent sounds, so the pronounciation has to be learned beforehand. That being said, being a home country it shouldn't be out of the question to learn a bit about it in schools, but we don't.
Thats the english media for you.they do the same for the irish language like calling our PM equivalent the prime minister but the title is Taoiseach which doesn't mean PM it means chieftain and the irish for Prime minister is priomh aire not taoiseach ,the thing is they have no problem with other foreign titles sultans ,shahs and ayotollahs. One classic one was channel 4s coverage of cheltenham once where they were horses with irish names which they butchered,but no problem at all with french names and an irish man who was part of the commentary team took them to task on air,he said if you can pronounce the french names you can pronounce the irish ones.Its a deep seated prejudice thats so deep they don't even know it against any thing celtic.
It's true that Welsh uses the same letters for different sounds but the rules are consistent, and most of the ''sounds'' are the same as in English, and I agree, it would be helpful for the home nations to learn more about one another. But using the place name example, there are plenty of English places with eccentric spellings such as Worcester or the river Thames - that are not pronounced the way they are spelled. Dozens of others are less well known, but newsreaders learn how to pronounce unfamiliar words before going on air. That's part of the job, and they extend that courtesy to everyone but their next door neighbours. @@Arksimon2k
As an Englishman of Irish ancestry I should say that this is a shameful fault of English broadcasters, but they're rubbish at Scottish geography too, reducing cities and regions to "Scotland" far more than they should. Gogoniant i Gymru!
I’m Scottish of Irish extraction and live in Wales. I was surprised the strength of Welsh language and culture because it’s not represented outside Wales. Perhaps Scots tend to be a bit more mouthy about their culture than Welsh although maybe I was just more familiar with it? But you have no idea what you’re missing out on if you’re outside Wales, there’s such a rich tradition of language and culture
Coal, Copper and Steel were massive World leading industries in the South with slate mining in the North of the Country
yes welsh slate is everywhere in uk.
Coal in the nort too
Welsh coal was the fuel of choice for the Royal Navy during the 'Ironclad' and 'Pre Dreadnought' era, late 19th, early 20th century. The RN set up stocks of Welsh coal in strategic locations wherever they expected to be operating fleets of warships.
just being sentimental... having visited the old slate mine in Snowdonia when I bought my last house and needed a new house number plaque I saw some.. FROM INDONESIA in a DIY superstore. Nah.. so I went to a local stone mason here in Suffolk and lo and behold, didn;t they have slate from that country.. and fashioned me a beautiful simple square plaque with my house number engraved and painted on in white. Simple. Stylish. WELSH an £3 cheaper and no airmiles compared to the one in the DIY superstore. I touch it every time I go in and out the front door. Just because. Land of my Mother and Fathers.
Wales also had a big tin/tinplate industry. Also the west side of the South Wales coalfields in Carmarthenshire had high grade anthrocite coal. This is only found in 2 other parts of the world outside Wales and was used for water purification as well as fuel. It is smokeless coal and it burns so hot it used to melt the fireplaces over time .
Wales is an amazing country. The nation that inspired Alice in wonderful, lord of the rings and King Arthur
As a Welshman, I do love how the Elves and their language were heavily inspired by the Welsh. In Peter Jackson's trilogy, hearing characters such as Elrond, Galadriel and Arwen speaking Elvish, they do sound incredibly Welsh!
In fact, I associate the Elves so much with the Welsh that I always feel strangely proud when they unexpectedly turn up at Helm's Deep to help fend off Saruman's forces! 😂
Utter BS. Tolkien based the Elven language on an older form of Finnish! He said so himself. and the inspiration for the countryside of Lord of the Rings was the German and Austrian mountains where he went on walking holidays. Gandalf was based on a German postcard! The Entish forests were based on the woodlands of the English Midlands near where he grew up. read the authorised biographies about him and what he actually said were his inspirations!
@@savagesnayle301Nope, not BS . Tolkien based the language _Sindarin_ on Welsh and to a lesser degree ,Old English and Norse.
Just Google 'Sindarin Wikipedia'
@@savagesnayle301 If that's true, then I'll concede I heard very wrongly. I always thought it was all heavily influenced by people and places much closer to home. Also, I thought the Lake District was a big inspiration for the countryside of Middle Earth. But yeah, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.. and a bit gutted to be honest!
@@savagesnayle301Tolkien used a variety of languages as inspiration for LOTR.
He used Norse and Finnish BUT the elvish language Sindarin was based on Welsh!
He developed a fascination for Welsh when living in Birmingham as a small boy, seeing the coal trains from Wales, with their strange names.
He studied Welsh at Oxford.
In 1920 he became Reader of English at Leeds University.
His courses included teaching Old, Middle English, Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic AND Mediaeval Welsh.
"English and Welsh" is the title of Tolkien's inaugural O'Donnell Memorial lecture he gave at Oxford 21st Oct 1955.
One of Tolkien's famous quotes about Welsh:
"Welsh is of this soil, this island, the senior language of the men of Britain; and Welsh is beautiful."
You could check out the National Eisteddfod which is a Welsh culture festival.
It's an international culture festival, held in Wales
@@mikeclifford7740 there are 3 The Urdd for children and young adults, The National (both for Welsh speakers and competitions are held in Welsh) and the International held in Llangollen for competitors from all over the world.
@@sjbict There are two similar festivals in ireland ,the All Ireland fleadh and Oireachtas na samhna.The oireachtas would be the closest as its all irish speaking gets good crowds too 100 000 or so,but there would be lot more ritual in thee eistedfod whereas the oireactas and fleadheanna are much more in formal.
Thanks 👍 Our country never get's acknowledged! Love to Wales! cymru am byth ❤
morning Steve, pronounce wales, not wells ( city of wells is in Somerset _there is a big different for the people who live there.
Welsh predates the English language, the language of ancient Briton was an early variant of Welsh, spoken throughout northern England and even into Scotland e.g. in Cumbria it was called Cumbric a now extinct language, but there have been 3 distinct variants of the Welsh language with modern day Welsh being the 3rd variant. Also historians are still piecing together bronze age/medieval history and a lot of what we consider to be fact is still a little grey in reality and just a best guess scenario e.g. in recent decades a large copper mine has been discovered in Llandudno , North Wales, and recently it's been discovered that the mine was freaking HUGE (maybe the largest in Europe) but remains still largely unknown how big it really was, but one thing is for certain, discoveries like that rewrite history as we know it as having a lot of copper in the Bronze age would have made North Wales a very important trade area, and this is currently still missing from our known history, so history as we know it is always evolving. Coal mining was huge in the South while Slate quarrying was huge in the North, both my Grandads were slate quarrier's, today the main areas for slate quarrying are still covered with vast slag heaps as the slate industry produced so much waste. You should check out the annual International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, it's an amazing event where cultures from all over the world meet to share music and dance, everyone wears their traditional national dress, it's magical, a very special event.
The Picts in northern Scotland also spoke a Brythonic language akin to Welsh. Basically everyone on this island spoke very old Welsh in those pre-Roman times until the language was later pushed out by Irish and Anglo-Saxon settlers/invaders.
@@MrBulky992 that is the theory we don't knwo what the picts spoke as their script hasn't been deciphered.
@@MrBulky992 the Picts didn’t speak any form of Welsh, they were not connected to the Welsh at all, the Picts were celts and the Welsh were not and never have been Celts.
They Picts were enemies of the Welsh
@@paulthomas8262 yeah it definitely wasn’t any form of Welsh, they would have had a completely different language
@@Penddraig7Brythonic Celtic was spoken all through England and Wales and in the lowlands of Scotland where the people were known as the Strathclyde Welsh. Place names in England and Scotland bear this out.
Interestingly, my tribal ancestors were Goedelic Celts who lived in Wales, but the Goedels were earlier branches of Celtic people who largely inhabited Ireland.
There are those who claim the British Celts were not Celts at all. This is debatable. My brother is a linguist and he researches the history of our islands through language. It is an extremely interesting subject. He is now doing research into sea word links with Scandinavian countries, and research into British words that were borrowed by Romans and then came into English through Latin ( as opposed to known Latinisms that came into English and Welsh.)
Just got back from Wales. Put my Dad to rest in his home country and town. If you get a chance to go, go. Explore. The country side is breath taking and the people are awesome.
While I lived in England years ago, one of my favourite places was the Wye Valley in Wales and Cardiff.. Still miss the beauty of the Welsh countryside.. 💝🐦
I’m English and love visiting Wales , Anglesey specifically ❤ beautiful Island
Ynys Môn
I love visiting Anglesy and Swondonia.
@@Em_Rose_ Ynys Môn and Eryri.
North Wales is the most beautiful place in the world
But they hate you.😮
sad but true
Great to watch this after watching so many of your uploads appreciate you taking the time tidy mun.
I used to spend the 6 weeks school holidays in wales.
My auntie married a welsh fella, so it was a free holiday 😂😂
Many a good memory.
My uncle was the local school caretaker so we got to use their swimming pool all to ourselves. Which was a bonus
The first set of stones@ Stonehenge are called bluestones & were originally part of a stone circle in the Preseli mountains of Pembrokshire. They were transported some 150 miles to Wiltshire & no-one knows how. Possibly these were connected to healing, as Stonehenge certainly developed in that direction later with the addition of the big Sarsen stones. There are literally hundreds of Dolmens across the country, referred to Cromlechs, ancient burial tombs. My profile pic is one of the most famous. Thanks for your interest in our country. Pob hwyl, good luck
Good for Steve. Most Americans have no idea where Wales is, or haven’t heard of it. It is a beautiful country with a superb coastline and beaches. The sun does shine reasonably often and when it does, there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be. Definitely worth a visit.
Thank you for doing a video about my country, our history with England is often kept quite so the more it's discussed the more the Welsh identity can endure.
Diolch
its nice that wales have kept their language and trying to get people to speak it more lets hope they carry on with the trend and get everyone speaking it.
I'm descended from the kings of Dehaubarth and still live in South Wales... my family name 'Price' is even a modernized form of 'ap Rhys' which means 'son of Rhys' relating to these old kings.
This weekend I went to Kidwelly to the castle where my Great-Grandmother x 25+ Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd was killed by the Normans while trying to reclaim lost land of Deheubarth, which caused her husband Gruffydd ap Rhys and her father Gruffudd ap Cynan (who was king of Gwynedd) to join forces in rebellion under the war cry "Ddail Achos Gwenllian", or "revenge for Gwenllian".
They are in my family tree too!
i am also descended from the Kings of Dehaubarth we went to Ireland with them and found our way back to wales
Firstly it’s Wales not Wells. I live in snowdonia in North Wales and it’s beautiful here.some of the things you can check out are the worlds fastest zip line through the mountain valleys, trampoline in an underground slate mine at llechwedd caverns, go up mount snowdon (on a train if you can’t hike) visit many castles, Conwy castle Caernarfon castle etc, visit the Victorian town of Llandudno to name only a few. I love your videos and reactions and look forward to the next. Love from Wales.
Thank you for taking the interest in our history.
Love your content dude, keep it going. My family has always been very proud of our Welsh heritage. (some slight pronunciation advice: Wales is pronounced like "Scales", not like "Wells", which is a city in England!)
There is actually a part of Patagonia in Argentina that has Welsh as its first language.
I have Welsh family and spent many holidays in North Wales. My Aunt was teaching me Welsh when I was a kid in the 1980's and when I went back to school in Yorkshire I said something in Welsh and was instantly banned from speaking Welsh in school!
Wow! That's kinda sad. Why did they ban speaking Welsh in the school?
@@reactingtomyroots Maybe because Yorkshire isn't in Wales?
@reactingtomyroots I was banned because the teacher said nobody could understand me!
When I was working for a council in the South Wales Valley’s, I met a teacher in a school I was doing some maintenance on, she was from Patagonia, Trellew, her 1st language was Spanish her 2nd Welsh and her 3rd was English
Chubut is the area of Argentina
My Father was from Trefor, Near Caernarfon in north Wales. It is so beautiful there. We would often take the scenic route when we visited my grandmother. The narrator is right about it feeling like you may step into Narnia. My first time visiting felt like I had stepped ono the pages of a fantasy novel, the vast valleys and waterfalls and lakes were absolutely stunning. I haven't been in a long time.
Please come back to Wales. we keep a welcome in the hillsides, you know...... :=)
I live in Caernarfon. Used to go fishing on Trevor pier years ago.
Hi, it’s good to see somebody highlighting the history of Wales. But I think most Americans don’t realise that a lot of the founding fathers had welsh ancestors.
Didn't know any of this, thanks for sharing
Welsh is mostly spoken in North Wales, mostly English in the south
I live in a mining area, just about all the villages were built around the coal mines
Search for 'Treorchy male voice choir', they are world famous
Also, Max Boyce is a comedian and singer who performs some great songs.
What a load of BS.
Welsh is mostly spoken in the north, west and central Wales all the way to glamorgan. It's also quite popular in South Wales but more as a second language than first.
I saw Max Boyce at the Palladium many years ago. I was sitting three rows from the front in the centre. I got a fit of the helpless giggles when he said, 'Mam came into the room, stood there and said to me, 'Are you reading that paper you are sitting on?' ' Obviously a joke, lol.. but typical of something my Welsh Mam would have said.. and often did. lol.. I'll be there now in a minute. anyone seen the butty of this sock? or trhe one world exclamation 'hellofamess'.. I am sure I thought that was one word until I was 9! as in What a hell of a mess in here. lol. I can quote her endlessly and my Grannie and aunties. Does anyone fancy A boiled egg? Oh, yes please Mam. How many? got me every time.. Mam A is ONE.. lol. I still' cwtch in warm in my'own little bed' and I am 67 and have lived all my life in England. My uncle, the only one still alive in Wales rates the Treorchy Male voice choir was the best. I was brought up on Welsh male voice choir music. always on the gramaphone on a Sunday as Mam was in her element cooking the Sunday roast.
Welsh is spoken more in the south west, too.
We did speak Welsh in South West Wales when I was a child.
You also have to think of the amount of people who are Welsh or of Welsh desent living in England, just like the Scots and Irish we moved into England for work (l'm one)
My friend is from Tredegar.
Hi, love your channel and videos. Thanks for having an interest in our lovely Welsh country. I'm from North Wales 😊
fun fact! myself and my wife had english fathers and welsh mothers so we never learned the language. When looking for a school for both our daughters we put them in a welsh school and a welsh nursery.They were both fluent by the time they were 5 years old. When i told the future headmaster about my reservations he took me into a classroom of 7 year olds who were doing math for 9 year olds.He explained to me that children found it easier to learn maths in welsh instead of english especially mental arithmetic. if you say the number 12 in welsh it is ' un deg dau' pronounced 'eeeen deg die' which translates to ' one ten two'. Because of this welsh kids in general pick up maths a lot easier and quicker than their english counterparts,also its worth noting that generally kids who are brought up with more than one language fair better academically than single language kids. My fears of not being able to help with homework was made better after the realisation that all homework was bilingual so we were able to help with schoolwork at home. Many english families buying houses in the pembroke area put thier kids in welsh schools with many parents learning welsh themselves as you are able to have free welsh lessons if you are a non welsh speaker and have kids in a welsh school,thats why there are so many english people living in wales that are now fluent speakers thus contributing to the increase of the language and keeping alive one of the oldest dialects in the world :)
Check out the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park in South West Wales. It is a stunningly beautiful area.
My parents farm is on the south Pembrokeshire coast near Stackpole and where I was brought up. I’ve been so lucky to have such an upbringing.
West wales
About 1/5th, not 1/3rd, of people in Wales can speak Welsh today, but only about half of them speak Welsh as their main language.
I would bet that more people speak eastern european languages in Cardiff than Welsh.
Teaching it in schools in Wales definitely helps.
It should be compulsory for people moving here to learn it.
I was raised in the late 40's and early 50's by my grandparents in Wrexham, North Wales, apart from my Nain, who had married a Welshman from Caerestyn [a small village outside Wrexham], nobody in the family spoke English in their homes, or, as far as I could figure out, anywhere else, either. Shopping and bus travel and socialising was all in Welsh, and naturally, as a young child, I sucked it up. It is a matter of great pride to me that I can still use Welsh as an everyday language when we go back there on our frequent visits.
I live almost literally on the border. Despite being born to two English parents in England, I grew up mostly in Wales. I went to a Welsh school, was taught Welsh in school and took part in the Eisteddfod (pronounced eye-sted-ford and translates to "sitting together") and won a wooden spoon for making the best cookies.
It took the Normans over 200 years after Hastings to finally subdue the part of Wales where I live. The last Welsh castle to fall was in 1287. Strathclyde was Welsh at one time. My Grandmother remembered the Welsh knot! We Welsh have a very long memory!
The reference was somewhat anti-English. English and Welsh have had a working partnership most of the time, and most trouble came from unauthorised cattle raids by gangs in either direction. Offa's dyke was not built to keep the Welsh out (you could easily walk over it) it was a boundary marker that appears to have been agreed between both sides - some of its route was clearly advantageous to the Welsh and not what the English would have chosen unilaterally.
This a great video. This explains the reasons why many of us Cornish feel very close with our French brothers and sisters in a similar way that we do with the Bretons in Northern France.
Welsh has a great deal of similarity to Breton far more than it does to Gaelic, so I don't know why the video showed people coming from Ireland, the only invaders that started out in Ireland were the Vikings in the south of Wales!
@@SevCaswell They were irish far earlier than that.The irish were called gaels which comes from the welsh goidel which means people of the forest .They were called that because they launched raids from the forest on the welsh.Doesn't mean they settled,but the likelihood that many did.
@@gallowglass2630 so what you are saying is that the Welsh language existed before the 'Irish' became Gaelic? that would mean the Welsh language is older than the Irish language.
I don't know the percentages but many of those in South Wales moved there from England for the jobs in the mines
Thanks for this post! I live in Newport, we have a teeny castle ruin, then there's Caerphilly, Raglan, Chepstow, Caldicot, Cardiff castles, and Castell Coch, all less than an hour away!
Interestingly, the Wales of today was originally "North Wales" and Cornwall of "Cornwallis" was at one point "South Wales". As a Welshman, this is what I have heard from many sources, but would be happy to be corrected if I am mistaken. Great video man, Can I recommend a hard to find book by the Welsh Author Jack Jones called "River out of Eden" which tells the fictional history of the development of Cardiff and the mining industry. It's only available second hand as not being published at present, but I wrote my university thesis on Jack Jones and his work. The Welsh Charles Dickens as far as I am concerned :)
I'm English but I like History yes I think I read that somewhere about Wales and Cornwall. I have lots of History books I'm sure I have read that. I think nowadays it's very important to keep your Language and culture alive as it is all over the UK . Your Flag also has an interesting history . Cheers.👍
Cornishman here! I believe the 'Corn' of Cornwall comes from the same route as 'cornucopia' meaning horn, making Cornwall the 'horn of wales'. I've also heard it be referred to as 'west wales'. In any case the native names of Cymru and Kernow shall live on. Cymru am byth and Kernow bys vyken
My personal theory regarding Dragons is that ancient people discovered dinosaur bones, reassembled the skeletons and deducted that these giant creatures were at large. Hence dragons...
Seems very plausible. Gryphons too - may be based on beaked dinosaur fossils.
No, it’s actually a misunderstanding between two groups of people who spoke two different languages.
The Welsh dragon is not actually a dragon, it’s a combination of 3 animals, the serpent, eagle and wolf.
Dragon is a Welsh word meaning leader and the head/chief leader was the Pendragon, the commander in chief, the generalissimo, the head of all the army and the Pendragon would carry the standard of the Pendragon as they lead their army into battle.
The different parts of the army had their own standards that they flew in battle so people knew which part of the army they were. Those were the Serpent, the eagle and the wolf, the serpent being a Draco, a Draco being a fiery serpent, a Draig in Welsh.
So to depict the Pendragon being the head of those different parts of the army, the symbol of the Pendragon was the three animals combined.
When asked by what it was, they said it was the Dragon and that got misunderstood to be a Draco (Draig) and so the word Dragon in English came to mean a Draco, a fiery serpent when it actually means a leader and so the animal that gets called a Dragon on the Welsh flag is not actually a dragon but because of the miscommunication, it’s referred to as being a Dragon.
The Draco from which the Draig refers to was the standard of the Roman cavalry and it looked like a wind sock with a serpents head made out of metal and it was used so archers could see the wind direction and strength to help them adjust their aim when firing upon the enemy.
The Draco standard was based off of the Draco constellation which was a serpent and because of the comet that came from the direction of the Draco constellation, the meteorites it gave off looked like the Draco constellation was breathing fire and hence a Dragon being a fire breathing serpent and hence the myth of Merlin seeing the comet and likening it to a Draig.
That’s the real story behind the Welsh “Dragon” and the term Dragon and the misunderstanding that led to the word Dragon meaning the wrong thing in English
I loved the way you chuckled along with me about the Long Bow men mention. And yes the castles 🤔😂
The copper mines at The great Orme are really interesting.
Hi Steve, did you know that St Patrick of Ireland was actually a Welsh man? He was Born in Banwen in South Wales and there's a monument there celebrating his birth place, it's easily found on Google Earth if anyone is interested, I live 5 miles from it in a small mining town called Glynneath, enjoyed your video, great content, keep it up. 👍
It’s disputed he was born in wales
@@billymabum3514 Yes I know but the problem with him being born in Scotland is that the Romans never got there due to Mel Gibson......um I mean Robert the Bruce defeating them, St Patrick was of Roman decent with Roman parents, so couldn't have been born there, or of course history could be wrong and the Romans did actually get into Scotland, unless he was born in England, the true place may never be known but we do have a monument at Banwen and I'd like to think he was born there, I can't actually find any other monuments in the UK that states his birthplace, though if there are maybe one day they'll find some evidence to prove it and put the story to rest, I don't mind being wrong as long as I know what the truth is, thanks for commenting 🏴🏴🏴
I thought he emanated from Somerset?
It's also amusing that the surname Wallace, as in "Braveheart" William Wallace, means Welsh man in Scotland.😂
Brilliant!! 😄😄
The Gower peninsula in south Wales is something to look into it's so beautiful and traditional Welsh food including Welsh cakes and rissoles, haggis and cawl. Perfect!! 😍😜
Hello fellow Griffiths..... (from across the River, in Llanelli!)...(lol.!)
I love how you are pronouncing Wales and "wells" when it says it in the video more than a dozen times. Although i think this is a ploy to get people to comment. Touché.
I live in Hereford, next to the River Wye which was the old border between England and Wales. The local legend is that it was legal to shoot a Welshman if you spotted one on the cathedral grounds waaaay later than you would have imagined. Im guessing you wouldn't get away with it these days though 😂
In early medieval times the Welsh raided and killed many of the inhabitants of border towns like Hereford, so not surprised there would be such a law. Mind you the English did the same to Welsh communities too - bet there wasn't too much criticism for the Welsh dispatching the English off early to meet their maker.
I'm also from Hereford and that is ancient law, if I remember I read it in the chained library in the cathedral. I moved away 10yrs ago but was up there a couple of months ago and was glad to see they have done it up alot around the oval.
@@dankvader5060 Small world dude! I live 2 mins from the oval!
@@sadiebeanz nice, I'm from Newton Farm originally.
Codi cyn cwn Caer. (Get up before the dogs of Chester). It was the same in all of the ‘Marchers’.
I think he gave the impression that there were anti Welsh laws in the 19th Century, there were not, we are talking about school rules. The methods seem harsh today, but schools were harsh then, but the intension was to teach children to speak and write in English. For a child to only speak Welsh was to be condemned to basic manual labour with no options to improve his lot in an overwhelmingly English speaking country.
No, there were literally anti Welsh laws.
Every single Welsh speaking teacher was sacked and replaced with English only speaking teachers and Welsh was also banned from being spoken in parliament and printing was also banned in wales, all in an attempt to erase the language from existence, it was a deliberate and concerted effort, the intention was to enforce English on the Welsh, it was an attempt at cultural and language genocide
@@Penddraig7 Welsh was banned from use in Parliament and courts, but that was a 16th century Law, part of the same act that gave Welsh people the same rights as the rest of tye kingdom, it was simply mandating that the common language to be used was to be English. It did not ban Welsh in everyday use, the same authorities had ordered the bible to be translated into Welsh remember.. Teacher's who didn't speak English might well have been sacked, quite rightly, to not be capable of reaching children English meant they were not suitable. Teachers were not sacked because they spoke Welsh as well as English. The "Welsh not" was never mandated by law, it was a teaching tool that some teachers used on their own initiative. Indeed there was no central control over what was taught in schools, it was the local authorities and individual teachers who decided. This is one of those myths inflated from a misrepresented of history by Nationalists looking for grievance. Those teachers may have been harsh but their intention was to prepare the children for life, unlike romantic fools today who seem to wish they had been left speaking Welsh only, cut off from opportunity.
@@leehallam9365 am sorry but you talking bollocks, you’re doing you best to try and justify it but you are failing.
It’s not a case of teachers who didn’t speak English might well have been sacked, blah blah blah, no, every single teacher who spoke Welsh was sacked, it had nothing to do with whether or not they spoke English, the fact is, they spoke Welsh therefore they were sacked and replaced with teachers who did not speak Welsh at all, they only spoke English, this is a fact.
The Welsh teachers were sacked so that they could not teach Welsh and to replace the native Welsh language with English and that’s why the children were punished if they spoke Welsh, it was to beat the Welsh out of them so they would be scared to speak Welsh.
The laws that gave the Welsh equal standing as the English was when in England, if a Welshman was in England they had the same rights as an Englishman had and for this any legal/official documents or preceding had to be in English, it had nothing to do with mandating a common language in wales, it was to mandate the use of English only in England but that was centuries prior and is unrelated, it was actually a crime to speak Welsh in parliament, it wasn’t just a case of you weren’t allowed to speak Welsh.
Also like I said, the printing press was banned in wales so they could not print Welsh literature, anybody caught with Welsh literature was punished and so people had to hide their books so if they were searched it could not be found, people would give other people their literature to hide.
It was absolutely not a case of having it so English was a common language, it was an assault on the Welsh language with a means of completely eradicating it from existence but nice try with your denialism clap trap, it might work on someone who is ignorant, but it’s not going to work on me, I have studied the topic in great detail for decades, it’s got nothing to do with nationalisms, it’s actually your opinion that is the nationalist point of view.
I was born in England and grew up only speaking English, I had zero Welsh education, I had never lived in wales, but I chose to learn about it in 1997, so no, not nationalistic in the slightest, sorry to burst that bubble, I know that’s the go to term to use in an argument to try and shut down an argument by trying to gaslight that person into feeling a negative way for being called a nationalist because of how that word is associated with a certain group of people, but that don’t work on me because I know what you’re doing and people like you that use that term in the way you do actually take the weight of the term away, if you call everyone a nationalist, it no longer has any meaning, it’s no longer something that people are afraid to be labelled, but you are acting more like a nationalist by denying that it happened, I guess like some nationalists deny another thing happening beginning with H, see, we can all make the nationalist argument, difference is, you’re the one denying something happened that has been heavily documented as happening, so which one of us is acting like the nationalist here 🤦♂️
I am sorry about the Nationalists thing, it wasn't directed at you. When I am challenged as you did I always try to check to see if there is evidence to back me up or the other person, and I did do that after your first comment. I just couldn't find any evidence to back up what you were saying about the teachers. I couldn't find anything about teachers being sacked. I found an article in the Argus about an official who had made a similar statement to yours, this is the response from a professor of Welsh History:
Martin Johnes, professor of Welsh history at Swansea University, said it is important to understand the societal pressures of the time but said: “Speaking Welsh in schools has never been illegal.”
The academic, who is currently writing a history of the Welsh Not and language in 19th Century education, also said the Blue Books and the role of government have been misunderstood.
“Some children were punished for speaking Welsh because of a misguided belief that it would improve their skills in English. The drive for this came from individual teachers. It happened at a time when state control over teaching methods was fairly minimal and early in the 19th century non-existent.
“It was never government policy that children should be punished for speaking Welsh or that Welsh should be excluded from the classroom. However, it is fair to say that the government did nothing to support the teaching of Welsh as a subject in itself before the 1890s.”
On the Blue Books the professor said: “That education report actually argued that schools should use the Welsh language in order to better teach children English. The commissioners had no love or respect for Welsh but they correctly understood that the exclusion of Welsh from classrooms was making it very difficult for Welsh monoglot children to learn anything at all.”
That is essentially what I said. I tried to add the link but You Tube didn't like it. I also have tried to find references to bans on printing in Welsh but I couldn't find those either. I did find restrictions placed in Elizabeth's time, but that was to do with religion, Wales resisted Anglicanism, not language. I did find references to books printed in Welsh from the 17th century, and attempts at starting periodicals in the 18th and the first Welsh Language newspaper started in Swansea in 1814, plus histories and how Caernarfon was the capital of Welsh printing, with 14 print works in the 19th century. With respect I think you have absorbed and believe a myth. I don't deny Welsh was a second class language, that it was looked down on and that the authorities saw no reason to preserve it. But it was never illegal, there was no official policy to stamp it out, if there had been you would not have been speaking it today. And my original point was the teachers were using harsh methods not to stamp out Welsh, but to teach the children English, which was for the benefit of the children.
Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about the celts.
Wales (pronounced like the mammal 🐋) is “Cymru” in Welsh.
“Draig” is dragon in Welsh and “coch” means red.
The Celts are:
Brythonic and Gaelic (Brittany, Wales, Isle of Man, Cornwall and Cumbria Ireland, Scotland)
Hey, I found this regarding your question at the end "A third study, published in 2020 and based on Viking era data from across Europe, suggested that the Welsh trace, on average, 58% of their ancestry to the Brittonic people, up to 22% from a Danish-like source interpreted as largely representing the Anglo-Saxons."
Thanks for giving time to check out Welsh history, it is definitely over looked and Wales has had a very rough history, but despite that, we are still here. Yma O Hyd
The Welsh are surely some of the earliest inhabitants remaining in Britain, though compared with my Scandinavian/Germanic ancestors, they've only been in Europe for a very short time, arriving during the Copper and Bronze Ages, some 1,500-2,000 years ago. Whereas my ancestors, who descended from the last of the hunter-gatherers, were descended from the first Europeans, who arrived some 43,000 years ago.
The Bronze age in Western Europe was 4500 - 4000 years ago, not 1500. Please do some checking.
@@tacfoley4443 The Bronze Age in Britain actually began between 2,500-2,000 years ago, so my mistake. It certainly wasn't from 4,500 years ago. Please do some checking.
@@gigmcsweeney8566 You did not specify Britain - you wrote 'the bronze Age'. The Italian Bronze Age is conditionally divided into four periods: The Early Bronze Age (2300-1700 BC), the Middle Bronze Age (1700-1350 BC), the Recent Bronze Age (1350-1150 BC), the Final Bronze Age (1150-950 BC). During the second millennium BC, the Nuragic civilization flourished in the island of Sardinia.
@@tacfoley4443 It was obvious I was writing about Britain. The subject matter was the Welsh.
@@gigmcsweeney8566 The bronze age in Britain started around 4,500 years ago, google it
It’s funny how you pronounce Wales Steve. You’re pronouncing it like Wells. Which is a city in England
I do too. Been here for 35 years. Used to live in Scotland which was also beautiful
I could give you many things.. But the big one.. Is the Welsh Prince who discovered America in the early 12th Century.. 3 centuries before Columbus..
Taking people back to America to live forever.. Merging cultures with the native Mandans.. To the point that you can speak Welsh to someone who speaks the Mandan language.. His name was.
Prince Madog ab Owain Gwynedd... This is maybe the most critical piece of American historys beginning as we know it..
It also goes to show how very different the Welsh people are to any other European people. Naturally gifted leaders, rebellious, adventurous and socialable.. The Welsh people in their history as a free people never sought to conquer in combat and wage wars with others.. When the Saxons arrived what is today England was once all Wales.. Or as it was known.. Albien or Briton.. The Saxons merged very intergration but letter more violent means to taken more cultural control.. The Welsh Culture was receded to what is today known as Wales/Cymru prenouned Come Ree by the way.. And Cornwall/Kernow.
As the video states.. Wales is the keeper of the flame of the old world the old ways and words.. Elvish was built off of Welsh by Tolken who could speak Welsh and taught it as a lecturer on literature. The Elves repersent the Welsh people romantically.. Down to their use of bows and living amounts the trees.
You my wonder how a nation so small can withstand the weight of England a nation 10x its size for centuries..
Like I said the Welsh people are resilient and born rebellious.. Born leaders.. Eventally the forces gave way.. Leadership of the nation was broken.. England assumed control of the territories.. With it came several brutal years of segregation and othering of Welsh people in their own lands.. Great efforts were made to prevent Welsh people from marrying.. From speaking their own language.. It was nearly 200 year of this torture that was inflicted on them.. And still they stood.. Unbroken.. Stronger than ever.. And with it begins the tale... Of Henry the V.. And Henry the VII to complete his task.. To put a Welshmen upon the throne.. Victory was achieved.. The Welsh people had earned equal rights in the law.. With it came a change.. However thats not the end.. With the end of the line of Tudor came the end of equalities.. Soon the crown and kingdom went back to a more heavy hand and the rest is English history Wales endured or was roped into.. A hatred for the crown began to bubble once again.. And really has never been quelled the Welsh people are still the least supportive of the crown to this day.. There are often talks of wanting to see the Prince of Wales title retired or returned to its rightful heirs in Wales.
Welsh independence has ebed and flowed over the decades.. It was quite strong and resulted in several IRA style attacks to seek to make it a more clearer statement.. The topic in its more modern form first floated in the late 1920s.. Political party was formed around the Welsh language and culture being under threat.. It was relatively popular but not enough to win seats within the Westminster system.. But the 1960s suddenly there was a breakthrough.. The first elected member for the party and with it the matter of independence for Wales was now in the conversation.. Over the years slowly the pressure these wins were having resulted in the Devolution referendums in Wales and Scotland.. These were done to appease those seeking a national voice for Wales and Scotland as well as quell it.. The referendum were lost and Assemblys were not established... Scotland however did get a little more powers for the Scotland Office which is a Westminster branch for Scotland.. Wales own Wales Office didnt receieve the same level of powers..
20 years later there is again preasure for independence growing again as well as loose political premises from the Labour party to deliver those referendum.. Those referendums were won.. And the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament were established.. Another decade later another referendum this time to increase the power of the institutions.. That was won and with larger margins than the one to establish the institutions.. The Welsh Assembly became the Welsh Parliament or the Senedd in Welsh.. It got parity with Scotlands Parliament minus a few briefs like Justice department Wales still shares the English judiciary but has several seperated law ammendments within jurisdiction of Wales.. Its a very old holdover from the Tudors.. It will also be devolved as some point.
Welsh Independence around a decade or so ago was polling very low.. People were quite happy with just slowly picking up powers and remaining within the British political union.. However.. Since a decade ago.. Several things have happened to change that.. The UK exited the European Union.. For some they see Independence as a way to get back into the European Union.. For others they see leaving the European Union as a major hurdle to Wales itself leaving the British Union for full sovereignty dealt with.. Wales has grown quite used to having its own laws, government and elections.. It has done so now for 25 years.. It has gotten a taste of what the nation and its goals can be if in control of them.. So people are getting a taste.. Some people just really hate Tories and want independence from England because they elect Tories who only care about England and think little for Wales or Scotland..
Welsh Independence has now settled around 30% of the population in favour of the idea.. 56% against it.. With 14% dont know.. So the idea of Welsh independence is now quite real.. It has as of yet yielded very little results at the ballot box. Beyond the same party founded 100 years ago averaging 20%.. There is 10% of the population that are voting for smaller parties or parties that dont wish to persue independence.. So as of yet a political earthquake hasn't happened in Wales.. But the ground is there for a very strong force to take it and run it to the end goal..
Wales is one of the most underrepresented yet one of the most important voices.. Wales will be a free country.. It will decide its own destiny once again.
Those around the world discovering their Welsh roots welcome home.. Many of our decendents have fought and been leaders in other nations independence.. We need now for their decendent to return this favour to us.
Do not be foolled.. There is no left or right to the issue of independence.. That comes down to the model and pursuit afterwards.. No independence is unity.. A issue for us all to embrace and discuss and further.
There seems to be a rewritting of Welsh history - again! The Welsh were and are the first Britons (fullstop). The Welsh were before the Irish. The Irish and Scottish are from the same tribal background.
I don't like American versions of our history. It's hardly ever accurate.
I've only one thing to say. PICT
There was a population here before us though, the people that built stonehenge.
@@sheepskyThat was the point being made in this video: the descendants of the people who built Stonehenge supposedly adopted wholescale the customs and language of the European Celtic people they were trading with but were not displaced or ethnically diluted by them.
There are some who argue that the same thing happened in relation to the Angles and Saxons.
In other words, the ethnicity of the original population purportedly survived through the ages.
The archaeological and documentary evidence is very contradictory.
Breton spoken in Brittany northen France is so similar to Welsh, another celtic nation.
The reason why the Siony Wynion (Johnny Onions) men were accepted in Wales, they could make theirselves understood
Thank you for shining a light on my beautiful country, We will make you welcome on the hillside. Diolch
Ali G's trip to Wales is absolutely hilarious and also educates you on the welsh mine industry
3:21 The concept of England did not exist during this era.
The whole of the landmass of what is known now as Great Britain was called Albion, prior to Roman invasion and was made up of multiple 'kingdoms' of different tribes/ clans.
British history is very ancient and very complex.
Love your reactions of surprise to all the bits of information you're given.
Keep up the digging and find new discoveries.
A well wisher from Wales🏴,UK🇬🇧
Spot on 👍 the terms "Welsh" and "English" would not have had any meaning to the romano Britons as both terms come from the Germanic family of languages
Its very difficult to separate most of the different peoples in the UK as there have been millennia of mixing, its fair to say many will have ancestors from each if these as each would take wives and slaves from the other ( some would be taken abroad to be sold to work the land in places like denmark)
I love your interest thank you we are proud of our country and language we are a beautiful country ❤️❤️❤️
A very proud welshman here.. thank you
It is so refreshing to see Cymru(Wales) getting some recognition. What these history channels always seem to conveniently forget,is that we were forbidden to speak our language,not just in schools. You would not be allowed to work if you spoke Welsh. All our Welsh signs were daubed out by the English and we were treated truly inferior in our own country. They even did not want us to have children, lest that we might progress. We are still the butt of many jokes by the English today. The castle in the video is just down the road from me. I actually have the pleasure of going past it on the buses to go shopping,every week. We,i, speak Welsh here in North Wales. Most Welsh speakers are in the county Gwynedd and an island called Anglesey.
And don't forget, the English engineered the change of our names. I am Jones but go back and we were called Ioin
I have stated in an answer here about it being stamped out in schools.. it happened to my Mother and her brothers from the 1920s. onwards.. hit by the teachers. I didn;t realise it was in jobs too. diabolical policy. I had a Welsh Mother, from South Wales and my Father was from the Rep. of Ireland.. talk about being put down bythe English in my near ancestry. I lived on Angelsey for around 3 months once with a cousin and his family. I used to go out when I was in the Police with a handsome Welshman wiht a deep singing voice who was from North Wales and he said until he went to school he spoke no English..so Welsh is his first language. However, he went to school in the late 50s.
One reason for the loss of Welsh, that few people will admit to, was that many aspiring middle class considered speaking Welsh to be working class and so brought their children up to only speak English.
A modern example of such thinking would be my ex-wife who was Irish, living in Ireland until her mid-teens. Her family thought having an Irish accent was common, so she had elocution lessons and thus had no accent at all.
@@grahvis What a load of crap!
@@grahvis The English banned the language on fear of death for 400 years. Think that had more effect than sounding working class
You may like to look into Mari Lwyd, it's an indication of "Feeling older".
As for proportion, Welsh as an ethnic identity is a somewhat contentious subject, but not in that way. You're Welsh if you're born here and identify as Welsh. After that it gets murky. Born to Welsh Parents in England, now living in Wales, and identifying as Welsh is usually accepted but sometimes people will point out this technically makes someone English. At the other end of the scale you have some people who will insist that anyone can be Welsh if living in Wales for some length of time and identifying as Welsh, typical ones i've heard of are "Lived here longer than elsewhere" or "For a few years". I've also heard "Lived here and had a Welsh kid here and identify as Welsh" as an exception.
There is no consensus on the matter beyond "If you're born here, you are Welsh". Everybody has their own opinion. For my part, I think if you have a Welsh accent, you're Welsh, as this is when everybody would assume you must be and only if you tell them "I was born in Bristol" or whatever would they challenge you on it. The Welsh Accent test also allows for "Lived here long enough" and so on.
The genetic makeup of Wales is not dissimilar from that of England. The Angles and Saxons did not replace the native Britons. They ruled them. The average Englishman has the same ancestors as the average Welshman. What separates them is culture and language as a result of the anglo-saxon and later norman conquests. England adopted the language and culture of the conquerors, Wales was not conquered until later and by this point had built an identity in part around resistance to assimilation by the anglo-saxons.
I totally agree with you, as I have lived in Wales for over 36 years, I am an English import..
Affectionately called 'Wenglish' by my F&F's..
My children were born here, and consider themselves as Welsh, and my husband was born 'in the Avon Valley'.. So I am quite content to be considered Wenglish, I consider it a quaint compliment..
Mind you, when the rugby is on.. I AM ALWAYS CALLED ENGLISH with a cheeky grin and 'but we love you anyway Sal'..
Best wishes to you, from Wales.
@@wenglishsal I live in the south and can't speak Welsh. I have family in the north who speak it. They call me Wenglish too. I was born here. (A part of why probably being I don't always "Root against England" in the rugby. I support Wales, Scotland, Ireland, England, in that order.) Best Wishes!
I have done a fair bit of genealogy, and spent many hours trawling through records like the census returns from 1841 onwards.
A lot of South Walians who consider themselves Welsh would be very surprised at how much Anglo Saxon ancestry they have.
Myself I am Welsh born, but my ancestry is only about 10%, having Anglo Saxon connections to Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Yorkshire.
@@pauldurkee4764 Well, that makes me feel a bit better... 😉 I'm born and raised in the north of Wales and have lived here my entire life, except for three years in Cardiff during university. But my DNA tells me that I'm 58% English and only 22% Welsh. But I still consider myself to be 100% Welsh.
I consider myself Welsh, but have ancestors 3 generations back from Scotland, Ireland and Somerset/Devon, who arrived to build the railways and work on the docks, and married local girls. However, as someone else pointed out above, the Saxons did not replace the native British, they ruled them. Most English people are less ''Anglo Saxon'' than they think. @@pauldurkee4764
Very Interesting video! My grandfather was sent to the mine at age 13 - that was the way of things back then. Discussion he mining industry can get quite heated here. You should take a look at Big Pit - once a working mine, now a tourist attraction.
I've always loved the fact that history is within arm's reach in Wales - I drive past one castle on my way to work and there are several others within half an hour's drive. There really is "something different" here!
Would love for you to do more videos on wales as you mentioned the mines, singing etc
We all have Celtic roots in the Uk, my cousin is half Welsh and her Welsh family speak Welsh as their first language, unfortunately she never learnt Welsh as she was brought up in England and her Dad didn’t teach her any.
No we don’t, the Welsh and therefore the Britons, were not Celtic and never have been Celtic
@@Penddraig7 Your wrong, look it up.
@@jemmajames6719 I am not wrong at all, I have studied the subject in great detail for decades. The names all proof that the Welsh are not and never have been Celtic. The whole Celtic thing is an 18th century lie
@@Penddraig7Greeks called the Tribe of Khumric, Celtic.
After they used the Coelbern Alphabet.
So technically that's where it comes from.
@@steviegoy8830 the Welsh are not Celtic, never have been and therefore are not the original celts.
The Welsh and the Celts were completely different and they diametrically opposed peoples, they were also enemies
Most of the HRH royal family wear mined Welsh gold wedding rings.
Welsh gold is the best in the world,
Just more that they’ve stolen from us.
The mining is so true. I literally work around a mine explorers thing which was one of the main quarry mines in the uk. You can actually go down into the caves and some of the stuff from the original workers are still down there
I from Ceredigion. Llanddewi-brefi, Wales.
Your last question was interesting. How many true celtic remain. The truth is we hold our culture regardless of our distant heritage. We all have questions. The most important thing is to feel at home and be proud of where we are. And what we are. That's what home is!
That's a really good video to react to. Firstly, it didn't just do the lazy central European Celtic origin thing and mentions the alternative possibility that Celtic was more a culture through trade that people adopted, then... it didn't do the lazy version of the Anglo-Saxon migration and instead mentions that most Britons stayed and adopted the language of the new rulers, whereas in Cymru they kept their leaders, language and traditions. Really well researched video.
Glad to hear that, as I have no frame of reference really to go on. :)
Even shorter stick is Cornwall. A Celtic nation reduced to a mere county
There were quite a few nations that were reduced to mere counties or regions in the present day United Kingdom. Kent for example, Northumberland, East Anglia, etc. When Athelstan became the first king of all England, he had seven minor kings of different areas of England swearing allegiance to him. In Wales, there were also many kings at that time.
Duchy surely !
@@dukenukem5768 but those were all English kingdoms so “belong” in England. People forget that while Cornwall is in England it’s isn’t truly English
@@nickyfield137 The Duchy is not exactly the same as the county.
@@molybdomancer195 what's different ?
Helo Steve. I very much enjoyed listening to you and the narrator. I get the feeling that when you delve deeper into Welsh history, the people and the language, the more passionate you will become. The country too is as wonderful, and very diverse. Amazing how so much is crammed into this small country, a land that feels10 times its actual size. Have you ever visited Wales? If not, I think you should. Fe fydd croeso mawr 'da ti yma.
So much so, that in Wales their going back to Celtic horse speed.
It sounds like you keep saying Wells. Try Whales!
😃
North Wales has a large amount of Slate Mining around Snowdonia.
Eryri
I love how enthusiastic and surprising that our cultures find to you ,like a boy in a sweet shop lol 😂
Its worth pointing out that during the industrial revolution it wasn't just that Wales had a crap load of coal, but it was also some of if not arguably the best coal (anthracite coal) anywhere in the world, and was certainly the best coal the British empire had easy access too...so like any good empire it exploited the hell out of it and the people who mined it
If I had not settled in Norfolk, I definitely would have moved to Wales. One of the things I would love to have done would be to learn Welsh - it would be a challenge. Sadly, that option is not available to me but I think it is wonderful that Welsh is now gaining a huge number of speakers. It would have been such a pity and a huge loss to the culture if the language had all but disappeared.
Scots gaelic didn't go caput. At one time Scotland spoke a brythonic language, ie similar to Welsh, You can see this in 'welsh-like' placenames, those beginning with 'Car' such as Carstairs and 'Aber' such as Aberdeen.
One of the most famous Welsh bardic poems or stories is The Dodgoddin written in and about a welsh tribes centered on south west Scotland including Edinbugh.
Centred of Dumbarton (just west of glasgow) was a major Bythonnic kingdom called Strath Clud. At times this stretched down, well into present day England.
Then there was an Irish invasion bringing the Irish language to Northern Scotland, they allied of The North East and the two battled the Saxons for control of South East Scotland and the Britons for control of South West.
Eventually the Irish and Picts won, destroying Strath Clud, and the Picts were happy until the Irish of Dal Riada held their own 'Red Wedding' and wiped out the Pictish aristocracy - how that for gratitude. Anyways, the Irish language spread east across the whole of the Highlands, but it never reached lowland Scotland (much) where Brithonic/welsh died out and Northumbrian Anglo Saxon became the dominant language and this then developed into Scots.
Whew. It's a very interesting period of history and not well known.
North Wales tends to speak more Welsh than South Wales because they weren't affected by the industrial revolution as we (Southies) were, also there are regional dialects of Welsh, Milk is Llaeth in South Wales and Llefrith in North Wales for example
Yes, the Welsh have always been a bit of a handful. The Romans actually had to stage 3 full legions in the region, one in the south and two up around Chester on the welsh border. I'm based in LLanelli and my father was born in Cardiff but the family hales from Pembrokeshire.
My mother came from Harlech (N. Wales) and didn't speak English regularly until she met my dad. My Nian and Taid (Grandmother and Grandfather) couldn't speak more than just a handful of words in English. The Welsh side of my family still speak Welsh as their daily language. I think I'm just about the only person they have conversations in English with that last more than just a few minutes on a regular basis. One of my biggest regrets is that my Mum didn't teach me Welsh, but we grew up in England and speaking Welsh to your kids would have been a big no no back then.
Us Cornish Celts are nearest Welsh
Thanks for not forgetting about us 🏴🏴
In common with many brits im part welsh, actually im part scot and irish too.... but its not the least unusual to be a mishmash of all 4 countries of the UK
Ha Ha ....it's not unusual !
Hi, thanks for the video. Cymru (pronounced Cumree) is the proper name of our country, Wales is it's English name. Whilst we are known for our coal, we also led the World in metallurgy, because it was cheaper to bring metal ore to the fuel, coal than the other way around, it takes 6 ton of coal to process 1 ton of copper ore. Swansea, once known as Copperopolis was the World's leading producer of copper, it's sailors, famously known as Cape Horners brought copper back from Chile and Argentina. Swansea was also a large producer ot tin and nickel. The nickel refining process was developed in Swansea. There was many other processes here, like arsenic and steel production too.
Very interesting! Thanks for explaining further.
Not technically true, Wales is actually welsh not English.
Wales means lands of the Gâl. The Welsh named Wales Prydain (Britain) and when Prydain (Britain) got broken up into multiple lands, the part that was the north became known as Hen Ogledd meaning the old north, the part which is just referred to as Wales today was known as North Wales and the part which is now Cornwall and Deven and southern Somerset was called West Wales.
Also the largest Bronze Age Copper Ore mine in the world is in Wales, in the Great Orme, they had the biggest supply of Copper, the Bronze Age in Britain was very lucrative.
Wales also has some of the most valuable gold in the world, it holds up to 30 times more value than any other gold in the world.