Name	Welsh
Nativename	Cymraeg, y Gymraeg
Familycolor	Indo-European
Pronunciation
States
Region	Spoken throughout Wales and some nearby parts of England, the Chubut province of Argentina.
Speakers	791,000+:— Wales: 611,000 — England: 150,000 — Chubut Province, Argentina: 25,000 — United States: 2,500 — Canada: 2,200
Fam2	Celtic
Fam3	Insular Celtic
Fam4	Brythonic
Nation
Script	Latin alphabet (Welsh variant)
Map	Siaradwyr y Gymraeg ym Mhrif Ardaloedd Cymru.png
Mapcaption	Percentage of Welsh speakers by principal area
Agency	(Welsh Language Board)
Iso1	cy
Iso2b	wel|iso2tcym
Iso3	cym |lingua50-ABA
Notice	IPA}}

Welsh ('''' or '','' pronounced ) is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England and in ''Y Wladfa'' (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it was also called Cambrian or Cambric.

The Welsh Language Board indicated in 2004 that 611,000 people (21.7% of the population of Wales in households or communal establishments) were able to speak Welsh. This figure marks a 0.9 percentage point increase when compared with a figure of 20.8% from the 2001 census, and an increase of approximately 35,000 in absolute numbers within Wales. Welsh is therefore a growing language within Wales. Of those 611,000 Welsh speakers, 57% (315,000) considered themselves fluent, and 78% (477,000) consider themselves fluent or "fair" speakers. 62% of speakers (340,000) claimed to speak the language daily, including 88% of fluent speakers.

A greeting in Welsh is one of 55 languages included on the Voyager Golden Record chosen to be representative of Earth in NASA's Voyager program launched in 1977. The greetings are unique to each language, with the Welsh greeting being ''Iechyd da i chwi yn awr ac yn oesoedd'' which translates into English as "Good health to you now and forever".

The Welsh Language Measure 2011 gives the Welsh language official status in Wales.

History

Welsh emerged in the 6th century from British, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish, and the extinct language known as Cumbric.

Like most languages, there are identifiable periods within the history of Welsh, although the boundaries between these are often indistinct.

The name ''Welsh'' originated as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning "foreign speech" (see Walha). The native term for the language is ''Cymraeg'', and ''Cymru'' for "Wales."

Distribution of Welsh speakers

Welsh is a living language, used in conversation by hundreds of thousands and spoken throughout Wales. The 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey showed 21.7% of the population of Wales to be Welsh speakers. This is an increase from 20.5% in the 2001 census, and from 18.5% in 1991. The 2001 census also shows that about 25% of Welsh residents were born outside Wales. The number of Welsh speakers in the rest of Britain has not yet been compiled for statistical purposes. In 1993, S4C, the Welsh language television channel, published the results of a survey into the numbers of people who spoke or understood Welsh, which estimated that there were around 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London area.

Historically, large numbers of Welsh people spoke only Welsh, but monoglot Welsh speakers are now virtually non-existent, except among mother tongue speakers below school age as well as small numbers of elderly people in traditional Welsh speaking regions. Almost without exception, Welsh speakers in Wales also speak English (while in Chubut Province, Argentina, almost all speakers can speak Spanish - ''see Y Wladfa''). However, many first language Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain and the social context, even within a single discourse (known in linguistics as code-switching).

Welsh as a first language is largely concentrated in the north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire (''Sir Ddinbych''), Anglesey (''Ynys Môn''), Carmarthenshire (''Sir Gâr''), north Pembrokeshire (''Sir Benfro''), Ceredigion, parts of Glamorgan (''Morgannwg''), and north-west and extreme south-west Powys, although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales.

Official status

Although Welsh is a minority language, support for the language grew during the second half of the 20th century, along with the rise of organisations such as the nationalist political party Plaid Cymru from 1925 and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the ''Welsh Language Society'') from 1962.

The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 provide that the Welsh and English languages be treated equally in the public sector, as far as is reasonable and practicable. Public bodies are required to prepare for approval a Welsh Language Scheme, which indicates their commitment to the equality of treatment principle. This is sent out in draft form for public consultation for a three month period, whereupon comments on it may be incorporated into a final version. It requires the final approval of the Welsh Language Board (). Thereafter, the public body is charged with implementing and fulfilling its obligations under the Welsh Language Scheme. The list of other public bodies which have to prepare Schemes could be added to by initially the Secretary of State for Wales, from 1993–1997, by way of Statutory Instrument. Subsequent to the forming of the National Assembly for Wales in 1997, the Government Minister responsible for the Welsh language can and has passed Statutory Instruments naming public bodies who have to prepare Schemes. Neither 1993 Act nor secondary legislation made under it cover the private sector, although some organisations, notably banks and some railway companies, provide some of their literature through the medium of Welsh.

On 7 December 2010, the Welsh Assembly unanimously approved a set of measures to develop the use of the Welsh language within Wales. On 9 February 2011, this measure received Royal Approval and was passed, thus making the Welsh language an officially recognised language within Wales. The Measure:

confirms the official status of the Welsh language;

creates a new system of placing duties on bodies to provide services through the medium of Welsh;

creates a Welsh Language Commissioner with strong enforcement powers to protect the rights of Welsh speakers to access services through the medium of Welsh;

establishes a Welsh Language Tribunal;

gives individuals and bodies the right to appeal decisions made in relation to the provision of services through the medium of Welsh

creates a Welsh Language Partnership Council to advise Government on its strategy in relation to the Welsh language;

allows for an official investigation by the Welsh Language Commissioner of instances where there is an attempt to interfere with the freedom of Welsh speakers to use the language with one another.

With the passing of this measure, public bodies and some private companies will be required to provide services in it, though it remains to be seen which companies will have to comply. The Minister for Heritage, Alun Ffred Jones, said, "''The Welsh language is a source of great pride for the people of Wales, whether they speak it or not, and I am delighted that this Measure has now become law. I am very proud to have steered legislation through the Assembly which confirms the official status of the Welsh language; which creates a strong advocate for Welsh speakers and will improve the quality and quantity of services available through the medium of Welsh. I believe that everyone who wants to access services in the Welsh language should be able to do so, and that is what this government has worked towards. This legislation is an important and historic step forward for the language, its speakers and for the nation''." The measure was not welcomed warmly by all supporters; Bethan Williams, chair of language campaign group Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, gave a mixed response to the move, saying, "''Through this measure we have won official status for the language and that has been warmly welcomed. But there was a core principle missing in the law passed by the Assembly before Christmas. It doesn't give language rights to the people of Wales in every aspect of their lives. Despite that, an amendment to that effect was supported by 18 Assembly Members from three different parties, and that was a significant step forward''."

Local councils and the National Assembly for Wales use Welsh as a quasi-official language, issuing their literature and publicity in Welsh versions (e.g. letters to parents from schools, library information, and council information) and most road signs in Wales are in English and Welsh, including the Welsh placenames. However, some references to destinations in England are still given in English only, even where there are long-established Welsh names (e.g. London: ''Llundain''; The [English] Midlands: ''Canolbarth Lloegr'').

Since 2000, the teaching of Welsh has been compulsory in all schools in Wales up to age 16, and that has had a major effect in stabilising and to some extent reversing the decline in the language. It means, for example, that even the children of non-Welsh-speaking parents from elsewhere in the UK grow up with knowledge of or complete fluency of the language.

Although most road signs throughout Wales are bilingual, the wording on currency is in English only. The one exception is the legend on Welsh pound coins dated 1985, 1990 and 1995 (which are legal tender in all parts of the UK): ''Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad'', which means "True am I to my country") and derives from the national anthem of Wales, ''Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau''. The new British coinage from 2008 will not bear any Welsh language at all, despite being designed by a resident of North Wales and being minted at the Royal Mint in Llantrisant, South Wales. Although many shops employ bilingual signage, Welsh still rarely appears on product packaging or instructions.

The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of Welsh.

The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel S4C in November 1982, which until digital switchover in 2010 broadcasted 70% of Channel 4's programming along with a majority of Welsh language shows during peak viewing hours. The all-Welsh-language digital station S4C Digidol is available throughout Europe on satellite and online thoughout the UK. Since the digital switchover was completed in South Wales on 31 March 2010, S4C Digidol became the main broadcasting channel and fully in Welsh. The main evening television news provided by the BBC in Welsh is available for download. There is also a Welsh-language radio station, BBC Radio Cymru, which was launched in 1977.

There is, however, no daily newspaper in Welsh, the only Welsh-language national newspaper ''Y Cymro'' ("The Welshman") being published once a week. A daily newspaper called ''Y Byd'' ("The World") was scheduled to be launched on 3 March 2008 but has been scrapped, owing to poor sales of subscriptions and the Welsh Assembly Government deeming the publication as not meeting the criteria necessary for the kind of public funding it needed to be rescued.

Since December 2001 the British Government has planned to ensure that all immigrants speak English. It remains to be seen if Welsh will be considered a separate case. At present, knowledge of Welsh, English or Scottish Gaelic is sufficient for naturalisation purposes and it is believed that this policy will be continued in any proposed changes to the law.

Vocabulary

Welsh vocabulary draws mainly from original Brythonic words ( "egg", "stone"), with some loans from Latin ( "window" < Latin , "wine" < Latin ), and English ( "shelf", "gate").

Orthography

Welsh is written in a version of the Latin alphabet traditionally consisting of 28 letters, of which eight are digraphs treated as single letters for collation:

: a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y

In contrast to English practice, "a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "w" and "y" are all considered vowel letters in Welsh.

The letter "j" is used in many everyday words borrowed from English, like ''jam'', ''jôc'' "joke" and ''garej'' "garage". The letters "k", "q", "v", "x", and "z" are used in some technical terms, like ''kilogram'', ''volt'', ''xeroser'' and ''zero'', but in all cases can be, and often are, replaced by Welsh letters: ''cilogram'', ''folt'', ''seroser'' and ''sero.'' The letter "k" was in common use until the sixteenth century, but was dropped at the time of the publication of the New Testament in Welsh, as William Salesbury explained: "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth". This change was not popular at the time.

The most common diacritic is the circumflex, which disambiguates long vowels, most often in the case of homographs, where the vowel is short in one word and long in the other: e.g. ''man'' "place" vs ''mân'' "fine", "small".

Grammar

Phonology

The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are typologically rare in European languages, specifically voiceless sonorants such as the voiceless lateral fricative , voiceless nasal consonants , , and , and voiceless rhotic . Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable.

Morphology

Welsh morphology has much in common with that of the other modern Insular Celtic languages, such as the use of initial consonant mutations, and the use of so-called "conjugated prepositions" (prepositions that fuse with the personal pronouns that are their object). Welsh nouns belong to one of two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, but are not inflected for case. Welsh has a variety of different endings to indicate the plural, and two endings to indicate the singular of some nouns. In spoken Welsh, verb inflection is indicated primarily by the use of auxiliary verbs, rather than by the inflection of the main verb. In literary Welsh, on the other hand, inflection of the main verb is usual.

Syntax

The canonical word order in Welsh is verb–subject–object.

Colloquial Welsh inclines very strongly towards the use of auxiliaries with its verbs. The present tense is constructed with '''' ("to be") as an auxiliary verb, with the main verb appearing as a verbnoun (loosely equivalent to an infinitive) after the particle ''yn'': :'''' :Siân is going to Llanelli. Here ''mae'' is the third-person present form of ''bod'', and ''mynd'' is the verb meaning "go". The imperfect is constructed in a similar manner, as are the periphrastic forms of the future and conditional tenses.

In the preterite, future, and conditional tenses, there are inflected forms of all verbs (which are invariably used in the written language). However, it is more common nowadays in speech to use the verbnoun together with the inflected form of '''' ("to do"), so "I went" can be '''' or ''''. ''Mi'' is an example of a preverbal particle; such particles are common in Welsh.

Welsh lacks pronouns for constructing subordinate clauses; instead, preverbal particles and special verb forms are used.

Other features of Welsh grammar

Possessives as direct objects of verbal nouns

The Welsh for "I like Rhodri" is '''' ("I am in liking [of] Rhodri"), where ''Rhodri'' is in a possessive relationship to ''hoffi''. With personal pronouns, the possessive form of the personal pronoun is used, as in "I like ''him''" : '''' – literally, "I am in ''his'' liking" – "I like ''you''" is '''' ("I am ''your'' liking").

Pronoun doubling

In colloquial Welsh, possessive pronouns - whether used to mean "my", "your", etc., or to indicate the direct object of a verbal noun - are commonly reinforced by the use of the corresponding personal pronoun after the noun or verbal noun: "his house" (literally "his house ''of him''"), "I like you" ("I am [engaged in the action of] your liking ''of you''"), etc. It should be noted that this "reinforcement" (or, simply, "redoubling") adds no emphasis in the colloquial register. While the possessive pronoun alone may be used (as is especially common in more formal registers, as shown above), it is considered incorrect to use only the personal pronoun; such usage is nevertheless sometimes heard in very colloquial speech, mainly among young speakers: '''' ("Where are we going? Your house or my house?").

Counting system

The traditional counting system used by the Welsh language is vigesimal, which is to say it is based on twenties, as in standard French numbers 70 (''soixante-dix'', literally "sixty-ten") to 99 (''quatre-vingt-dix-neuf'', literally "four twenties nineteen"). Welsh numbers from 11 to 14 are "''x'' on ten", 16 to 19 are "''x'' on fifteen" (though 18 is ''deunaw'' "two nines"); numbers from 21 to 39 are "1–19 on twenty", 40 is "two twenties", 60 is "three twenties", etc.

There is also a decimal counting system, which has become relatively widely used, though less so in giving dates (it features no ordinal numbers) and ages. This system is especially in common use for larger ordinal numbers, and in Patagonian Welsh. In this system, numerals between 10 and 100 have the form "''x'' [times] ten ''y''", e.g. thirty-five in decimal is '''' (three [times] ten five) while in vigesimal it is '''' (fifteen – itself "five-ten" – on twenty).

While there is only one word for "one" (''''), it triggers the soft mutation (''treiglad meddal'') of feminine nouns, other than those beginning with "ll" and "rh". There are separate masculine and feminine forms of the numbers "two" ('''' and ''''), "three" ('''' and '''') and "four" ('''' and ''''), which must agree with the grammatical gender of the objects being counted.

Dialects

Dialectal differences are very pronounced in the spoken and, to a lesser extent, the written language. A convenient, if slightly simplistic, classification is into ''North Walian'' and ''South Walian'' forms (or '''' and '''' based on the word for North, '''', and the word ''Hwynthwy'' which means 'They Themselves' or 'Them'). The differences between dialects encompass vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar, although particularly in the last regard they are in fact fairly minor.

An example of the difference between North and South Walian usage would be the question "Do you want a cup (of tea)?" In the north this would typically be '''' while in the south the question '''' would be more likely (though in the South one would not be surprised to hear '''' among other possibilities). An example of a pronunciation difference between Northern and Southern Welsh is the tendency in southern dialects to palatalise the letter "s", e.g. '''' (month), would tend to be pronounced in the north, and in the south. This normally occurs next to a high front vowel like /i/, although exceptions include the pronunciation of '''' "how" as in the south (compared with northern ).

Much more fine-grained classifications exist beyond north and south: the book '''', about Welsh dialects was accompanied by a cassette containing recordings of fourteen different speakers demonstrating aspects of different dialects. The book refers to the earlier ''Linguistic Geography of Wales'' as describing six different regions which could be identified as having words specific to those regions. An alternative traditional classification was of four dialects - ''Y Wyndodeg'', the language of Gwynedd; ''Y Bowyseg'', the language of Powys; ''Y Ddyfedeg'', the language of Dyfed; and ''Y Wenhwyseg'', the language of Gwent and Morgannwg.

Another dialect is Patagonian Welsh, which has developed since the start of the Welsh settlement in Argentina in 1865; it includes Spanish loanwords and terms for local features, but a survey in the 1970s showed that the language in Patagonia is consistent throughout the lower Chubut valley and in the Andes.

Registers

Modern Welsh can be considered to fall broadly into two main styles—''Colloquial Welsh'' (''Cymraeg llafar'') and ''Literary Welsh'' (''Cymraeg llenyddol''). The grammar described on this page is that of Colloquial Welsh, which is used in most speech and informal writing. Literary Welsh is closer to the form of Welsh standardised by the 1588 translation of the Bible and is found in official documents and other formal registers, including much literature. As a standardised form, literary Welsh shows little if any of the dialectal variation found in colloquial Welsh. Some differences include:

! Literary Welsh	! Colloquial Welsh
	Subject pronouns rarely omitted
More extensive use of simple verb forms	More extensive use of periphrastic verb forms
No distinction between simple present and future (e.g. ''af'' "I go"/"I shall go")	Simple form most often expresses only future (e.g. ''af i'' "I'll go")
Subjunctive verb forms	Subjunctive in fixed idioms only
3rd.pl ending and pronoun ''–nt hwy''	3rd.pl ending and pronoun ''–n nhw''

Amongst the characteristics of the literary, as against the spoken, language are a higher dependence on inflected verb forms, different usage of some of the tenses, less frequent use of pronouns (since the information is usually conveyed in the verb/preposition inflections) and a much lesser tendency to substitute English loanwords for native Welsh words. In addition, more archaic pronouns and forms of mutation may be observed in Literary Welsh.

Examples of sentences in literary and colloquial Welsh

! English	! Literary Welsh	! Colloquial Welsh
I get up early every day.	''Codaf yn gynnar bob dydd.''	''Dwi'n codi'n gynnar bob dydd.'' (North)''Rwy'n codi'n gynnar bob dydd.'' (South)
I'll get up early tomorrow.	''Codaf yn gynnar yfory.''	''Coda i'n gynnar fory/Na i godi'n gynnar fory''
He had not stood there long.	''Ni safasai yno yn hir.''	''Doedd o ddim wedi sefyll yno'n hir.'' (North)''(D)odd e ddim wedi sefyll yno'n hir.'' (South)
They'll sleep only when there's a need.	''Ni chysgant ond pan fo angen.''	''Fyddan nhw ddim ond yn cysgu pan fydd angen.''

In fact, the differences between dialects of modern spoken Welsh pale into insignificance compared to the difference between some forms of the spoken language and the most formal constructions of the literary. The latter is considerably more conservative and is the language used in Welsh translations of the Bible, amongst other things (although the '''' – New Welsh Bible – is significantly less formal than the traditional 1588 Bible). Gareth King, author of a popular Welsh grammar, observes that "The difference between these two is much greater than between the virtually identical colloquial and literary forms of English". A grammar of Literary Welsh can be found in ''A Grammar of Welsh'' (1980) by Stephen J. Williams, or more completely in ''Gramadeg y Gymraeg'' (1998) by Peter Wynn Thomas (no comprehensive grammar of Welsh exists in English).

Most Welsh writing, especially that found on the Internet or in magazines, is closer to colloquial usage, though it is often argued that this preference results in questionable orthographical and grammatical choices. This is also becoming more common in artistic literature, where the parallel with the well-known works of Irvine Welsh or Niall Griffiths may be helpful to understand the effect, and the controversy.

Ultimately, the labels ''Colloquial'' and ''Literary'' may be no more (or less) than convenient approximations: the spoken (i.e. colloquial) language naturally permits the use of formal as well as informal registers, and written (i.e. literary) conventions are likewise flexible in use of registers.

Welsh in education

The decade around 1840 was a period of great social upheaval in Wales, manifested in the Chartist movement, which culminated in 20,000 people marching on Newport in 1839 resulting in a riot when 20 people were killed by soldiers defending the Westgate Hotel, and the Rebecca Riots when tollbooths on turnpikes were systematically destroyed.

This unrest brought the state of education in Wales to the attention of the English establishment, as social reformers of the time considered education as a means of dealing with social ills. ''The Times'' newspaper was prominent among those who considered that the lack of education of the Welsh people was the root cause of most of the problems.

In July 1846, three commissioners, R. R. W. Lingen, Jellynger C. Symons and H. R. Vaughan Johnson, were appointed to inquire into the state of education in Wales; the Commissioners were all Anglicans, and presumed to be unsympathetic to the non-conformist majority in Wales.

The Commissioners presented their report to the Government on 1 July 1847 in three large blue-bound volumes. This report quickly became known as '''' (The Treachery of the Blue Books) as, apart from documenting the state of education in Wales, the Commissioners were also free with their comments disparaging the language, non-conformity, and the morals of the Welsh people in general. An immediate effect of the report was for a belief to take root in the minds of ordinary people that the only way for Welsh people to get on in the world was through the medium of English, and an inferiority complex developed about the Welsh language whose effects have not yet been completely eradicated. The historian Professor Kenneth O. Morgan referred to the significance of the report and its consequences as "the Glencoe and the Amritsar of Welsh history".

In the later 19th century virtually all teaching in the schools of Wales was in English, even in areas where the pupils barely understood English. Some schools used the Welsh Not, a piece of wood, often bearing the letters "WN", which was hung around the neck of any pupil caught speaking Welsh. The pupil could pass it on to any schoolmate heard speaking Welsh, with the pupil wearing it at the end of the day being given a beating. Many tried in vain to get rid of this bigotry. One of the most famous Welsh born pioneers of higher education in Wales was Sir Hugh Owen. He made great progress in the cause of education, and more especially the University College of Wales (Aberystwyth), of which he was chief founder. He has been credited for with The Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 after which several new Welsh Schools were built, the first of which was built in 1894 and named Ysgol Syr Hugh Owen.

Towards the beginning of the 20th century this policy slowly began to change, partly owing to the efforts of Owen Morgan Edwards when he became chief inspector of schools for Wales in 1907.

The Aberystwyth Welsh School () was founded in 1939 by Sir Ifan ap Owen Edwards, the son of O.M. Edwards as the first Welsh Primary School. The headteacher was Norah Isaac. is still a very successful school and now there are Welsh language primary schools all over the country. Ysgol Glan Clwyd was established in Rhyl in 1955 as the first Welsh language school to teach to a secondary level.

Welsh is now widely used in education, with 20% of all pupils in Wales being taught at Welsh-medium schools. All Welsh universities teach some courses in Welsh (most notably Bangor University and Aberystwyth University), but are primarily English language. Under the National Curriculum, schoolchildren in Wales must study Welsh up to the age of 16 and many choose to continue with it in their A levels and college years. All Local Education Authorities in Wales have schools providing bilingual or Welsh-medium education. The remainder study Welsh as a second language in English-medium schools. Specialist teachers of Welsh called '''' support the teaching of Welsh in the National Curriculum. Welsh is also taught in adult education classes. The Welsh Assembly Government has recently set up six centres of excellence in the teaching of Welsh for Adults, with centres in North Wales (learncymraeg.org), Mid Wales, South West, Glamorgan, Gwent and Cardiff. The ability to speak Welsh or to have Welsh as a qualification is essential or desirable for certain career choices in Wales, such as teaching or customer service.

Welsh in information technology

As with many of the world's languages, the Welsh language has seen an increased use and presence on the internet, ranging from formal lists of terminology in a variety of fields to Welsh language interfaces for Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox and a variety of Linux distributions, and on-line services to blogs kept in Welsh. A variety of websites are also available in Welsh: the social networking site Facebook has offered a Welsh version since 2009, and Wikipedia since July 2003.

Mobile phone technology

In 2006 the Welsh Language Board launched a free software pack which enabled the use of SMS predictive text in Welsh. At the National Eisteddfod of Wales 2009, a further announcement was made by the Welsh Language Board that the mobile phone company Samsung was to work with the network provider Orange to provide the first mobile phone in the Welsh language, with the interface and the T9 dictionary on the Samsung S5600 available in the Welsh language. The model, available with the Welsh language interface, has been available since 1 September 2009, with plans to introduce it on other networks.

Welsh in warfare

Secure communications are often difficult to achieve in wartime. Cryptography can be used to protect messages, but codes can be broken. Therefore, little-known languages are sometimes encoded, so that even if the code is broken, the message is still in a language few people know. For example, Navajo code talkers were used by the United States military during World War II. Similarly, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a Welsh regiment serving in Bosnia, used Welsh for emergency communications that needed to be secure.

Use of Welsh at the European Union

In November 2008, the Welsh language was used at a meeting of the European Union's Council of Ministers for the first time. The Heritage Minister Alun Ffred Jones addressed his audience in Welsh as his words were interpreted into the EU’s 23 official languages. The official use of the language followed years of campaigning. Jones said "In the UK we have one of the world’s major languages, English, as the mother tongue of many. But there is a diversity of languages within our islands. I am proud to be speaking to you in one of the oldest of these, Welsh, the language of Wales." He described the breakthrough as "more than [merely] symbolic" saying "Welsh might be one of the oldest languages to be used in the UK, but it remains one of the most vibrant. Our literature, our arts, our festivals, our great tradition of song all find expression through our language. And this is a powerful demonstration of how our culture, the very essence of who we are, is expressed through language."

See also

Association of Welsh Translators and Interpreters

English and Welsh

Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion

Languages in the United Kingdom

Welsh Language Media

List of Welsh films

List of Welsh language authors

List of Welsh language poets (6th century to c.1600)

List of Welsh people

List of Welsh principal areas by percentage Welsh language

Welsh literature

Welsh Bible

Welsh Language Board

Welsh placenames

Welsh Tract

Welsh (surname)

Notes

References

J.W. Aitchison and H. Carter. ''Language,Economy and Society. The changing fortunes of the Welsh Language in the Twentieth Century''. Cardiff. University of Wales Press. 2000.

J.W. Aitchison and H. Carter. ''Spreading the Word. The Welsh Language 2001''. Y Lolfa. 2004

External links

Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011

Available in Welsh and English.

Statistical data

Welsh Language Board: ''The Vitality of Welsh: A Statistical Balance Sheet'', August 2010

Link for Welsh language statistics from the Welsh Assembly Government (accessed 10 January 2009)

Example knowledge of Welsh (KS25) data (Newport) from the Office for National Statistics

Dictionaries

Welsh Phrasebook at Wikitravel

: University of Wales Dictionary of the Welsh Language, a historical dictionary of Welsh (with a second edition in progress, including an embryonic on-line version)

Welsh Lexicon, an online Welsh-English and English-Welsh resource

Conversational Groups

Mwydro Ynfyd Dedwydd Conversational Society

Cymdeithas y Dysgwyr Conversational Society

Courses

Say Something in Welsh, an online beginning Welsh language course

Learning resources on the BBC website (includes several beginner's courses and a Colloquial Welsh grammar guide)

Clic Clic Cymraeg (a course in North Welsh)

''A grammar of the Welsh language'' (by Thomas Rowland, 1853) (Literary Welsh)

''A guide to Welsh'' (by Thomas Jones, 1900): Part 1, Part 2 (Literary Welsh)

Category:Brythonic languages Category:Languages of the United Kingdom Category:Spoken articles Language Language Category:VSO languages

af:Wallies als:Walisisch ang:Ƿielisc sprǣc ar:لغة ويلزية an:Idioma galés frp:Galouès ast:Galés az:Vall dili bn:ওয়েলশ ভাষা zh-min-nan:Cymru-gí bar:Kymrisch bs:Velški jezik br:Kembraeg bg:Уелски език ca:Gal·lès cv:Валли чĕлхи cs:Velština cy:Cymraeg da:Walisisk (sprog) de:Walisische Sprache et:Kõmri keel el:Ουαλική γλώσσα es:Idioma galés eo:Kimra lingvo eu:Gales (hizkuntza) fa:زبان ولزی fo:Walisiskt mál fr:Gallois fy:Welsk ga:An Bhreatnais gv:Bretnish gd:Cuimris gl:Lingua galesa ko:웨일스어 hsb:Walizišćina hr:Velški jezik io:Walsana linguo id:Bahasa Wales os:Валлийаг æвзаг is:Velska it:Lingua gallese he:ולשית kw:Kembrek sw:Kiwelisi kv:Кӧмри кыв la:Lingua Cambrica lv:Velsiešu valoda lb:Walisesch lt:Valų kalba lij:Lengua galleise li:Welsh lmo:Galés hu:Walesi nyelv mk:Велшки јазик arz:لغه ويلزى ms:Bahasa Wales nl:Welsh (taal) nds-nl:Kumries ja:ウェールズ語 frr:Waliisisch no:Walisisk nn:Walisisk nrm:Gallouais oc:Galés pnb:ویلزی koi:Кöмри кыв pms:Lenga galèisa nds:Walisische Spraak pl:Język walijski pt:Língua galesa ro:Limba galeză rm:Lingua valisica qu:Kamri simi ru:Валлийский язык sc:Limba gallesa sco:Welsh leid stq:Walisisk scn:Lingua gallisa simple:Welsh language sk:Waleština sl:Valižanščina szl:Walijsko godka sr:Велшки језик sh:Velški jezik fi:Kymri sv:Kymriska tl:Wikang Gales ta:வேல்சு மொழி tg:Забони уелсӣ tr:Galce uk:Валлійська мова ug:ۋېلش تىلى vi:Tiếng Wales wa:Walès zh:威尔士语

Name	English
Familycolor	Indo-European
Pronunciation
Region	(see below)
Speakers	First language: 309–400 million Second language: 199 million–1.4 billionOverall: 500 million–1.8 billion
Fam2	Germanic
Fam3	West Germanic
Fam4	Anglo–Frisian
Fam5	Anglic
Script	English alphabet (Latin script)
Nation	54 countries27 non-sovereign entitiesUnited NationsEuropean UnionCommonwealth of Nations CoE NATO NAFTA OAS OIC PIF UKUSA
Iso1	en |iso2eng |iso3eng |lingua52-ABA
Map	Anglospeak.svg
Mapcaption	,
Notice	IPA }}

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria. Following the economic, political, military, scientific, cultural, and colonial influence of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from the 18th century, via the British Empire, and of the United States since the mid-20th century, it has been widely dispersed around the world, become the leading language of international discourse, and has acquired use as ''lingua franca'' in many regions. It is widely learned as a second language and used as an official language of the European Union and many Commonwealth countries, as well as in many world organizations. It is the third most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

Historically, English originated from the fusion of languages and dialects, now collectively termed Old English, which were brought to the eastern coast of Great Britain by Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) settlers by the 5th century – with the word ''English'' being derived from the name of the Angles. A significant number of English words are constructed based on roots from Latin, because Latin in some form was the ''lingua franca'' of the Christian Church and of European intellectual life. The language was further influenced by the Old Norse language due to Viking invasions in the 8th and 9th centuries.

The Norman conquest of England in the 11th century gave rise to heavy borrowings from Norman-French, and vocabulary and spelling conventions began to give the superficial appearance of a close relationship with Romance languages to what had now become Middle English. The Great Vowel Shift that began in the south of England in the 15th century is one of the historical events that mark the emergence of Modern English from Middle English.

Owing to the significant assimilation of various European languages throughout history, modern English contains a very large vocabulary. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' lists over 250,000 distinct words, not including many technical or slang terms, or words that belong to multiple word classes.

Significance

Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, is the dominant language or in some instances even the required international language of communications, science, information technology, business, seafaring, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy. Its spread beyond the British Isles began with the growth of the British Empire, and by the late 19th century its reach was truly global . Following British colonisation from the 16th to 19th centuries, it became the dominant language in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The growing economic and cultural influence of the US and its status as a global superpower since World War II have significantly accelerated the language's spread across the planet. English replaced German as the dominant language of science Nobel Prize laureates during the second half of the 20th century (compare the Evolution of Nobel Prizes by country).

A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of fields, occupations and professions such as medicine and computing; as a consequence over a billion people speak English to at least a basic level (see English language learning and teaching). It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.

One impact of the growth of English is the reduction of native linguistic diversity in many parts of the world. Its influence continues to play an important role in language attrition. Conversely, the natural internal variety of English along with creoles and pidgins have the potential to produce new distinct languages from English over time.

History

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. Up to that point, in Roman Britain the native population is assumed to have spoken the Celtic language Brythonic alongside the acrolectal influence of Latin, from the 400-year Roman occupation.

One of these incoming Germanic tribes was the Angles, whom Bede believed to have relocated entirely to Britain. The names 'England' (from ''Engla land'' "Land of the Angles") and ''English'' (Old English ''Englisc'') are derived from the name of this tribe—but Saxons, Jutes and a range of Germanic peoples from the coasts of Frisia, Lower Saxony, Jutland and Southern Sweden also moved to Britain in this era.

Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Great Britain but one of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate, and it is in this that the poem ''Beowulf'' is written.

Old English was later transformed by two waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of the North Germanic language branch when Halfdan Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless started the conquering and colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries (see Danelaw). The second was by speakers of the Romance language Old Norman in the 11th century with the Norman conquest of England. Norman developed into Anglo-Norman, and then Anglo-French – and introduced a layer of words especially via the courts and government. As well as extending the lexicon with Scandinavian and Norman words these two events also simplified the grammar and transformed English into a borrowing language—more than normally open to accept new words from other languages.

The linguistic shifts in English following the Norman invasion produced what is now referred to as Middle English, with Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbury Tales'' being the best known work.

Throughout all this period Latin in some form was the ''lingua franca'' of European intellectual life, first the Medieval Latin of the Christian Church, but later the humanist Renaissance Latin, and those that wrote or copied texts in Latin commonly coined new terms from Latin to refer to things or concepts for which there was no existing native English word.

Modern English, which includes the works of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible, is generally dated from about 1550, and when the United Kingdom became a colonial power, English served as the lingua franca of the colonies of the British Empire. In the post-colonial period, some of the newly created nations which had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the lingua franca to avoid the political difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. As a result of the growth of the British Empire, English was adopted in North America, India, Africa, Australia and many other regions, a trend extended with the emergence of the United States as a superpower in the mid-20th century.

Classification and related languages

The English language belongs to the Anglo-Frisian sub-group of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family, a member of the Indo-European languages. Modern English is the direct descendant of Middle English, itself a direct descendant of Old English, a descendant of Proto-Germanic. Typical of most Germanic languages, English is characterised by the use of modal verbs, the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, and common sound shifts from Proto-Indo-European known as Grimm's Law. The closest living relatives of English are the Scots language (spoken primarily in Scotland and parts of Ireland) and Frisian (spoken on the southern fringes of the North Sea in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany).

After Scots and Frisian come those Germanic languages that are more distantly related: the non-Anglo-Frisian West Germanic languages (Dutch, Afrikaans, Low German, High German), and the North Germanic languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese). With the (partial) exception of Scots, none of the other languages is mutually intelligible with English, owing in part to the divergences in lexis, syntax, semantics, and phonology, and to the isolation afforded to the English language by the British Isles, although some, such as Dutch, do show strong affinities with English, especially to earlier stages of the language. Isolation has allowed English and Scots (as well as Icelandic and Faroese) to develop independently of the Continental Germanic languages and their influences over time.

In addition to isolation, lexical differences between English and other Germanic languages exist due to heavy borrowing in English of words from Latin and French. For example, compare "exit" (Latin), vs. Dutch ''uitgang'', literally "out-going" (though ''outgang'' survives dialectally in restricted usage) and "change" (French) vs. German ''Änderung'' (literally "alteration, othering"); "movement" (French) vs. German ''Bewegung'' ("be-way-ing", i.e. "proceeding along the way"); etc. Preference of one synonym over another also causes differentiation in lexis, even where both words are Germanic, as in English ''care'' vs. German ''Sorge''. Both words descend from Proto-Germanic *''karō'' and *''surgō'' respectively, but *''karō'' has become the dominant word in English for "care" while in German, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages, the *''surgō'' root prevailed. *''Surgō'' still survives in English, however, as ''sorrow''.

Despite lexical borrowing, English retains classification as a Germanic language due to its structure and grammar. Non-native words are incorporated into a Germanic system of conjugation, declension, and syntax (For example, the word ''reduce'' is borrowed from Latin ''redūcere''; however, in English we say "I reduce"/"I reduced"/"I will reduce" rather than "redūcō"/"redūxī"/"redūcam"). Furthermore, in English, all basic grammatical particles added to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are Germanic. For nouns, these include the normal plural marker ''-s''/''-es'', and the possessive markers '' -'s'' and ''-s' ''. For verbs, these include the third person present ending ''-s''/''-es'' (e.g. ''he stands''/''he reaches'' ), the present participle ending ''-ing'', the simple past tense and past participle ending ''-ed'', and the formation of the English infinitive using ''to'' (e.g. "''to'' drive"; cf. Old English ''tō'' drīfenne). Adverbs generally receive an ''-ly'' ending, and adjectives and adverbs are inflected for the comparative and superlative using ''-er'' and ''-est'' (e.g. ''fast/faster/fastest''), or through a combination with ''more'' and ''most''. These particles append freely to all English words regardless of origin (''tsunamis; communicates; to buccaneer; during; bizarrely'') and all derive from Old English. Even the lack or absence of affixes, known as zero or null (-Ø) affixes, derive from endings which previously existed in Old English (usually ''-e, -a, -u, -o, -an,'' etc.), that later weakened to ''-e'', and have since ceased to be pronounced and spelt (e.g. Modern English "I sing" = ''I sing-Ø'' < ''I singe'' < Old English ''ic singe''; "we thought" = ''we thought-Ø'' < ''we thoughte(n)'' < Old English ''wē þōhton'').

Although the syntax of English is somewhat different from that of other West Germanic languages with regards to the placement and order of verbs (for example, "I have never seen anything in the square" = German ''Ich habe nie etwas auf dem Platz gesehen'', and the Dutch ''Ik heb nooit iets op het plein gezien'', where the participle is placed at the end), English syntax continues to adhere closely to that of the North Germanic languages, which are believed to have influenced English syntax during the Middle English Period (e.g., Danish ''Jeg har aldrig set noget på torvet''; Icelandic ''Ég hef aldrei séð neitt á torginu''). As in most Germanic languages, English adjectives usually come before the noun they modify, even when the adjective is of Latinate origin (e.g. ''medical emergency, national treasure''). Also, English continues to make extensive use of self-explaining compounds (e.g. ''streetcar, classroom''), and nouns which serve as modifiers (e.g. ''lamp post, life insurance company''), traits inherited from Old English (See also Kenning).

The kinship with other Germanic languages can also be seen in the tensing of English verbs (e.g. English ''fall/fell/fallen/will or shall fall'', West Frisian ''fal/foel/fallen/sil falle'', Dutch ''vallen/viel/gevallen/zullen vallen'', German ''fallen/fiell/gefallen/werden fallen''), the comparatives of adjectives and adverbs (e.g. English ''good/better/best'', West Frisian ''goed/better/best'', Dutch ''goed/beter/best'', German ''gut/besser/best''), and the large amount of cognates (e.g. English ''wet'', Scots ''weet'', West Frisian ''wiet'', Swedish ''våt''; English ''send'', Dutch ''zenden'', German ''senden''; English ''meaning'', Swedish ''mening'', Icelandic ''meining'', etc.). It also gives rise to false friends (e.g. English ''time'' vs Norwegian ''time'', meaning "hour"; English ''gift'' vs German ''Gift'', meaning "poison"), while differences in phonology can obscure words that really are related (''tooth'' vs. German ''Zahn''; compare also Danish ''tand''). Sometimes both semantics ''and'' phonology are different (German ''Zeit'' ("time") is related to English "tide", but the English word, through a transitional phase of meaning "period"/"interval", has come primarily to mean gravitational effects on the ocean by the moon, though the original meaning is preserved in forms like ''tidings'' and ''betide'', and phrases such as ''to tide over'').

Many North Germanic words entered English due to the settlement of Viking raiders and Danish invasions which began around the 9th century (see Danelaw). Many of these words are common words, often mistaken for being native, which shows how close-knit the relations between the English and the Scandinavian settlers were (''See below: Old Norse origins''). Dutch and Low German also had a considerable influence on English vocabulary, contributing common everyday terms and many nautical and trading terms (''See below: Dutch and Low German origins'').

Finally, English has been forming compound words and affixing existing words separately from the other Germanic languages for over 1500 years and has different habits in that regard. For instance, abstract nouns in English may be formed from native words by the suffixes "‑hood", "-ship", "-dom" and "-ness". All of these have cognate suffixes in most or all other Germanic languages, but their usage patterns have diverged, as German "Freiheit" vs. English "freedom" (the suffix "-heit" being cognate of English "-hood", while English "-dom" is cognate with German "-tum"). The Germanic languages Icelandic and Faroese also follow English in this respect, since, like English, they developed independent of German influences.

Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker, especially when they are seen in writing (as pronunciations are often quite different), because English absorbed a large vocabulary from Norman and French, via Anglo-Norman after the Norman Conquest, and directly from French in subsequent centuries. As a result, a large portion of English vocabulary is derived from French, with some minor spelling differences (e.g. inflectional endings, use of old French spellings, lack of diacritics, etc.), as well as occasional divergences in meaning of so-called false friends: for example, compare "library" with the French ''librairie'', which means bookstore; in French, the word for "library" is ''bibliothèque''. The pronunciation of most French loanwords in English (with the exception of a handful of more recently borrowed words such as ''mirage'', ''genre'', ''café''; or phrases like ''coup d’état'', ''rendez-vous'', etc.) has become largely anglicised and follows a typically English phonology and pattern of stress (compare English "nature" vs. French ''nature'', "button" vs. ''bouton'', "table" vs. ''table'', "hour" vs. ''heure'', "reside" vs. ''résider'', etc.).

Geographical distribution

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world, though possibly second to a combination of the Chinese languages (depending on whether or not distinctions in the latter are classified as "languages" or "dialects").

Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly from 470 million to over a billion depending on how literacy or mastery is defined and measured. Linguistics professor David Crystal calculates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.

The countries with the highest populations of native English speakers are, in descending order: United States (215 million), United Kingdom (61 million), Canada (18.2 million), Australia (15.5 million), Nigeria (4 million), Ireland (3.8 million), South Africa (3.7 million), and New Zealand (3.6 million) 2006 Census.

Countries such as the Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to a more standard version of English. Of those nations where English is spoken as a second language, India has the most such speakers ('Indian English'). Crystal claims that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world.

Countries in order of total speakers

96% 125,344,736 79,000,000 59,600,000 48,800,000 25,246,220 18,172,989

Country	Comment
United States of America	251,388,301	|	215,423,557	35,964,744	262,375,152	Source: US Census 2000: Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000, Table 1. Figure for second language speakers are respondents who reported they do not speak English at home but know it "very well" or "well". Note: figures are for population age 5 and older
India	|	12%	226,449	86,125,221 ''second'' language speakers. 38,993,066 ''third'' language speakers	1,028,737,436	Figures include both those who speak English as a ''second language'' and those who speak it as a ''third language''. 2001 figures. The figures include English ''speakers'', but not English ''users''.
Nigeria	|	53%	4,000,000	>75,000,000	148,000,000	Figures are for speakers of Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based pidgin or creole. Ihemere gives a range of roughly 3 to 5 million native speakers; the midpoint of the range is used in the table. Ihemere, Kelechukwu Uchechukwu. 2006. "A Basic Description and Analytic Treatment of Noun Clauses in Nigerian Pidgin." ''Nordic Journal of African Studies'' 15(3): 296–313.
United Kingdom	|	98%	58,100,000	1,500,000	60,000,000	Source: Crystal (2005), p. 109.
Philippines	|	58%	3,427,000	43,974,000	84,566,000	Total speakers: Census 2000, text above Figure 7. 63.71% of the 66.7 million people aged 5 years or more could speak English. Native speakers: Census 1995, as quoted by Andrew González in The Language Planning Situation in the Philippines, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 19 (5&6), 487–525. (1998). Ethnologue lists 3.4 million native speakers with 52% of the population speaking it as an additional language.
Canada	|	85%	17,694,830	7,551,390	29,639,030	Source: 2001 Census – Knowledge of Official Languages and Mother Tongue. The native speakers figure comprises 122,660 people with both French and English as a mother tongue, plus 17,572,170 people with English and not French as a mother tongue.
Australia	|	92%	15,581,329	2,591,660	19,855,288	Source: 2006 Census. The figure shown in the first language English speakers column is actually the number of Australian residents who speak only English at home. The additional language column shows the number of other residents who claim to speak English "well" or "very well". Another 5% of residents did not state their home language or English proficiency.

Countries where English is a major language

English is the primary language in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guam, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jersey, Montserrat, Nauru, New Zealand, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In some countries where English is not the most spoken language, it is an official language; these countries include Botswana, Cameroon, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines (Philippine English), Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

It is also one of the 11 official languages that are given equal status in South Africa (South African English). English is also the official language in current dependent territories of Australia (Norfolk Island, Christmas Island and Cocos Island) and of the United States (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands), and the former British colony of Hong Kong. (See List of countries where English is an official language for more details.)

English is not an official language in the United States. Although the United States federal government has no official languages, English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments. Although falling short of official status, English is also an important language in several former colonies and protectorates of the United Kingdom, such as Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cyprus, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates.

English as a global language

Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "world language", the ''lingua franca'' of the modern era, and while it is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language. Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural property of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications. English is an official language of the United Nations and many other international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee.

English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union, by 89% of schoolchildren, ahead of French at 32%, while the perception of the usefulness of foreign languages amongst Europeans is 68% in favour of English ahead of 25% for French. Among some non-English speaking EU countries, a large percentage of the adult population can converse in English – in particular: 85% in Sweden, 83% in Denmark, 79% in the Netherlands, 66% in Luxembourg and over 50% in Finland, Slovenia, Austria, Belgium, and Germany.

Books, magazines, and newspapers written in English are available in many countries around the world, and English is the most commonly used language in the sciences with Science Citation Index reporting as early as 1997 that 95% of its articles were written in English, even though only half of them came from authors in English-speaking countries.

This increasing use of the English language globally has had a large impact on many other languages, leading to language shift and even language death, and to claims of linguistic imperialism. English itself is now open to language shift as multiple regional varieties feed back into the language as a whole.

Dialects and regional varieties

The expansion of the British Empire and—since World War II—the influence of the United States have spread English around the world. Because of that global spread, English has developed a host of English dialects and English-based creole languages and pidgins.

Several educated native dialects of English have wide acceptance as standards in much of the world,. In the United Kingdom much emphasis is placed on Received Pronunciation, an educated dialect of South East England. General American, which is spread over most of the United States and much of Canada, is more typically the model for the American continents and areas (such as the Philippines) that have had either close association with the United States, or a desire to be so identified. In Oceania, the major native dialect of Australian English is spoken as a first language by the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Australian continent, with General Australian serving as the standard accent. The English of neighbouring New Zealand as well as that of South Africa have to a lesser degree been influential native varieties of the language.

Aside from these major dialects, there are numerous other varieties of English, which include, in most cases, several subvarieties, such as Cockney, Scouse and Geordie within British English; Newfoundland English within Canadian English; and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") and Southern American English within American English. English is a pluricentric language, without a central language authority like France's Académie française; and therefore no one variety is considered "correct" or "incorrect" except in terms of the expectations of the particular audience to which the language is directed.

Scots has its origins in early Northern Middle English and developed and changed during its history with influence from other sources, but following the Acts of Union 1707 a process of language attrition began, whereby successive generations adopted more and more features from Standard English, causing dialectalisation. Whether it is now a separate language or a dialect of English better described as Scottish English is in dispute, although the UK government now accepts Scots as a regional language and has recognised it as such under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. There are a number of regional dialects of Scots, and pronunciation, grammar and lexis of the traditional forms differ, sometimes substantially, from other varieties of English.

English speakers have many different accents, which often signal the speaker's native dialect or language. For the most distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English, and for a complete list of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Within England, variation is now largely confined to pronunciation rather than grammar or vocabulary. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the country, but a process of ''lexical attrition'' has led most of this variation to die out.

Just as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence of its speakers. Several pidgins and creole languages have been formed on an English base, such as Jamaican Patois, Nigerian Pidgin, and Tok Pisin. There are many words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words.

Constructed varieties of English

Basic English is simplified for easy international use. Manufacturers and other international businesses tend to write manuals and communicate in Basic English. Some English schools in Asia teach it as a practical subset of English for use by beginners.

E-Prime excludes forms of the verb ''to be''.

English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.

Manually Coded English constitutes a variety of systems that have been developed to represent the English language with hand signals, designed primarily for use in deaf education. These should not be confused with true sign languages such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language used in Anglophone countries, which are independent and not based on English.

Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international cooperation and communication in specific areas. There is also a tunnelspeak for use in the Channel Tunnel.

Simplified Technical English was historically developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals and is now used in various industries.

Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of only 1500 words.

Phonology

Vowels

It is the vowels that differ most from region to region. Length is not phonemic in most varieties of North American English.

!International Phonetic Alphabet

IPA !	word
monophthongs
	bd
	bd
	bd
	bd
	bx
	ped
	br
	gd
	bed
	bd
	bd
	Ros's
	ross
colspan="2" style="text-align:left; background:#dedede"	diphthongs
	bed
	bde
	cr
	c
	b
	b
	f

Notes for vowels

Consonants

This is the English consonantal system using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

!	bilabial consonant>Bilabial	labiodental consonant>Labio-dental	interdental consonant>Dental	alveolar consonant>Alveolar	postalveolar consonant>Post-alveolar	palatal consonant>Palatal	velar consonant>Velar	Labial-velar consonant>Labial-velar	glottal consonant>Glottal
nasal consonant>Nasal
Stop consonant>Plosive
affricate consonant>Affricate
fricative consonant>Fricative
flap consonant>Flap					style="text-align:center;" | is an allophone of and in unstressed syllables in North American English and Australian English. This is the sound of ''tt'' or ''dd'' in the words ''latter'' and ''ladder'', which are homophones for many speakers of North American English. In some accents such as Scottish English and Indian English it replaces . This is the same sound represented by single ''r'' in most varieties of Spanish.|group=cn|name=c2}}
approximant consonant>Approximant
lateral consonant>Lateral

Notes for consonants

Voicing and aspiration

Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given: Voiceless plosives and affricates (, , , and ) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable compare ''pin'' and ''spin'' , ''crap'' and ''scrap'' .

* In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.

* In other dialects, such as Indian English, all voiceless stops remain unaspirated.

Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.

Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects; examples: ''tap'' , ''sack'' . Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English) examples: ''sad'' , ''bag'' . In other dialects, they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.

Supra-segmental features

Tone groups

English is an intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically; for example, to convey surprise or irony, or to change a statement into a question.

In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups, or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. For example:

: ''Do you need anything?'' : ''I don't, no'' : ''I don't know'' (contracted to, for example, or ''I dunno'' in fast or colloquial speech that de-emphasises the pause between 'don't' and 'know' even further)

Characteristics of intonation—stress

English is a strongly stressed language, in that certain syllables, both within words and within phrases, get a relative prominence/loudness during pronunciation while the others do not. The former kind of syllables are said to be ''accentuated/stressed'' and the latter are ''unaccentuated/unstressed''. Stress can also be used in English to distinguish between certain verbs and their noun counterparts. For example, in the case of the verb ''contract'', the second syllable is stressed: ; in case of the corresponding noun, the first syllable is stressed: . Vowels in unstressed syllables can also change in quality, hence the verb ''contract'' often becomes (and indeed is listed in Oxford English Dictionary as) . In each word, there can be only one principal stress, but in long words, there can be secondary stress(es) too, e.g. in ''civilisation'' , the 1st syllable carries the secondary stress, the 4th syllable carries the primary stress, and the other syllables are unstressed.

Hence in a sentence, each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). The stressed syllable is called the nuclear syllable. For example:

: ''That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done!''

Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words ''best'' and ''done'', which are stressed. ''Best'' is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable.

The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example:

: ''John'' had not stolen that money. (... Someone else had.) : John ''had not'' stolen that money. (... Someone said he had. or... Not at that time, but later he did.) : John had not ''stolen'' that money. (... He acquired the money by some other means.) : John had not stolen ''that'' money. (... He had stolen some other money.) : John had not stolen that ''money''. (... He had stolen something else.)

Also

: ''I'' did not tell her that. (... Someone else told her) : I ''did not'' tell her that. (... You said I did. or... but now I will) : I did not ''tell'' her that. (... I did not say it; she could have inferred it, etc) : I did not tell ''her'' that. (... I told someone else) : I did not tell her ''that''. (... I told her something else)

This can also be used to express emotion:

: ''Oh'', really? (...I did not know that) : Oh, ''really''? (...I disbelieve you. or... That is blatantly obvious)

The nuclear syllable is spoken more loudly than the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. In this opposition between falling and rising pitch, which plays a larger role in English than in most other languages, falling pitch conveys certainty and rising pitch uncertainty. This can have a crucial impact on meaning, specifically in relation to polarity, the positive–negative opposition; thus, falling pitch means, "polarity known", while rising pitch means "polarity unknown". This underlies the rising pitch of yes/no questions. For example:

: ''When do you want to be paid?'' : ''Now?'' (Rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: "Can I be paid now?" or "Do you desire to pay now?") : ''Now.'' (Falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: "I choose to be paid now.")

Grammar

English grammar has minimal inflection compared with most other Indo-European languages. For example, Modern English, unlike Modern German or Dutch and the Romance languages, lacks grammatical gender and adjectival agreement. Case marking has almost disappeared from the language and mainly survives in pronouns. The patterning of strong (e.g. ''speak/spoke/spoken'') versus weak verbs (e.g. ''love/loved or kick/kicked'') inherited from its Germanic origins has declined in importance in modern English, and the remnants of inflection (such as plural marking) have become more regular.

At the same time, the language has become more analytic, and has developed features such as modal verbs and word order as resources for conveying meaning. Auxiliary verbs mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, the passive voice and progressive aspect.

Vocabulary

The English vocabulary has changed considerably over the centuries.

Like many languages deriving from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), many of the most common words in English can trace back their origin (through the Germanic branch) to PIE. Such words include the basic pronouns ''I'', from Old English ''ic'', (cf. German ''Ich'', Gothic ''ik'', Latin ''ego'', Greek ''ego'', Sanskrit ''aham''), ''me'' (cf. German ''mich, mir'', Gothic ''mik, mīs'', Latin ''mē'', Greek ''eme'', Sanskrit ''mam''), numbers (e.g. ''one'', ''two'', ''three'', cf. Dutch ''een'', ''twee'', ''drie'', Gothic ''ains'', ''twai'', ''threis (þreis)'', Latin ''ūnus, duo, trēs'', Greek ''oinos'' "ace (on dice)", ''duo, treis''), common family relationships such as mother, father, brother, sister etc. (cf. Dutch ''moeder'', Greek ''meter'', Latin ''mater'', Sanskrit ''matṛ''; ''mother''), names of many animals (cf. German ''Maus'', Dutch ''muis'', Sanskrit ''mus'', Greek ''mus'', Latin ''mūs''; ''mouse''), and many common verbs (cf. Old High German ''knājan'', Old Norse ''knā'', Greek ''gignōmi'', Latin ''gnoscere'', Hittite ''kanes'';'' to know'').

Germanic words (generally words of Old English or to a lesser extent Old Norse origin) tend to be shorter than Latinate words, and are more common in ordinary speech, and include nearly all the basic pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, modal verbs etc. that form the basis of English syntax and grammar. The shortness of the words is generally due to syncope in Middle English (e.g. OldEng ''hēafod'' > ModEng ''head'', OldEng ''sāwol'' > ModEng ''soul'') and to the loss of final syllables due to stress (e.g. OldEng ''gamen'' > ModEng ''game'', OldEng ''ǣrende'' > ModEng ''errand''), not because Germanic words are inherently shorter than Latinate words (the lengthier, higher-register words of Old English were largely forgotten following the subjugation of English after the Norman Conquest, and most of the Old English lexis devoted to literature, the arts, and sciences ceased to be productive when it fell into disuse. Only the shorter, more direct, words of Old English tended to pass into the Modern language.) Consequently, those words which tend to be regarded as elegant or educated in Modern English are usually Latinate. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is considered at times to be either pretentious or an attempt to obfuscate an issue. George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language", considered an important scrutinisation of the English language, is critical of this, as well as other perceived misuses of the language.

An English speaker is in many cases able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: ''come'' or ''arrive''; ''sight'' or ''vision''; ''freedom'' or ''liberty''. In some cases, there is a choice between a Germanic derived word (''oversee''), a Latin derived word (''supervise''), and a French word derived from the same Latin word (''survey''); or even words derived from Norman French (e.g., ''warranty'') and Parisian French (''guarantee''), and even choices involving multiple Germanic and Latinate sources are possible: ''sickness'' (Old English), ''ill'' (Old Norse), ''infirmity'' (French), ''affliction'' (Latin). Such synonyms harbor a variety of different meanings and nuances. Yet the ability to choose between multiple synonyms is not a consequence of French and Latin influence, as this same richness existed in English prior to the extensive borrowing of French and Latin terms. Old English was extremely resourceful in its ability to express synonyms and shades of meaning on its own, in many respects rivaling or exceeding that of Modern English (synonyms numbering in the thirties for certain concepts were not uncommon). Take for instance the various ways to express the word "astronomer" or "astrologer" in Old English: ''tunglere, tungolcræftiga, tungolwītega, tīdymbwlātend, tīdscēawere''. In Modern English, however, the role of such synonyms has largely been replaced in favour of equivalents taken from Latin, French, and Greek. Familiarity with the etymology of groups of synonyms can give English speakers greater control over their linguistic register. See: List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English, Doublet (linguistics).

An exception to this and a peculiarity perhaps unique to a handful of languages, English included, is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one. Examples include: ''deer'' and ''venison''; ''cow'' and ''beef''; ''swine''/''pig'' and ''pork''; and ''sheep''/''lamb'' and ''mutton''. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England, where an Anglo-Norman-speaking elite were the consumers of the meat, produced by lower classes, which happened to be largely Anglo-Saxon, though this same duality can also be seen in other languages like French, which did not undergo such linguistic upheaval (e.g. ''boeuf'' "beef" vs. ''vache'' "cow"). With the exception of ''beef'' and ''pork'', the distinction today is gradually becoming less and less pronounced (''venison'' is commonly referred to simply as ''deer meat'', ''mutton'' is ''lamb'', and ''chicken'' is both the animal and the meat over the more traditional term ''poultry''. (Use of the term ''mutton'', however, remains, especially when referring to the meat of an older sheep, distinct from ''lamb''; and ''poultry'' remains when referring to the meat of birds and fowls in general. Use of the term ''swineflesh'' for ''pork'', is also widespread, especially in religious contexts)

There are Latinate words that are used in everyday speech. These words no longer appear Latinate and oftentimes have no Germanic equivalents. For instance, the words ''mountain'', ''valley'', ''river'', ''aunt'', ''uncle'', ''move'', ''use'', ''push'' and ''stay ("to remain")'' are Latinate. Likewise, the inverse can occur: ''acknowledge'', ''meaningful'', ''understanding'', ''mindful'', ''behaviour'', ''forbearance'', ''behoove'', ''forestall'', ''allay'', ''rhyme'', ''starvation'', ''embodiment'' come from Anglo-Saxon, and ''allegiance'', ''abandonment'', ''debutant'', ''feudalism'', ''seizure'', ''guarantee'', ''disregard'', ''wardrobe'', ''disenfranchise'', ''disarray'', ''bandolier'', ''bourgeoisie'', ''debauchery'', ''performance'', ''furniture'', ''gallantry'' are of Germanic origin, usually through the Germanic element in French, so it is oftentimes impossible to know the origin of a word based on its register.

English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and often imports new words and phrases. Examples of this phenomenon include contemporary words such as ''cookie'', ''Internet'' and ''URL'' (technical terms), as well as ''genre'', ''über'', ''lingua franca'' and ''amigo'' (imported words/phrases from French, German, Italian, and Spanish, respectively). In addition, slang often provides new meanings for old words and phrases. In fact, this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage.

Number of words in English

The ''General Explanations'' at the beginning of the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states:

The current FAQ for the ''OED'' further states: }}

The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages such as French (the Académie française), German (Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung), Spanish (Real Academia Española) and Italian (Accademia della Crusca), there is no academy to define officially accepted words and spellings. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science, technology and other fields, and new slang is constantly developed. Some of these new words enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might or might not be widely considered as "English".

The ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition ''(OED2)'' includes over 600,000 definitions, following a rather inclusive policy:

}}

The editors of ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged'' (475,000 main headwords) in their preface, estimate the number to be much higher. It is estimated that about 25,000 words are added to the language each year.

The Global Language Monitor announced that the English language had crossed the 1,000,000-word threshold on 10 June 2009. The announcement was met with strong scepticism by linguists and lexicographers, though a number of non-specialist reports accepted the figure uncritically. However, in December 2010 a joint Harvard/Google study found the language to contain 1,022,000 words and was expanding at the rate of 8,500 words per year. The findings came from the computer analysis of 5,195,769 digitised books. The difference between the Google/Harvard estimate and that of the Global Language Monitor is about thirteen thousandth of one percent.

Comparisons of the vocabulary size of English to that of other languages are generally not taken very seriously by linguists and lexicographers. Besides the fact that dictionaries will vary in their policies for including and counting entries, what is meant by a given language and what counts as a word do not have simple definitions. Also, a definition of word that works for one language may not work well in another, with differences in morphology and orthography making cross-linguistic definitions and word-counting difficult, and potentially giving very different results. Linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum has gone so far as to compare concerns over vocabulary size (and the notion that a supposedly larger lexicon leads to "greater richness and precision") to an obsession with penis length.

Word origins

One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words that are Germanic (mostly West Germanic, with a smaller influence from the North Germanic branch) and those that are "Latinate" (derived directly from Latin, or through Norman French or other Romance languages). The situation is further compounded, as French, particularly Old French and Anglo-French, were also contributors in English of significant numbers of Germanic words, mostly from the Frankish element in French (see ''List of English Latinates of Germanic origin'').

The majority (estimates range from roughly 50% to more than 80%) of the thousand most common English words are Germanic. However, the majority of more advanced words in subjects such as the sciences, philosophy and mathematics come from Latin or Greek, with Arabic also providing many words in astronomy, mathematics, and chemistry.

1st 1,000 97% 3% 0 0

+ Source of the most frequent 7,476 English words		1st 100	|	2nd 1,000	then on
Germanic	|	57%	39%	36%
Italic	|	36%	51%	51%
Hellenic	|	4%	4%	7%
Others	|	3%	6%	6%
Source:

Numerous sets of statistics have been proposed to demonstrate the proportionate origins of English vocabulary. None, as of yet, is considered definitive by most linguists.

A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old ''Shorter Oxford Dictionary'' (3rd ed.) was published in ''Ordered Profusion'' by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) that estimated the origin of English words as follows:

''Langue d'oïl'', including French and Old Norman: 28.3%

Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%

Germanic languages (including words directly inherited from Old English; does not include Germanic words coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages): 25%

Greek: 5.32%

No etymology given: 4.03%

Derived from proper names: 3.28%

All other languages: less than 1%

A survey by Joseph M. Williams in ''Origins of the English Language'' of 10,000 words taken from several thousand business letters gave this set of statistics:

French (langue d'oïl): 41%

"Native" English: 33%

Latin: 15%

Old Norse: 2%

Dutch: 1%

Other: 10%

French origins

A large portion of English vocabulary is of French or Langues d'oïl origin, and was transmitted to English via the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the upper classes in England in the centuries following the Norman Conquest. Words of Norman-French origin include ''competition'', ''mountain'', ''art'', ''table'', ''publicity'', ''police'', ''role'', ''routine'', ''machine'' and ''force''. As a result of the length of time they have been in use in English, these words have been anglicised to fit English rules of phonology, pronunciation and spelling.

Some French words were adopted during the 17th to 19th centuries, when French was the dominant language of Western international politics and trade. These words can normally be distinguished because they retain French rules for pronunciation and spelling, including diacritics, are often phrases rather than single words, and are sometimes written in italics. Examples include façade, table d'hôte and affaire de cœur. These words and phrases retain their French spelling and pronunciation because historically their French origin was emphasised to denote the speaker as educated or well-travelled at a time when education and travelling was still restricted to the middle and upper classes, and so their use implied a higher social status in the user. ''(See also: French phrases used by English speakers)''.

Old Norse origins

Many words of Old Norse origin have entered the English language, primarily from the Viking colonisation of eastern and northern England between 800–1000 CE during the Danelaw. These include common words such as ''anger, awe, bag, big, birth, blunder, both, cake, call, cast, cosy, cross, cut, die, dirt, drag, drown, egg, fellow, flat, flounder, gain, get, gift, give, guess, guest, gust, hug, husband, ill, kid, law, leg, lift, likely, link, loan, loose, low, mistake, odd, race (running), raise, root, rotten, same, scale, scare, score, seat, seem, sister, skill, skin, skirt, skull, sky, stain, steak, sway, take, though, thrive, Thursday, tight, till (until), trust, ugly, want, weak, window, wing, wrong'', the pronoun ''they'' (and its forms), and even the verb ''are'' (the present plural form of ''to be'') through a merger of Old English and Old Norse cognates. More recent Scandinavian imports include ''angstrom, fjord, geyser, kraken, litmus, nickel, ombudsman, saga, ski, slalom, smorgasbord, and tungsten''.

Dutch and Low German origins

Many words describing the navy, types of ships, and other objects or activities on the water are of Dutch origin. ''Yacht'', ''skipper'', ''cruiser'', ''flag'', ''freight'', ''furlough'', ''breeze'', ''hoist'', ''iceberg'', ''boom'', ''duck'' ("fabric, cloth"), and ''maelstrom'' are examples. Other words pertain to art and daily life: ''easel'', ''etch'', ''slim'', ''staple'' (Middle Dutch ''stapel'' "market"), ''slip'' (Middle Dutch ''slippen''), ''landscape'', ''cookie'', ''curl'', ''shock'', ''aloof'', ''boss'', ''brawl'' (''brallen'' "to boast"), ''smack'' (''smakken'' "to hurl down"), ''shudder'', ''scum'', ''peg'', ''coleslaw'', ''waffle'', ''dope'' (''doop'' "dipping sauce"), ''slender'' (Old Dutch ''slinder''), ''slight'', ''gas'', ''pump''. Dutch has also contributed to English slang, e.g. ''spook'', and the now obsolete ''snyder'' (tailor) and ''stiver'' (small coin).

Words from Low German include ''bluster, cower, dollar, drum, geek, grab, lazy, mate, monkey, mud, ogle, orlop, paltry, poll, poodle, prong, scurvy, smug, smuggle, trade''.

Writing system

Since around the 9th century, English has been written in the Latin alphabet, which replaced Anglo-Saxon runes. The spelling system, or orthography, is multilayered, with elements of French, Latin and Greek spelling on top of the native Germanic system; it has grown to vary significantly from the phonology of the language. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken.

Though letters and sounds may not correspond in isolation, spelling rules that take into account syllable structure, phonetics, and accents are 75% or more reliable. Some phonics spelling advocates claim that English is more than 80% phonetic. However, English has fewer consistent relationships between sounds and letters than many other languages; for example, the letter sequence ''ough'' can be pronounced in 10 different ways. The consequence of this complex orthographic history is that reading can be challenging.

It takes longer for students to become completely fluent readers of English than of many other languages, including French, Greek, and Spanish. "English-speaking children take up to two years more to learn reading than do children in 12 other European countries."(Professor Philip H K Seymour, University of Dundee, 2001) "[dyslexia] is twice as prevalent among dyslexics in the United States (and France) as it is among Italian dyslexics. Again, this is seen to be because of Italian's 'transparent' orthography." (Eraldo Paulesu and 11 others. Science, 2001)

Basic consonant sound-letter correspondence

t, th ''(rarely) thyme, Thames''

IPA	Alphabetic representation
	p
	b
	| th ''thing'' ''(African American, New York)''
	d
	c ''(+ a, o, u, consonants)'', k, ck, ch, qu ''(rarely) conquer'', kh ''(in foreign words)''
	g, gh, gu ''(+ a, e, i)'', gue ''(final position)''
	m
	n
	n ''(before g or k)'', ng
	f, ph, gh ''(final, infrequent) laugh, rough''
	v
	th ''thick, think, through''
	th ''that, this, the''
	s, c ''(+ e, i, y)'', sc ''(+ e, i, y)'', ç often c ''(façade/facade)''
	z, s ''(finally or occasionally medially)'', ss ''(rarely) possess, dessert'', word-initial x ''xylophone''
	sh, sch (some dialects) ''schedule'' (plus words of German origin), ti (before vowel) ''portion'', ci/ce (before vowel) ''suspicion'', ''ocean''; si/ssi (before vowel) ''tension'', ''mission''; ch ''(esp. in words of French origin)''; rarely s/ss before u ''sugar'', ''issue''; chsi in ''fuchsia'' only
	medial si (before vowel) ''division'', medial s (before "ur") ''pleasure'', zh ''(in foreign words)'', z before u ''azure'', g ''(in words of French origin) (+e, i, y) genre'', j ''(in words of French origin) bijou''
	kh, ch, h ''(in foreign words)''
	h ''(syllable-initially, otherwise silent)'', j ''(in words of Spanish origin) jai alai''
	ch, tch, t before u ''future'', ''culture''
	j, g ''(+ e, i, y)'', dg ''(+ e, i, consonant) badge, judg(e)ment''
	r, wr (initial) ''wrangle''
	y ''(initially or surrounded by vowels)'', j ''hallelujah''
alveolar lateral approximant	l	l
	w
	wh (''pronounced'' hw)

Written accents

Unlike most other Germanic languages, English has almost no diacritics except in foreign loanwords (like the acute accent in ''café''), and in the uncommon use of a diaeresis mark (often in formal writing) to indicate that two vowels are pronounced separately, rather than as one sound (e.g. ''naïve, Zoë''). Words such as ''décor'', ''café'', ''résumé''/'''', ''entrée'', ''fiancée'' and ''naïve'' are frequently spelled both with or without diacritics.

Some English words retain diacritics to distinguish them from others, such as ''animé, exposé, lamé, öre, pâté, piqué,'' and ''rosé'', though these are sometimes also dropped (for example, ''résumé/'', is often spelt ''resume'' in the United States). To clarify pronunciation, a small number of loanwords may employ a diacritic that does not appear in the original word, such as ''maté'', from Spanish ''yerba mate'', or ''Malé'', the capital of the Maldives, following the French usage.

Formal written English

A version of the language almost universally agreed upon by educated English speakers around the world is called formal written English. It takes virtually the same form regardless of where it is written, in contrast to spoken English, which differs significantly between dialects, accents, and varieties of slang and of colloquial and regional expressions. Local variations in the formal written version of the language are quite limited, being restricted largely to minor spelling, lexical and grammatical differences between British, American, Canadian and Australian English.

Basic and simplified versions

To make English easier to read, there are some simplified versions of the language. One basic version is named ''Basic English'', a constructed language with a small number of words created by Charles Kay Ogden and described in his book ''Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar'' (1930). The language is based on a simplified version of English. Ogden said that it would take seven years to learn English, seven months for Esperanto, and seven weeks for Basic English. Thus, Basic English may be employed by companies that need to make complex books for international use, as well as by language schools that need to give people some knowledge of English in a short time.

Ogden did not include any words in Basic English that could be said with a combination of other words, and he worked to make the vocabulary suitable for speakers of any other language. He put his vocabulary selections through a large number of tests and adjustments. Ogden also simplified the grammar but tried to keep it normal for English users. Although it was not built into a program, similar simplifications were devised for various international uses.

Another version, Simplified English, exists, which is a controlled language originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals. It offers a carefully limited and standardised subset of English. Simplified English has a lexicon of approved words and those words can only be used in certain ways. For example, the word ''close'' can be used in the phrase "Close the door" but not "do not go close to the landing gear".

See also

Changes to Old English vocabulary

English for Academic Purposes

English language in Europe

English language learning and teaching

Language Report

Lists of English words

Teaching English as a foreign language

''The Adventure of English'' (film)

''The Story of English''

References

Bibliographic

Cercignani, Fausto, ''Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation'', Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981.

Kenyon, John Samuel and Knott, Thomas Albert, ''A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English'', G & C Merriam Company, Springfield, Mass, USA,1953.

}}

External links

Accents of English from Around the World (University of Edinburgh) Hear and compare how the same 110 words are pronounced in 50 English accents from around the world – instantaneous playback online

;Dictionaries

Collection of English bilingual dictionaries

dict.org

Dictionary of American Regional English

English language word roots, prefixes and suffixes (affixes) dictionary

Oxford's online dictionary

Merriam-Webster's online dictionary

Macquarie Dictionary Online

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ace:Bahsa Inggréh af:Engels ak:English als:Englische Sprache am:እንግሊዝኛ ang:Nīƿu Englisc sprǣc ar:لغة إنجليزية an:Idioma anglés arc:ܠܫܢܐ ܐܢܓܠܝܐ roa-rup:Limba anglicheascã frp:Anglès ast:Inglés av:Ингилис мацӀ ay:Inlish aru az:İngilis dili bm:Angilɛkan bn:ইংরেজি ভাষা bjn:Bahasa Inggris zh-min-nan:Eng-gí map-bms:Basa Inggris ba:Инглиз теле be:Англійская мова be-x-old:Ангельская мова bcl:Ingles bar:Englische Sproch bo:དབྱིན་ཇིའི་སྐད། bs:Engleski jezik br:Saozneg bg:Английски език ca:Anglès cv:Акăлчан чĕлхи ceb:Iningles cs:Angličtina ny:Chingerezi co:Lingua inglese cy:Saesneg da:Engelsk (sprog) pdc:Englisch de:Englische Sprache dv:އިނގިރޭސި nv:Bilagáana bizaad dsb:Engelšćina et:Inglise keel el:Αγγλική γλώσσα eml:Inglés myv:Англань кель es:Idioma inglés eo:Angla lingvo ext:Luenga ingresa eu:Ingeles ee:Eŋlisigbe fa:زبان انگلیسی hif:English bhasa fo:Enskt mál fr:Anglais fy:Ingelsk fur:Lenghe inglese ga:An Béarla gv:Baarle gag:İngiliz dili gd:Beurla gl:Lingua inglesa gan:英語 gu:અંગ્રેજી ભાષા got:𐌰𐌲𐌲𐌹𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌰𐌶𐌳𐌰 hak:Yîn-ngî xal:Инглишин келн ko:영어 haw:‘Ōlelo Pelekania hy:Անգլերեն hi:अंग्रेज़ी भाषा hsb:Jendźelšćina hr:Engleski jezik io:Angliana linguo ig:Asụsụ Inglish ilo:Pagsasao nga Ingles bpy:ইংরেজি ঠার id:Bahasa Inggris ia:Lingua anglese ie:Angles iu:ᖃᓪᓗᓈᑎᑐᑦ/qallunaatitut os:Англисаг æвзаг xh:IsiNgesi zu:IsiNgisi is:Enska it:Lingua inglese he:אנגלית jv:Basa Inggris kl:Tuluttut kn:ಆಂಗ್ಲ krc:Ингилиз тил ka:ინგლისური ენა kk:Ағылшын тілі kw:Sowsnek rw:Icyongereza ky:Англис тили sw:Kiingereza kv:Англия кыв kg:Kingelezi ht:Angle ku:Zimanê îngilîzî lad:Lingua inglesa lbe:Ингилис маз lo:ພາສາອັງກິດ la:Lingua Anglica lv:Angļu valoda lb:Englesch lt:Anglų kalba lij:Lèngoa ingleise li:Ingels ln:Lingɛlɛ́sa jbo:glibau lmo:Ingles hu:Angol nyelv mk:Англиски јазик mg:Fiteny anglisy ml:ഇംഗ്ലീഷ് (ഭാഷ) mi:Reo Pākehā mr:इंग्लिश भाषा arz:انجليزى mzn:اینگلیسی زبون ms:Bahasa Inggeris cdo:Ĭng-ngṳ̄ mdf:Англань кяль mn:Англи хэл my:အင်္ဂလိပ်ဘာသာ nah:Inglatlahtōlli nl:Engels nds-nl:Engels cr:ᐊᑲᔭᓯᒧᐃᐧᐣ ne:अङ्ग्रेजी भाषा new:अंग्रेजी भाषा ja:英語 nap:Lengua ngrese ce:Ингалсан мотт frr:Aingelsch pih:Inglish no:Engelsk nn:Engelsk nrm:Angliais nov:Anglum oc:Anglés mhr:Англичан йылме uz:Ingliz tili pa:ਅੰਗ੍ਰੇਜ਼ੀ ਭਾਸ਼ਾ pi:आंगलभाषा pnb:انگریزی pap:Ingles ps:انګريزي ژبه koi:Инглиш кыв km:ភាសាអង់គ្លេស pcd:Inglé pms:Lenga anglèisa tpi:Tok Inglis nds:Engelsche Spraak pl:Język angielski pt:Língua inglesa kbd:Инджылыбзэ crh:İngliz tili ty:Anglès ro:Limba engleză rm:Lingua englaisa qu:Inlish simi rue:Анґліцькый язык ru:Английский язык sah:Ааҥл тыла se:Eaŋgalsgiella sm:Fa'aperetania sa:आङ्ग्लभाषा sg:Anglëe sc:Limba inglesa sco:Inglis leid stq:Ängelske Sproake st:Senyesemane sq:Gjuha angleze scn:Lingua ngrisa si:ඉංග්‍රීසි භාෂාව simple:English language ss:SíNgísi sk:Angličtina cu:Англїискъ ѩꙁꙑкъ sl:Angleščina szl:Angelsko godka so:Ingiriis (luqad) ckb:زمانی ئینگلیزی srn:Ingristongo sr:Енглески језик sh:Engleski jezik su:Basa Inggris fi:Englannin kieli sv:Engelska tl:Wikang Ingles ta:ஆங்கிலம் kab:Taglizit roa-tara:Lènga 'nglese tt:Инглиз теле te:ఆంగ్ల భాష th:ภาษาอังกฤษ tg:Забони англисӣ chr:ᎩᎵᏏ ᎦᏬᏂᎯᏍᏗ tr:İngilizce tk:Iňlis dili tw:English udm:Англи кыл bug:ᨅᨔ ᨕᨗᨋᨗᨔᨗ uk:Англійська мова ur:انگریزی ug:ئىنگىلىز تىلى za:Vah Yinghgoz vec:Łéngua inglexe vi:Tiếng Anh vo:Linglänapük fiu-vro:Inglüse kiil wa:Inglès (lingaedje) zh-classical:英語 war:Ininglis wo:Wu-angalteer wuu:英语 yi:ענגליש yo:Èdè Gẹ̀ẹ́sì zh-yue:英文 diq:İngılızki zea:Iengels bat-smg:Onglu kalba zh:英语

playername	Lloyd Davies
fullname	Lloyd Davies
dateofbirth	23 February 1877
cityofbirth	Cefn Mawr
countryofbirth	Wales
dateofdeath	October 10, 1957
cityofdeath	Cefn Mawr
countryofdeath	Wales
height
position	Outside-left or Defender
years1	1897–1899 | clubs1 Rhosymedre St John's | caps1 | goals1
years2	1899–1903 | clubs2 Druids | caps2 | goals2
years3	1903–1904 | clubs3 Stoke | caps3 7 | goals3 3
years4	1904 | clubs4 Wellington Town | caps4 | goals4
years5	1904–1905 | clubs5 Swindon Town | caps5 0 | goals5 0
years6	1905–1907 | clubs6 Stoke | caps6 27 | goals6 0
years7	1908–1920 | clubs7 Northampton Town| caps7 329 | goals7 3
nationalyears1	1904–1914
nationalteam1	Wales
nationalcaps1	16
nationalgoals1	1 }}

Lloyd Davies (23 February 1877–1957) was a former professional footballer, who played in the Football League for Stoke for whom he made thirty seven appearances. He was born in Cefn Mawr, Wales. He also played for Northampton Town and Swindon Town, and made sixteen appearances for Wales.

Three of his brothers also played for Wales: Joe (7 appearances), Robert (1 appearance) and Thomas (4 appearances).

Career statistics

3 0 0 3

Club	Season	League	FA Cup	Total
!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals!!Apps!!Goals
rowspan="3"	Stoke		7	|	0	0	7	3
1905–06 in English football	1905–06	2	|	0	0	2	0
1906–07 in English football	1906–07	23	|	3	0	26	0
Northampton Town F.C.	Northampton Town	1908–1920	329	|		329	3
Career Total	!363!!6!!3!!0!!366!!6

References

Matthews, Tony: "The Encyclopaedia of Stoke City " (Lion Press, 1994, ISBN 1859831001).

Category:1877 births Category:1957 deaths Category:Welsh footballers Category:Wales international footballers Category:Druids F.C. players Category:Northampton Town F.C. players Category:Stoke City F.C. players Category:Swindon Town F.C. players Category:Pre-1914 association football players Category:The Football League players Category:Southern Football League players Category:People from Ruabon

Name	Huw Stephens
Birth date	25.05.1981
Birth place	Cardiff, Wales
Show	''In Huw's music we trust''; ''BBC Introducing with Huw Stephens''
Station	BBC Radio 1
Timeslot	1-4pm weekends; 12-2am Thursday night
Show2	''C2: Huw Stephens''
Station2	BBC Radio Cymru
Timeslot2	10-12pm Monday
Country	United Kingdom
Web	BBC minisite

Huw Stephens (born 25 May 1981) is a radio presenter currently broadcasting shows on BBC Radio 1.

Early life and career

Stephens was born in Cardiff, Wales, the son of the author and literary journalist Meic Stephens. He joined Radio 1 at the age of 17 in 1999 as part of the station's new regional output where he hosted the Wales opt-out with Bethan Elfyn, he became the youngest ever Radio 1 presenter. Before this he was a DJ on Rookwood Sound Hospital Radio in Llandaff, Cardiff.

Broadcast career

In 2005, Stephens gained a national slot when he became one of the replacements for the late John Peel as part of the station's One Music strand, which was intended to keep the spirit of Peel's show going with DJ's Rob da Bank and Ras Kwame. Huw now broadcasts in a twice weekly slot Wednesday at 9pm and at Midnight. He also stands in for various presenters both during the day and night time on the station.

He is a fluent Welsh speaker and as well as Radio 1 he is also a presenter of BBC Radio Cymru's music strand C2, on Monday evenings at 10pm. He also presents ''Bandit'', a television show on Welsh language channel S4C which showcases Welsh language music talent. He founded the Boobytrap Singles Club which released limited singles by Mclusky, The Keys and Zabrinski amongst others. Huw is one of the founders of the Welsh language Am label, which releases include those from Mr Huw, Radio Luxembourg and Threatmantics. In 2009 he released a compilation, Music Sounds Better With Huw Volume 1 via Wichita Recordings, on iTunes. It featured 21 up and coming artists, including Gold Panda, Dinosaur Pile-Up, Banjo or Freakout and Young Fathers.

He also presents the Radio 1 "Huw Stephens Podcast" weekly free podcast. The Introducing Stage showcases new unsigned and emerging music at Reading and Leeds Festivals, Glastonbury, One Big Weekend and T in the Park. He has also invited bands and artists to play at Sonar and Groningen. From its first year, Huw curated the Lake Stage at Latitude festival in Suffolk.

In 2005 Stephens became the compere and DJ for the main stage of The Reading Festival. He has DJ'd at Sonar, Glastonbury, Camp Bestival, Big Chill, Field Day and the National Eisteddfod of Wales.

He has also contributed to the Western Mail, Kruger Magazine, Independent, Mirror, NME and guest edited the Guardian music blog. He is the voice of the Discovery Shed television channel. He is represented by Wise Buddah Management.

In 2007 he established a new music festival for Cardiff. The Sŵn Festival took place on 9–11 November across 13 venues in the city. The next Swn is on 21–23 October 2010. Swn (Pronounced 'soon') is the Welsh word for sound, and brings some of the most exciting new bands, DJs and performers from Wales, the UK and elsewhere together with art and films in Cardiff City Centre's venues.

References

External links

Agent profile and contact

Huw Stephens interview

Category:1981 births Category:Living people Category:British radio DJs Category:British radio personalities Category:Welsh television presenters Category:Welsh-speaking people Category:People from Cardiff Category:People educated at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf

cy:Huw Stephens

name	Irvine Welsh
birth date	September 27, 1958
birth place	Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland
occupation	Novelist
nationality	Scottish
residence	Dublin, Ireland
notableworks	Trainspotting
genre	Literature, Novel
movement	Modernism, Post Modernism
influences	Louis-Ferdinand Céline, William S. Burroughs, Alexander Trocchi, Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, William McIlvanney, Alan Spence, Iggy Pop, Bertolt Brecht, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Kierkegaard, James Joyce, Jim Carroll
Website	http://www.irvinewelsh.net/default.aspx }}

Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958 Leith, Edinburgh) is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel ''Trainspotting''. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life. He has also written plays, screenplays, and directed several short films.

Biography

Irvine Welsh was born in Leith, a port area to the east and now part of the Scottish capital Edinburgh. His family moved to Muirhouse, in Edinburgh, when he was four, where the family stayed at local housing schemes. His mother worked as a waitress. His father was a dock worker in Leith until bad health forced him to become a carpet salesman; he died when Welsh was 25. Welsh left Ainslie Park High School when he was 16 and then completed a City and Guilds course in electrical engineering. He became an apprentice TV repairman until an electric shock persuaded him to move on to a series of other jobs. He left Edinburgh for the London punk scene in 1978, where he played guitar and sang in The Pubic Lice and Stairway 13, the latter a reference to the Ibrox disaster. A series of arrests for petty crimes and finally a suspended sentence for trashing a North London community centre inspired Welsh to correct his ways. He worked for Hackney London Borough Council in London and studied computing with the support of the Manpower Services Commission.

In the mid 1980s he became a minor property speculator, renovating houses in the rapidly gentrifying North London. After the London property boom of the 1980s, Welsh returned to Edinburgh in late 80s, where he worked for the city council in the housing department. He went on to study for an MBA at Heriot-Watt University, writing his thesis on creating equal opportunities for women.

Welsh has made several reading tours around the world and has been involved with his beloved house music as a DJ, promoter and producer. Like many of his characters, he supports Hibs. He met an American woman Beth Quinn, 26, when he was teaching creative writing in Chicago, and they were married in July 2005. He considers the age gap inconsequential. 'I've never felt tied to any one age ... I've never thought "I must find someone a couple of years younger than I am".' Welsh was previously married to Anne Ansty from 1984 until their divorce in 2003.

He currently lives in Dublin, Ireland. In an interview with ''The Daily Mail'' on 7 August 2006, he described himself as "not so much middle-class as upper-class. I'm very much a gentleman of leisure. I write. I sit and look out of my window into the garden. I enjoy books. I love the density and complexity of Jane Austen and George Eliot. I listen to music; I travel. I can go off to a film festival whenever I like." He also describes himself as monogamous: "it sounds boring but it's the way I am".

Fiction

To date, Welsh has published seven novels and three collections of short stories. His first novel, ''Trainspotting'', was published in 1993, and rumor has it that Welsh wrote it in the breaks while writing his thesis at Heriot-Watt University's Library, second floor. Set in the mid 1980s, it uses a series of loosely connected short stories to tell the story of a group of characters tied together by decaying friendships, heroin addiction and stabs at escape from the oppressive boredom and brutality of their lives in the housing schemes. It was released to shock and outrage in some circles and great acclaim in others; ''Time Out'' called it "funny, unflinchingly abrasive, authentic and inventive", and ''The Sunday Times'' called Welsh "the best thing that has happened to British writing for decades". One critic (Welsh's personal friend Kevin Williamson) went so far as to say that ''Trainspotting'' "deserves to sell more copies than The Bible". It was adapted as a play, and a film adaptation, directed by Danny Boyle and written by John Hodge, was released in 1996. Welsh himself appeared in the film as Mikey Forrester, a minor character. The film was a worldwide success. U.S. Senator Bob Dole decried its supposed moral depravity and glorification of drug use during the 1996 presidential campaign, although he admitted that he had not actually seen the film.

The novel has since achieved a cult status, aided by the global success of the film.

Next, Welsh released ''The Acid House'', a collection of short stories from ''Rebel Inc.'', ''New Writing Scotland'' and other sources. Many of the stories take place in and around the housing schemes from ''Trainspotting'', and employ many of the same themes; however, a touch of fantasy is apparent in stories such as ''The Acid House'', where the minds of a baby and a drug user swap bodies, or ''The Granton Star Cause'', where God transforms a man into a fly as punishment for wasting his life. Welsh himself adapted three of the stories for a later film, which he also appeared in.

Welsh's third book (and second novel), ''Marabou Stork Nightmares'', alternates between a typically grim tale of thugs and schemes in sub-working class Scotland and a hallucinatory adventure tale set in South Africa. Gradually, common themes begin to emerge between the two stories, culminating in a shocking ending.

His next book, ''Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance'' (1996), became his most high-profile work since ''Trainspotting'', released in the wave of publicity surrounding the film. It consists of three unconnected novellas: the first, ''Lorraine Goes To Livingston'', is a bawdy satire of classic British romance novels, the second, ''Fortune's Always Hiding'', is a revenge story involving thalidomide and the third, ''The Undefeated'', is a sly, subtle romance between a young woman dissatisfied with the confines of her suburban life and an aging clubgoer. Most critics dismissed the first two as relatively minor affairs and focused their praise on ''The Undefeated''. Welsh's narration imbued both characters with surprising warmth, and the story avoided easy, pro-ecstasy conclusions. The popular alternative band My Chemical Romance have stated that their bassist Mikey Way got the name for their band from the book's subtitle.

A corrupt police officer and his tapeworm served as the narrators for his third novel, ''Filth'' (1998). Welsh had never avoided flawed characters, but the main character of ''Filth'' was a brutally vicious sociopathic policeman.

''Glue'' (2001) was a return to the locations, themes and episodic form of ''Trainspotting'', telling the stories of four characters spanning several decades in their lives and the bonds that held them together.

Having revisited some of them in passing in ''Glue'', Welsh brought most of the ''Trainspotting'' characters back for a sequel, ''Porno'', in 2002. In this book Welsh explores the impact of pornography on the individuals involved in producing it, as well as society as a whole, and the impact of aging and maturity in individuals against their will.

''The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs'' (2006), deals with a young, alcoholic civil servant who finds himself inadvertently putting a curse on his nemesis, a nerdy co-worker. In 2007, Welsh published ''If You Liked School You'll Love Work'', his first collection of short stories in over a decade.

At the request of the ''Daily Telegraph'', Welsh travelled with a group of authors and journalists to the Sudan in 2001. A book called ''The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa'' was the result, to which Welsh contributed a novella called ''Contamination'', about the violence and warlords in the region. A second book, ''The Weekenders: Adventures in Calcutta'', was published in 2004. Welsh, Ian Rankin, and Alexander McCall Smith each contributed a short story for the ''One City'' compilation published in 2005 in benefit of the One City Trust for social inclusion in Edinburgh.

Welsh's most recently published novel is entitled ''Crime'', whose main character is Ray Lennox (who appeared in Welsh's previous work, ''Filth''). Detective Inspector Ray Lennox is recovering from a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a particularly horrifying child sex murder case back in Edinburgh. The story takes place in Florida.

Welsh is currently writing a prequel to ''Trainspotting'', to be called ''Skagboys''.

Film and stage

As well as fiction, Irvine Welsh has written several stage plays, including ''Headstate'', ''You'll Have Had Your Hole'', and the musical ''Blackpool'', which featured original songs by Vic Godard of the Subway Sect.

More recently he coauthored ''Babylon Heights'' with his screen writing partner Dean Cavanagh. The play premiered in San Francisco at the Exit Theatre and made its European premiere in Dublin, at The Mill Theatre Dundrum, directed by Graham Cantwell. The plot revolves around the behind-the-scenes antics of a group of Munchkins on the set of ''The Wizard of Oz''. The production included the use of oversized sets with actors of regular stature.

Cavanagh and Welsh have also collaborated on a number of screenplays. ''The Meat Trade'' is based on the 19th century West Port murders. Despite the historical source material, Welsh has set the story in the familiar confines of present day Edinburgh, with Burke and Hare depicted as brothers who steal human organs to meet the demands of the global transplant market.

''Wedding Belles'', a film made for Channel 4 that was written by Welsh and Cavanagh, aired at the end of March 2007. The film centres around the lives of four young women, who are played by Michelle Gomez, Shirley Henderson, Shauna MacDonald, and Kathleen McDermot. Wedding Belles was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA and was subsequently sold to TV channels in Canada and Europe.

Welsh has directed several short films for bands. In 2001 he directed a 15 minute film for Gene's song "Is It Over" which is taken from the album ''Libertine''. In 2006 he directed a short film to accompany the track "Atlantic" from Keane's album ''Under the Iron Sea''.

Welsh directed his first short dramatic film, NUTS, which he co wrote with Cavanagh. The film features Joe McKinney as a man dealing with testicular cancer in post Celtic tiger Ireland. It was released in 2007.

Welsh co-directed 'The Right to liberty' a chapter of the documentary film The New Ten Commandments in 2008.

In 2009 Welsh directed the film Good Arrows (co-directed by Helen Grace). It was written by Welsh and Cavanagh. The film is about a darts player who suffers from depression which causes him to lose his skill.

Film adaptation

''Trainspotting'' (1996)

''Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy'' based on ''The Undefeated'' from the book "Ecstasy" started shooting December, 2010, with Irvine Welsh in a cameo role.

The Acid House

Theatre adaptations

Ecstasy

Glue

Filth

Trainspotting

Marabou Stork Nightmares

Themes

As well as recreational drug use, Welsh's fiction and non-fiction is dominated by the question of working class and Scottish identity in the period spanning the 1960s to the present day. Within this, he explores the rise and fall of the council housing scheme, denial of opportunity, sectarianism, football, hooliganism, sex, suppressed homosexuality, dance clubs, low-paid work, freemasonry, Irish republicanism, sodomy, class divisions, emigration and, perhaps most of all, the humour, prejudices and axioms of the Scots.

Style

His novels share a number of characters, giving the feel of a "shared universe" within his writing. For example, characters from ''Trainspotting'' make cameo appearances in ''The Acid House'', ''Marabou Stork Nightmares'', ''Ecstasy'', ''Filth'', and slightly larger appearances in ''Glue'', whose characters then appear in ''Porno''.

Irvine Welsh is known for writing in his native Edinburgh Scots dialect. He generally ignores the traditional conventions of literary Scots, used for example by Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, and James Orr. Instead, he transcribes dialects phonetically.

Like Alasdair Gray before him, Welsh also experiments with typography. A notable example is the book ''Filth'', where the tapeworm's internal monologue is imposed over the top of the protagonist's own internal monologue (the worm's host), visibly depicting the tapeworm's voracious appetite, much like the 'Climax of Voices' in Gray's novel ''1982, Janine''.

Bibliography

Novels

''Trainspotting'' (1993)

''Marabou Stork Nightmares'' (1995)

''Filth'' (1998)

''Glue'' (2001)

''Porno'' (2002)

''The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs'' (2006)

''Crime'' (2008)

''Skagboys'' (2012 - upcoming)

Short story collections

''The Acid House'' (1994)

''Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance'' (1996)

''If You Liked School You'll Love Work'' (2007)

''Reheated Cabbage'' (2009)

Script writing

''You'll Have Had Your Hole'' (drama)

''Dose'' (half Hour BBC drama written with Dean Cavanagh)

''The Acid House'' (screenplay)

''Wedding Belles'' (2007 film for Channel 4 written with Dean Cavanagh) ''Four Play'' This is a collection of Irvine Welsh's books that have been adapted for the stage. Trainspotting, Marabou, Filth, and Ecstasy. ''Dockers'' (1999 one-off TV drama for Channel 4, co-written by Jimmy McGovern) ''Nuts'' (2007 Short film) ''Good Arrows'' (2009 Film) ''Bad Blood'' (2005 Short film) Co-written by Irvine Welsh, based on a section of Trainspotting

Theatre

Babylon Heights

You'll Have Had Your Hole

References

External links

irvinewelsh.net Official Site

BBC mini-bio on Welsh

Irvine Welsh at Random House Australia

SF Interview about "Babylon Heights" play with writing partner Dean Cavanagh

Interview with 3:AM Magazine

Interview by Garrett Faber and Interview by Daniel Robert Epstein SuicideGirls

Category:1958 births Category:Alumni of Heriot-Watt University Category:Creation Records artists Category:Living people Category:People from Edinburgh Category:Scots language Category:Scottish atheists Category:Scottish expatriates in Ireland Category:Scottish novelists Category:People from Leith Category:Postmodern writers

be:Ірвін Уэлш bg:Ървин Уелш ca:Irvine Welsh cs:Irvine Welsh cy:Irvine Welsh de:Irvine Welsh es:Irvine Welsh eu:Irvine Welsh fr:Irvine Welsh gd:Irvine Welsh hr:Irvine Welsh it:Irvine Welsh he:אירווין ולש la:Irvine Welsh nl:Irvine Welsh ja:アーヴィン・ウェルシュ no:Irvine Welsh pl:Irvine Welsh pt:Irvine Welsh ru:Уэлш, Ирвин sh:Irvine Welsh fi:Irvine Welsh sv:Irvine Welsh tr:Irvine Welsh zh:歐文·威爾許