The existence of the Welsh-language can come as a surprise to those who assume that English is the foundation language of Britain. However, J. R. R. Tolkien described Welsh as the 'senior language of the men of Britain'. Visitors from outside Wales may be intrigued by the existence of Welsh and will want to find out how a language which has, for at least fifteen hundred years, been the closest neighbour of English, enjoys such vibrancy, bearing in mind that English has obliterated languages thousands of miles from the coasts of England. This book offers a broad historical survey of Welsh-language culture from sixth-century heroic poetry to television and pop culture in the early twenty-first century. The public status of the language is considered and the role of Welsh is compared with the roles of other of the non-state languages of Europe. This new edition of The Welsh Language offers a full assessment of the implications of the linguistic statistics produced by the 2011 Census. The volume contains maps and plans showing the demographic and geographic spread of Welsh over the ages, charts examining the links between words in Welsh and those in other Indo-European languages, and illustrations of key publications and figures in the history of the language. It concludes with brief guides to the pronunciation, the dialects and the grammar of Welsh.

The Welsh in Iowa is the history of the little known Welsh immigrant communities in the American Midwestern state of Iowa. Dr. Walley’s book identifies what made the Welsh unique as immigrants to North America, and as migrants and settlers in a land built on such groups. With research rooted in documentary evidence and supplemented with community and oral histories, The Welsh in Iowa preserves and examines Welsh culture as it was expressed in middle America by the farmers and coal miners who settled or passed through the prairie state as it grew to maturity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This work seeks to not only document the Welsh immigrants who lived in Iowa, but to study the Welsh as a distinct ethnic group in a state known for its ethnic heritage.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

The first in-depth study of the Communist Party's attitude to devolution in Wales, to Welsh nationhood and Welsh identity, examined within the context of the rapid changes in twentieth century Welsh society, debates on devolution and identity on the British left, the role of nationalism within the communist movement, and the interplay of international and domestic factors.