Modern Welsh at U of T

Welsh is a Celtic language, part of the Indo-European family. Among the Indo-European languages still spoken today, Welsh is identified as being the first to have separated from the rest of the family.
It is used as an everyday language in Wales, and is accepted as an official language in British educational, commercial, business and legal circles. Students studying in Britain may use Welsh as their medium up to and including Degree courses.
The Welsh alphabet has 28 letters, which do not include j, k, q, v or z, but does have letters representing sounds that are unique to the language.
As a language that is two thousand years old it is obviously mature in its cultural content. By learning the Welsh language one is able to open doors to great literary, historical, religious and political fields that enrich one’s appreciation of language and culture.
Welsh is used to communicate through television and radio within Wales. The language has its own television and radio channels and programming. It is also used as a communications medium in areas throughout the world and has recently been accepted as important enough to be utilized within the world of information technology and computer programs.

Is it hard to learn the language?
The main advantage of the language, from a learner’s point of view, is the fact that the writing system is quite phonetic. That is, since each letter has its individual sound, it is relatively easy to figure out a word’s pronunciation based on the spelling. As far as the grammar is concerned, there are certain difficult aspects, such as mutations and gender but such structural differences are found in all languages.
How would learning Welsh help me in finding work?
If you wanted to gain employment in Wales you would be required to know the language. Elsewhere the language helps understand a Celtic viewpoint on life, and because the language is very mathematical in its structure you could prove to potential employees that you have linguistic capabilities. Learning Welsh would certainly enable you to appreciate the literature and lifestyle of a European country that has remained strong and independent, and has developed, culturally, over a period of two thousand years.