Welsh Journals

Village Dialect By LYNETTE ROBERTS Note.-For technical reasons I have made a distinction between Cymric and Welsh writers in the same way that Histories on Scottish Literature refer to Gaelic or Scottish poets, etc. The term Anglo-Welsh having no origin but a superficial one, had to be poets, etc. The term Anglo-Welsh having no orgin but a superficial one, had to be dismissed. BEFORE I can discuss the subject of contemporary Welsh dialect, I have first to point out that there has been practically no acknowledgment of Welsh Literature in the past. This lack of recognition in the History of English Literature has yet to be adjusted, and it will take several minds of astute and singular purpose to achieve it. In the meantime because of the tragic deformity, I am compelled to raise certain manuscripts out of the dust; and I will examine these in as clear and sound a manner as possible. George Saintsbury in his surveys of English Literature (e.g., Macmillan 1929, p. 16, 42, 63, etc.) has somewhat neglected the Welsh contribution but in no way is this as serious as Professor G. L. Craik's. In his Manual of English Literature, there are isolated chapters on Scottish Chaucerian Poets," Scottish Poets," Scottish Prose," which include a prose passage on the translators of Gaelic and Latin MSS., from the middle of the 16th century to the end of the 19th century. In this chapter he writes Before the middle of the sixteenth century a few prose writers had also appeared in the Scottish dialect-(and later)-it is worthy to remark, that we have unquestionably the Scottish dialect-Scottis langage as the author calls it." All this is courteous to Scotland; but to balance the History of English Literature, a chapter or two devoted to the Welsh and Irish writers would preserve a more mature survey; and this applies to all historians compiling an English Literature," not only to Professor Craik. Gildas, we are told, is British. Yet his habit was twisted by the Saints of Demetia with whom he conversed, by Saint Cadoc, in par- ticular That Gildas was a bard in his native tongue, studied in Ireland, had Welsh and Breton biographers, and attacked his countrymen as they do today with avid ferocity, still prevented a claim that he was Welsh. There is Nennius, a monk from Bangor. Bishop Asser (Asserius Menevensis) born in Wales and brought up a monk at St. Davids, who became King Alfred's translator and biographer. Attended the Wessex court because in Alfred's own Kingdom he could find no distinguished