UKH

Brecon Beacons National Park Authority has announced that the Park will now be known officially by the historic Welsh name Bannau Brycheiniog. The change is a headline-grabbing adjunct to a more substantial management plan aiming to improve the environment in the area.

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Good on them! The Welsh language needs preservation, and to non native Welsh speakers it may seem forceful but a country's heritage is important. 

Nobody outside the media or without a personal interest is going to bother calling it y bannau Brycheiniog. Even as a Welsh speaker I'll probably keep calling it the Beacons unless I'm actually engaged in a Welsh conversation at the time. 

In reality though I'd be perfectly happy with the name change if it stops people calling it the Brecons.

I'm interested in what the anglophone Welsh people think about this? Are there many non-Welsh-speaking Welsh folk who feel these types of moves are exclusionary to them to some extent? Or are the majority of non-Welsh-speaking Welsh folk not bothered or supportive?

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/hill_talk/is_this_a_belated_april_fools_b...

I fit your description Toby and I'm not bothered. I grew up on the edge of the Beacons that was then Gwent (now Monmouthshire again) and I don't see a problem with name changing if people want to.

My Welsh speaking uncle and aunt have a panoramic view of the three highest summits from their farmhouse, and I can't see them stopping refering to them as 'The Beacons'.  

I'm a non-Welsh-speaking Welshman and I think it's great. I've always found it really bizarre that English names get precedence in so many places.

Everyone in Wales learns Welsh at school. In my school it was treated as a filler subject, so despite learning for 11 years I can only hold a very basic conversation, although my grammar is good. Hopefully the teaching has improved. Despite English protestations Welsh isn't that complicated, and pronunciation is mostly consistent and straightforward, with virtually all words being spelled phonetically. Obviously it follows different rules, but to me the exclusionary thing is the constant push back about how hard it is to pronounce, which just isn't true. I live in Scotland now and the attitude is even worse regarding Gaelic.

I don't know about Welsh but Gaelic is hard to pronounce and also variable with location 

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I get that the play on words was enticing but it does make for a fairly negative (dare I say slightly tabloid-esque?) slant to the headline, which seems out of character with UKC's general editorial approach of being welcoming to the Welsh language movement and minimally sensationalist.

I agree although I have to admit it had never even occurred to me that that is why they are called the Brecon Beacons! This is even more embarrassing as where I'm originally from I was not that far from the Malverns and would go up there as child on my dads back! The highest peak is called Worcestershire Beacon and at times has had a beacon fire on it. There's also Herefordshire Beacon at the wrong end of the Malverns too.

Perhaps one of the Welsh people here will know this - at some point in history was all of Wales Welsh speaking? I have the impression that some parts of South Wales never were Welsh speaking, but I accept that might really be something along the lines of 'not Welsh speaking for the last two centuries' or similar.

if you go back far enough a lot of great britain was Welsh speaking, and certainly all of modern Wales

But was that really the same as modern Welsh? Don't we get back to some proto-Celtic language that Welsh, Cornish, Irish, Gaelic, Breton, all come from in the same way that Middle English came out of Anglo Saxon and so on?

Clearly not a historian of languages, so genuinely don't know but am interested to learn more!

Most of the country was 200 years ago. The industrial era brought many English speaking business owners, as well as economic migrants, and the Victorians enforced English speaking in schools and humiliated those who spoke Welsh. Others will know a lot more than I do though.

My own family were predominantly Welsh speaking a century ago.

Curiously there is historically a clear dividing line in Pembrokeshire called the Landsker line, between the English and Welsh speaking areas.

Interesting question - Welsh has historically changed a lot less than say, English during the last 1000 years. If you were to compare Welsh texts from 700 years ago against English ones, the Welsh would be far more easily understood, this due mostly to higher historical migration in England than in Wales, to my understanding. We studied the Red Book of Hergest from the 1400s for A-levels and it was pretty readable. 

As for what part, when, this is a really fascinating infographic article! https://starkeycomics.com/2019/03/01/a-brief-history-of-british-and-irish-l...

Quite a lot of info here 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_language#:~:text=Welsh%20evolved%20fr....

Great to see the range of replies to this topic - the beauty of the UKC/UKH community is the diversity of views. Great to hear support and even some constructive criticism.

When they published the bilingual Welsh article, I was actually surprised by the strength of feeling towards what was simply an optional extra that some people really appreciate. Some requested the option to pick a setting that would delete any future bilingual articles from their feed. Others enjoyed the novelty of it. Someone I'd never met before yesterday told me they had just read it and were blown away that Welsh language climbing articles existed on the premier UK Climbing news site. That experience for me was worth writing the article and being depressed and exasperated by reading comment threads ten times over.

I guess that is all tangential to the point I'm trying to make - but basically, just because something is meaningless to you, or even slightly inconvenient, it doesn't mean that it's not meaningful to someone or even a fairly large group of people you've no understanding of.

This name change wasn't made for the environment - that was a wilful misunderstanding of a fairly large rebranding exercise by right wing papers. They made the change because in Wales, outside of Facebook comments and the tabloids, there is a growing understanding and appreciation that the language is not of the past, it's of the future, and it's part of the greener, better, more positive vision that in Wales, we are trying to make reality. Arguments that "nobody speaks Welsh!" fall by the wayside because increasingly people understand that it belongs to them anyway, and it relates to the land.

Look out for the BMC "how to pronounce" video, coming soon!  

Sorry, I couldn't resist the easy pun and the negative connotation didn't occur to me. You've had several likes so clearly this feeling is shared. We are supportive of Welsh and Gaelic! I've changed the headline 

I don't think you can blame the press for their interpretation considering this statement to the telegraph from the park's Chief Executive Catherine Mealing-Jones. "We’re an environmental organisation. We’re trying to cut carbon and push to net zero. So, having a carbon burning beacon just isn’t a good look,".

What I'm saying is that changing the logo is about the "burning fire" thing as well as the managerial plan. Not the name.

"An old name for a new way to be" is their reference to the name change and relates to the history and attitude towards Welsh place names and the connection to the land. 

Check this video out, it's lovely and ties it all together: youtube.com/watch?v=m7fcRyIY3EQ&

As Wil says, there's a patch of Pembrokeshire that is very Anglicised for historical reasons, but I think in the rest of Wales, it was spoken to some degree. Twm Morys (Jan Morris of Everest/travel writing fame son) did a fascinating program on Welsh in Monmouthshire back when the Eisteddfod was in Abergavenny a few years back. Looks like it isn't available for streaming, but here's an article on it: https://www.brecon-radnor.co.uk/news/last-of-the-welsh-speakers-78680

From that it looks like  it had pretty much died out by the 1940/50's. I've been asked to do bilingual talks at the high schools in Presteigne and Gwernyfed (Hay on Wye) on the border and anecdotally I've overheard Welsh conversations in the Waitrose in Abergavenny when passing through, so it's looking in better shape than it has for 70-80 years I'd say, but still pretty rare outside of schools.

Mike Parker has a new book out on the Welsh border, which should be a good read, if you're interested in the nuances of our shared history.

 On a more general note (and not aimed at you!), it is one of the reasons that changes like this are important to help Welsh become re rooted in the landscape and community. A small change to being pro Welsh language does not equate to being anti English, which I think a lot of people get. Nobody is going to stop you calling it the Brecon Beacons, but the acceptance and attempt at using the Welsh names is greatly appreciated. I think UKC and Myrddin should be applauded for the articles and approach they've taken and the vast majority of responses have been heartening to see. 

I've become a lot more militant with age over reactionary attacks on the Welsh language as all they do is drive support for the unhealthier end of Nationalism (which is a different kettle of fish!). I find it fascinating the almost Pavlovian reaction of some non Welsh speakers (not necessarily English folk...) to any suggestion of Welsh, from getting my head kicked in as a "f'king Welshie" going to school in Pontypridd to 45 years of being told it's a waste of resources, no use to anyone, dead, etc, etc, etc. 

And yet the Welsh language is in decline and changing National Park names isn't going to change that.

https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/2022-12-16-number-of-welsh-speakers-has-decli...

I don't object to the use of Welsh names for the parks, given that everything else in Wales in bilingual it's odd that the Welsh names haven't been used before. But in the spirit of being bilingual I do object to the sole use of Welsh names. At best it will cause confusion and at worst it reinforces negative stereotypes of Welsh insularity which gained traction when the Sons of Glyndwr went round buring English owned holiday cottages.

Welsh tourism has come a long way in the last couple of decades since those dark days. Anything which alienates the English, which let's face it, will always make up the majority of tourists, can only be harmful.

Alienate?!

I'm a Welsh learner (well, a very casual Welsh learner through Duolingo). I don't have a problem with the move and think there was an inevitability about it after the Eryri / Snowdonia decision last year. The OS maps already have the name of the BBNP bilingually, English first then Welsh; if that's inverted then it's in line with things like the roadsigns and many company Welsh first policies to promote the Welsh language. 

Like Gethin, anything to stop people referring to it as 'the Brecons' - aaaahhhhh!

The Beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid!

Apparently the Welsh tories are agin it, as they suspect it of being Woke. I just counted 83 news sources, the majority of which are tiny local papers,   carrying the absolutely identical, word for word headline " backlash against brecon beacons name change". The wording doesn't vary whether its the mighty Kidderminster Shuttle, the Evesham Chronicle or the Helensburgh Advertiser  Independent journalism at its most fearless to be sure. Not orchestrated at all then. I guess someone in tory central office has had a busy day.

Most such papers are all one really, so it's unsurprising the headline is the same. Just the ads and a few other bits change between them.

So let me get this straight - because the Welsh language is undergoing a major demographic change (the annual ONS survey shows a rise, in fact https://www.gov.wales/welsh-language-data-annual-population-survey-july-202...) we shouldn't proactively seek to increase the visibility of the language and take pride in it?

Many visitors (yes, even your 'alienated' English) come here precisely because we have a unique culture, language, mythology, history, to go alongside our unique landscapes. Why someone like you would prefer we water it down I will never understand. If you think that choosing a Welsh name for a Welsh place reinforces a stereotype, I think you are reinforcing a stereotype about yourself and your attitude towards anything that's different to what's convenient and easy for yourself. It says more about you than us.

I have to admit when I chuckled when you mentioned Meibion Glyndwr, who operated largely in the valley in which I grew up. I don't see how those acts of (nonviolent) protest to the ever-present rural housing crisis have any relevance to this. Welsh people today choose to express their feelings in different ways and I think that's a good thing.

For those who have expressed an interest in the language in this thread, I saw this amazing film the other day, Y Swn (the noise), about the struggle that was had for a Welsh language channel. All the usual arguments were posed against it, and yet it was, and is, a success: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0fc10nr/y-swn 
(English subtitles available)

You're describing accents/dialects. English has plenty of those too

Don't take it too personally, the kids frequently used to take the same attitude to me when I was staying with my grandparents up the road in Ferndale because I wasn't Welsh enough! 

I did spend quite a lot of time there and find myself feeling a bit more Welsh the older I get, so I'm broadly sympathetic to greater recognition of Welsh heritage and culture, but I thought what sounded a lot like justifying the name change on environmental grounds was a bit desperate!

Woke sounds like quite a Welsh word, ironically.  Is there a Welsh equivalent?

Honestly - I think this has been a case of poor messaging. The key justification for the name change is this:

Bannau Brycheiniog National Park's chief executive, Catherine Mealing-Jones, said: "It just felt the right time to reclaim the old name for the area. [It] reflects our commitment to the Welsh language.

"But we understand people are used to calling the park by the name everyone's used for 66 years, so we don't expect everyone to use it, at least straight away."

It just happens to come along during a major overall rebrand and strategic launch - I am sure that they will have given a substantial amount of money to a PR firm to develop a strategic identity for them going forward to support their new management plan. Part of that will have been moving away from the image of the flaming brazier in favour of a 'greener' and more representative logo (see the river and star, things the park is genuinely well-known for) and the name comes as an aside to that. The fact she's talking about both things at the same time leads to confusion and plays into the hands of people who would rather focus on that. 

I don't think the name change needs justifying on anything other than its own grounds, and I think most people will agree.

Well yes, and I wouldn't say English is easy to pronounce!

I think you need to re-read what I wrote without the chip on your shoulder. You are putting a slant on what I said that isn't actually there.

I have no objection to the use if the Welsh language in Wales, just it's use to the exclusion of English in a bi-lingual country in which even a large majority if it's inhabitants don't speak Welsh.

Nor am I am making up the stats on Welsh use or its decline, if you disagree with them take it up with the researchers not me. My purpose in quoting them is not to gloat but to point out that the language faces bigger challenges that changing a few names won't even begin to fix.

Finally you are quite wrong in your assumptions about my attitude to the Welsh and their language.

I enjoy reading the bi-lingual signs and figuring how some words look like phonetic spellings of English, and surprisingly sometimes French words and trying to figure out the grammar involved. One day I'll get round to reading up on it, I find language fascinating.

As a regular visitor over several decades I have never personally experienced any anti-Englishness but whether it exists or not doesn't alter the reality that many English people think it does and that perception dates back to the Sons of Glyndwr days. Again, that's not my opinion, it just is.

As I said, Welsh tourism has come a long way. I think the foot and mouth outbreak did much to make people realise the value that tourism brings (you only miss it when it's gone) and the visitor experience has improved greatly since. Rightly or wrongly, when a story hits the national news that the NP authority will only use Welsh place names it won't stop the likes of us visiting but I'm afraid it does get people's hackles up and yes, that reinforces negative stereotypes which is alienating and does nothing to boost tourism.

Aha, the chippy Welshman, another classic stereotype. Thank you.

I do hate to be the bearer of good news, but the reality is this - there is no exclusion of the English language and no disenfranchisement of English speakers. Even if we wanted to, which we don't. As a language it is ubiquitous and ever-present in media, in education, online, it's just everywhere. 

I didn't accuse you of making up the statistics - I just pointed out that the picture is complex and that even if it were, it is not an argument against taking steps to prioritise and preserve it, particularly when that's what most of us (Welsh speaking or not) want to do.

I'm glad you find the language fascinating - I find English fascinating too. I love to see how English words are often just non-phonetic versions of Welsh words. Like how you guys spell Ambiwlans as "ambulance". It's charming really! Jokes aside, what you are probably seeing is the latin influence on the Welsh language, from the roman days. Most words for things that the romans brough over here (windows etc.) tend to have a latin root e.g. ffenest/fenestra. What did the Romans ever do for us?! 

I think you'll find that negative English attitudes, sterotypes, (fantasies?) about the Welsh date back a bit further back than the 90s (the whole pub started speaking Welsh when I walked in, I swear!). I'd recommend reading up on the Treachery of the Blue Books. 

A note on tourism - in my line of work, I spend a lot of time working with national park authorities, businesses, local government, on issues concerning tourism. Currently we have a model of tourism in Wales which is felt locally to be extractive, and damaging to the local environment and language. What we definitely don't have is a shortage of visitors, from any direction. The management plan, if you would read it, aims to tackle those things while encouraging an accessible and more responsible style of tourism which supports all of these things.

 

Effro! There's no K in the Welsh language funnily enough, it's covered by the sound that a hard 'c' makes.

Although the fact it hasn't actually entered the Welsh vocabulary for that purpose spares us from the slightly tiresome cries from the usual suspects at any kind of progressive thought or action.

Exhibit A: Leicester

Exhibit B: Worcester

Ah, the good old Rhondda welcome, it took me a good few months living in Edinburgh to get used to not having to watch my back in pubs! I'd agree that the line of trying to justify it on environmental grounds was poor, but presumably was done to try and deflect some of the inevitable shitstorm they knew they'd receive from the "Errh ma God, change, Welsh, the sky's going to fall..." reactionaries. I think they were damned either way, so they have my sympathy.

Pec's ideas about insularity are interesting. What WILL drive that insularity is the hysteria of some people's response to small steps like this that are pro Welsh language but do very little to inconvenience English speakers. When you have another round of hearing "waste of time, dead language, causes confusion etc" then the extremes of Welsh nationalism start to look more inviting - polarising everyone in to a "Them and us" frame of mind and driving the likes of Meibion Glyndwr, MAC, FWA and such like. 

We've moved on from those bad days due to some dogged persistence, enlightened policies and the majority of people being a good bit more accepting of differences in language/ culture etc. However, with our current climate of polarising politics and media clickbait frenzies, we could rapidly end up back there. The whole rewilding debate is going to be a large driver in this as well, with well meaning drives to get rid of sheep, no fishing zones etc having a massive impact on rural communities throughout the UK. In Wales (and the Highlands/Islands in Scotland) they will also have a massive impact on the Welsh (Gaelic) language. All threads in the same story.

The majority of those tiny local "news" papers will all be run by the same big company so it's only really one opinion.

Is this the management plan?

https://www.beacons-npa.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/Future-Beacons-V1.4-low-r...

Seems like a lot of verbiage! Does it boil down to Park & Ride to the Storey Arms?! 

"Between the ecological ceiling and the social foundation is the just and safe space where planetary and social systems are functioning without harm. It is into this space that we believe there is environmental and social capacity to utilise the Park for landscape based recreation and enjoyment. The National Park core comprises sectors which align to our second purpose to provide opportunities for understanding and enjoyment of the National Park. The National Park core gives us a series of goals for successful implementation of National Park Authority specific actions. From understanding to landscape, access issues, to tranquillity, these are factors which are critical to people's beneficial interaction with the Park. The things which draw people to the area and gives the area the unique value it does."

Yeah what you've got there is clearly marketing gobbledygook.

From this website: https://www.beacons-npa.gov.uk/the-authority/press-and-news/press-releases/... 

The change is part of the implementation of a new management plan designed to address the climate and biodiversity emergency and directly addresses problems the Park faces.

A series of projects are underway with partner organisations to attempt to halt, and reverse, the impact of climate change in the 520 square mile Park. Schemes include:

16,000 hectares of peatland restoration

One million new trees being planted

Water quality improvement, including getting rivers to bathing water quality standard across the Park

A focus on sustainable farming for an improved local food economy

Curlew population recovery

Creation of wildlife corridors to link habitats

Floodplains to hold water, encouraging diverse plants to thrive in order to store both carbon and nutrients

Sustainable transport solutions, including park and ride pilots between Merthyr Tydfil and Brecon

Encouraging everyone into nature

Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Chief Executive, Catherine Mealing-Jones, said:

“With four million plus visitors to the Bannau each year, we know we can’t put a fence around nature – we have to be proactive. Our new management plan tackles climate change head on as we transition to net zero by 2035. Action will be happening across the Bannau to restore nature’s ability to capture carbon from the atmosphere.  

I mean it sounds alright to me - don't get me wrong I have certainly been a critic of the park in many aspects before, I thought that their steps to limit entry to the park during covid were draconian and unnecessary. But when they say they want to do good - I support them. 

The name change at least made me do some reading about the place I visit relatively often with little care for the culture (probably a bit crassly). And I think I know how to pronounce it after some discussion with a welsh speaking colleague. 

It seems to me from what I read that the name change is actually more or less just a translation since Brecon seems to be from the same source as Brycheiniog and the use of Beacons looks like alliteration that came in hundreds of years ago.  Indeed OS maps are now showing the name as Brecon Beacons/Bannau Brycheiniog.  The burning Beacon appears to have no relevance with the place so ditching that made sense, presumably some marketing company came up with the Beacon image without thinking about what it means.  

I guess one of the problems is that as far as I know the Brecon Beacons is just the middle bit and the national park includes the Black Mountains and Black Mountain... I suppose the new name tries to include all the areas under one broader area name.  

Indeed - Brecon is a simplification of Brecknock which is a pretty straightforward anglicisation of Brycheiniog It would be interesting to look into the origin of that logo and who came up with it. Aesthetically I actually quite like it despite the environmental concerns! 😳

Yes, turning 'Brecon' into 'Brycheiniog' is literally just making a colloquial Welsh word longer. That being said, Bannau Brecon just doesn't sound right, and looking at a 1963 version of y Geiriadur Mawr, Bannau Brycheiniog is listed as the Welsh name, so at least there is some provenance. It occured to me that the root 'ban' of the plural 'bannau' is a different form of 'fan', which many of us are familiar with in 'Tryfan' (Three peaks). I supposed we're lucky the NP won't be known as the 'Fannau', which wouldn't take long for tourists to mispronounce.

I think it's probably fair to say there's a difference between a colloquialism and a historic anglicisation.

Yes, it's a mutation from ban to fan. You would still say "croeso i Fannau Brycheiniog" [going to the Bannau Brycheiniog], so you're not totally out of the woods.

Thanks for the info, Myrddin. Colloquial might not be the right word, i just don't feel 'Brecon' is an anglicisation, i'd expect Brooken or Breckon in English. Maybe it was spelt in a more English way in the past, it's just the hard 'c' of 'brec' is more in fitting with say, Wrecsam.

I think the pattern was "Brycheiniog" --> "Brecknock" --> "Brecon"! So I guess it has some residual Welshness in it!  

As a bilingual welshman, though one who has little recourse to use welsh in the last 30 years as I've spent my working life living in England, I'm amazed at how uppity non-welsh folk are getting at the reclamation of welsh names for welsh places. I could go on about how what became 'England' stripped away most things that were welsh... but you know, the past is the past. I like the optimism that lies at the root of such reclamation projects - how we talk about the world around us frames how we engage with the world around us, eh Suella? I now live on the border and get to enjoy the benefits of being dwyieithog. It's nice. More people should try it.