Talk:Y Fro Gymraeg

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[edit] Improvements

This page is a disaster.

Very constructive! ☸ Moilleadóir 06:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC) ☏

I have to agree with User:68.209.46.240 (the IP address who left the first comment) that the page needs a lot of work. It reads like an essay, not an encyclopedia. "Magnificent revival", "great figure" are hardly neutral. The list of "surrounding areas" in text includes some counties which on the map have the lowest figures. Either the map or the list needs changing. Nearly every sentence in the latter half could have the "please provide a source" template dropped on it. Another problem is the title of the page. How often is the term used in English? Welsh-speakers may use it in English, but I would have thought that something like "the Welsh heartland(s)" is more likely from people who don't speak it. Wikipedia is supposed to use the more common term in English (yes, this annoys me too, when I see things I consider wrong but which win on a Google search, but it seems to be policy.) Also along those lines, should it be "the Fro" or the "the Bro" in English? Hope that was constructive enough for you :) Telsa (talk) 08:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Hardly NPOV. I'm sure that non-Welsh speakers in Wales would know what Y Frô Gymraeg is (does it need a to bach?), but probably very little from outside Wales do. While a mention of the term Y Frô Gymraeg is usefull on Wikipedia, I don't think it's been properly defined. For instance there are many villages in the coastal areas of Gwynedd where the percentage of Welsh speakers is lower than 50%, while there are quite a few parishes in rural Denbighshire and Neath Port Talbot where percentage of Welsh speakers are above 60%. In my mind, all these communities are part of Y Fro, as opposed to whole counties. Signage in Denbishire has Welsh first as well I think. --Rhyswynne 13:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I've just done a bit of tidying up which I hope improves the article. Rhyswynne is right about the circumflex accent - article accordingly renamed. As for the name itself, there is really no English equivalent so I see no need to change it (we have Gaeltacht not "Irish-speaking area(s) of Ireland"). Even bro is difficult to respresent in English with a single word as it has such resonance in Welsh culture; 'area' is correct but hardly does it justice. Definition is difficult as well as it is not officially defined and the linguistic boundaries have shifted over the years resulting in a fragmentation of y fro. Having said that, this article is definitely needed. However a great deal more needs doing. But not right now by this contributor: I need a panad! Enaidmawr 20:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I suppose I could put my oar in by wondering what was the reason for creating the article: links to it are practically non-existent. I can think of quite a few things that could link with it, were it at all close to defining what the Bro Cymraeg really is. Of course it's the continuous district in which Welsh speakers are or were predominant. But the article implies that it's merely a collection of counties, defined by a few local government issues such as language of education (I notice it fails to say Primary education) and road signs: whereas of course it's a cohesive cultural region (or pays as Professor Bowen used to say). By defining it in terms of counties it misses out other important parts of the Bro: Hiraethog, Northwest Montgomery, Northwest Glamorgan, North Pembrokeshire. But whether the article should be changed to define the Bro as a region depends critically on the intent of the article. One could re-draft it (well referenced: this isn't cy:wiki) in geographical terms, but if it's just going to stand in splendid orphaned isolation, why bother??? . . .LinguisticDemographer 20:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

For information, there's been some activity on the Welsh version of this article and there's a link to a site dedicated to] Owain Owain, a founding member of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg and who's also credited with first coining the phrase Y Fro Gymraeg in an article in Y Cymro in 1964 called "ONI ENNILLIIR Y FRO GYMRAEG..." ("Unless the Fro Gymraeg is won..."). The website is entirely in Welsh, but has links to a map of what he considered Y Fro Gymraeg at the time. It's based on 1961 census figures, and from what I gather he's split Wales into three zones, 1. Where more than 50% speak Welsh, 2. Where between 25 and 50% speak Welsh, and 3. Where less than 25% speak Welsh. I might add this to the article after reading some more. --Rhyswynne 21:45, 30 October 2007 (UTC)