Talk:Wales

Welsh phrasebook

Is there only me thinks there should be a Welsh phrasebook? I know that English is spoken by most (if not all) Welsh people, be it there first or second language, but I think it would be much appreciated if a traveller to the region could have the odd phrase to use. I suppose it might help in the northwest where Welsh is spoken daily. I don't know a word of Welsh, but if there's someone out there who does and is willing to put in the effort, they should create the Welsh language phrasebook. (I couldn't find one, therefore I assume it doesn't exist).

Sure, I'll help set up a Welsh phrasebook (see Talk on main article). (WT-en) WindHorse 21:45, 30 January 2007 (EST)

Thanks, I'm sure there'll be many (not just me), who will appreciate it ;).

On a related note I have set up Babel Templates for Welsh (cy) if anyone wants to use them. (WT-en) Tarr3n 08:17, 25 July 2008 (EDT)

Work needed

OK, I think this needs some work-- there really ought to be more content than links on a country page like this and I'm pretty sure not all of these links are pointingat articles. I'm going to rip a bunch of it out and move it to a talk page so the hierarchy can get sorted out... can we make some sort of law against having regions _and_ districts _and_ sites _and _cities ;-)? (WT-en) Majnoona 01:12, 31 Jan 2004 (EST)

Districts moved to Talk:Wales/Districts. (WT-en) Majnoona 01:14, 31 Jan 2004 (EST)

So castles and monuments shouldn't have links-- they'll be part of the destination page associated with them. Anyone know which of the links under castles is pointing at a town and not just a site? thanks.(WT-en) Majnoona 01:29, 31 Jan 2004 (EST)

There really is starting to be a large list of small cities on the Wales page now: it definitely seems like it's ready for a level of regions to go in. I'm going to list on Project:Articles needing attention. (WT-en) Hypatia 05:12, 11 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Regions

Hey Paul, Excluding the three cities, there are actually 11 districts in South Wales. See Wikipedia - subdivisions of Wales. Then, when we include the districts of north and mid Wales, we have a list of 19 districts. As stated on the in Wales main article, these districts are already listed under their specific regional page, and I wonder what is the benefit of creating a long, dangling list on the primary page, especially as many of the districts are of little or no interest to travelers. However, if you feel this is of some use, then please change it back. I won't revert again. (WT-en) WindHorse 21 Jan 06

Hi. I've been trying to tidy up North Wales. The main problem (among many) is that the colour coding next to the counties list has extended down the page. I don't have much experience with Wiki Markup so I'd be grateful if someone can show me how to fix this. I know it must be straightforward! Thanks. (WT-en) Tarr3n 6 June 2008. This has now been fixed - thanks to (WT-en) Windhorse. (WT-en) Tarr3n 9 June 2008

Landmarks

I've removed "Millennium Stadium" from the Landmarks- it doesn't merit a mention for it's "Wales wide" significance as a Landmark, (it clearly is not as important as say Harlech Castle, and I'm not sure it's the most important building for a visitor to Wales in Cardiff even!)- however some of the stuff in the description of it was good, so I've put it in the Cardiff entry- the stadium clearly merit's a mention in the Cardiff Landmarks section, although I've updated some of the very outdated stuff. I don't think we can honestly say that a seinging the Millennium Stadium is itself the the highlight of anyone's visit to Wales now- it's 10 years old- so any novelty has worn off- indeed it's now only the 3rd newest major stadium in Wales, soon to be relegated to 4th! Of course the main thing that goes on in the "Millennium Stadium" is very important- the Six Nations Rugby Tournament- and there's a good section on that under a different heading in the all-Wales article. The Millennium Stadium bit was superfluous on this page. I also moved it down from no 1 to no 2 in the Cardiff Landmarks hierarchy too, but it does merit a mention there- since the fact that there are stadium tours means it is a tourist site in it's own right- but only in a Cardiff rather than an all-Wales tourism context. ~Voyager

Talk

Taken out the description of Wales as a "Principality"- and used the less contentious word "country".

Main arguments for the approach.

1. Wales is not a "Principality" in the sense that Monaco is- the term could be missleading to an audience outside of Wales. I suspect the "Monaco" example would be what would internationally be understood as a "Principality".

2. There is of course a (minor) political dispute about whether Wales is in fact a "Principality"- it get's close to taking a position on political questions of republicanism or monarchism, staying in the UK or otherwise. Not sure a tourist guide should use a word which has political connotations.

3. In common speach in Wales the term "Principality" is more commonly used to refer to the Financial Services organisation rather than Wales itself. (Indeed the name of the Principality Building Society is what it is because it was founded in the 1860s- when people thought in a different way).

4. The term being used to mean Wales is just plain Archaic. If it is used at all it would mainly by a minority of English people of a certain age, and world view. Indeed it has an almost comedy quality, along with the now disapeared anglicisied spellings such as "Llanelly".

(I wouldn't worry too much about putting the "Principality" discussion in the "respect" section- it's just not that important in Wales- just like you wouldn't say, "don't refer to the United States as the 13 colonies" in the respect section on the USA!).

(WT-en) Voyager 23:20 BST 25 May 2009

Oh dear the point about a minority of Welsh speakers being unable to speak English at all, I think is missing the point! I suspect in a literal sense the statement is true that some Welsh speakers don't speak English, but I suspect that most of those live in Patagonia, and the all of the rest of them would be pre-school children. So a tourist would be desperately unlucky if the only person they could ask for directions was a Welsh speaking Patagonian, (unless the tourists happened to be Spanish). I will make a more sensible ammendment.

(WT-en) Voyager 25 May 2009 23:30 BST

Do we HAVE to say "Welsh rarebit"? Can we not say "Welsh rabbit", which is what everyone who eats it has always called it, as any fule kno? God knows who originally came up with the "rarebit" perversion. Markcymru (talk) 03:35, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Siwmae, Mark. By all means add "rabbit" to the article, but not instead of rarebit, which is a legitimate alternative name and has been used since 1725. It may have been a perversion back then, but it stuck. Personally, I call it cheese on toast ;-) ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:32, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

ROADSIGNS

I've put in a bit on bilingual roadsigns under "talk".

Is it appropriate to put it there first of all?

My rationale was that perhaps a visitor to Wales- particularly one who'se first language is neither English nor Welsh- may have potential difficulty with them, especially if they weren't aware that the signs were in fact billingual???

Indeed what got me thinking about this was on a visit to the Isle of Skye- I recall the roadsigns colour coded the differenct language- blue for Scotish Gaelic, Black for English. I remember thinking that was a much clearer than our bilingual signs in Wales. (Although that couldn't work in Wales- because of the fact we have Motorways and Primary Roads, with different coloured backgrounds on the signs).

The other protocol with bilingual signs that people may be familiar with is to italicise one language- however that never happens in Wales with road signage at least.

So I can see potential isses for some people with the way we do road signage in Wales for some visitors.

It maybe my addition was a bit of overkill. I would imagine from the point of view of a Fluent English speaker, (or Welsh Speaker) it would be- but I was trying to think from the perspective of someone who doesn't speak either language as their first one. But it would be helpful if someone who has visitied Wales, and whose first language wasn't English could share their view on whether this addition is helpful?

(WT-en) Voyager 31 May 2009 23:40 BST

Hey Voyager... I agree that information about bilingual signs should be included... I remember a neighbor from the US who lived in Swansea for over a decade before she realized that Swansea and Abertawe were the same place. She just assumed that Abertawe was a place near Swansea. I have made slight edits to your information to make it a little more compact. Please feel free to change as you wish. Thanks for all your great help with the Wales article. (WT-en) Frequenttrekker 23:03, 31 May 2009 (EDT) PS. I don't know if this is nitpicking, but I changed 'English name' to 'indigenous name'. For example, Swansea is not the English name for the city, but the name that evolved locally from the original Scandinavian. Abertawe was a Welsh name that was introduced later.

Yes- Frequenttrekker's ammendments have by and large been vast improvements on what I put in. The only thing I changed straight away though- was the implication that Welsh wasn't an indiginous language- it starts opening up a language can of worms. Although interestingly there is a scholarly argument that Frequenttrekker is right on the Abertawe/ Swansea example- certainly the evidence of written language points to Swansea being the older form- although of course this doesn't prove anything regarding spoken Welsh and English and which version was used first! So granted there is a good argument, that "Swansea" is the indiginous form there. However Swansea/ Abertawe is unusual, generally the Welsh form for a placename is clearly older than the English one, (and very often the English form is similar or identical to the Welsh version)- and so would clearly Welsh would be the "indiginous" form- and it's beyond any doubt that Welsh- (or some similar "ancestor" language) was spoken in Wales, or for that matter the rest of Britain before English- although if you want to open up the can of worms of Welsh being the "indiginous" language of England that is up to you! ;) Although I suppose in fairness it may be relevant and of interest to a traveller in an article about specific places in England which have "Welsh" place name- e.g. "Dover" in Kent, or "Pen Y Ghent", in Yorkshire- actually a bit more of an interesting story than having a Welsh place name in Wales- just like the story of "Swansea" is more interesting than other place names in Wales!

(WT-en) Voyager 00:31 BST 6 June 2009 P.S. I've started to look much more closely at road signs- I always used to take the view that it was us billingual people who suffered the most- because our brains mixed things up, not differentiating the two languages instantly with Monolingual English speakers able to ignore the Welsh version as "gobblydegook", but I am not so sure now- that being said I still think we should have them...

Hi Voyager. I appreciate your long reply, and you make some goods points. However, my main assertion was that the name Swansea is not English. It has nothing to do with Anglo-Saxon, but is derived from the original Viking name for the settlement. Before the Vikings there is no evidence of a settlement at the mouth of the Tawe, so it is very unlikely that a Welsh name preceded the Scandinavian one. From literature, it appears that a Welsh name did not appear until around the 13th century. Calling Swansea the English name implies that there was a Welsh name and later the Anglo-Saxons imposed an English version, which is not the case. The name Swansea evolved from Sweyn's-Ey to Swansea among the community itself. The original town of Swansea, South Gower and Mumbles were not Welsh speaking, and this remains much the case today. In this way, Welsh is not the indigenous language of that area. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: Swansea originally developed as a Viking trading post, and the name Swansea is believed to be derivation of "Sweyn's Ey" ("ey" being the Old Norse word for "island"). "Sweyn" is a mutation of the Viking name "Sven") and the latter part of the name comes from "sey" ("sey" being an Old Norse word that can mean "inlet"). Consequently it is pronounced Swans-y /ˈswɒnzi/), not Swan-sea. The Welsh name first appears in Welsh poems at the beginning of the 13th century, as "Aber Tawy". Anyway, maybe it is just nitpicking, but I think it is good to present travelers with as accurate information as possible without becoming too much like Wikipedia. Regarding your change, I agree. Swansea is the exception. For most other places, the non-Welsh name is of English derivation and as you say we don't want to open a can of worms (though Tenby may be another exception...) (WT-en) Frequenttrekker

MOS Warning box

Ok I know this article is not perfect, but is the MOS warning box still relevant? If so can we make a list of things we need to resolve so that we can get rid of it? One thing is getting rid of the quickbar (WT-en) Tarr3n 09:15, 26 February 2010 (EST)

I plunged forward, fixed some outstanding issues, and think Wales is ready for the MoS bar to be removed =) --(WT-en) globe-trotter 12:40, 26 February 2010 (EST)

The Wales Challenge: A Fistful of Nuggets!

Swept in from the pub

Howdy, all!

I've set a Challenge to all Wikivoyage language projects: to complete just over 10 articles on some of the gold nuggets of Wales - the little corner of this planet where I was born and bread! Every article needs a few essential elements: sleep, drink and eat as well as 2000 bytes of text. The first language to complete the Challenge will get a Gold Dragon Barnstar - as well as the user who has collected the most points. Have fun!

I look forward to meet you at the Saloon - please add the points yourself and tick the grid to show that it's done! Many thanks, or as we say in the BIG COUNTRY (Wales of course!) - "Diolch yn fawr!" Llywelyn2000 (talk) 12:27, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

It does sound like an interesting project, but it would likely require some first-hand knowledge of Wales which I'm afraid most Wikivoyagers do not have. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:03, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

As you can see from this map, there is fairly extensive coverage of Wales in English, but some of these articles are just an introductory sentence or two. German also has over a dozen articles. As ϒpsilon say these articles are best improved by people who know the area. It is a long time since I visited Wales and I haven't been to anywhere on your list.

Maybe it would be best to raise some interest from people in Wales by contacting a local radio station or newspaper. Maybe you could also interest people in translating articles - generally from English to other languages. AlasdairW (talk) 21:51, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Great ideas: I've Tweeted the request too. Let's see what happens! Any help will be appreciated, for the other languages are unable to translate from en if there are no articles! Take a look at this comprehensive Italian discussion at their theirTravellers' pub. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 22:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Wales entries

Swept in from the pub

Is someone running a Wikivoyage awareness course in Wales? This is the third time we have had a spate of edits from multiple users on the same day promoting various websites and locations. Obviously we welcome more contributors and Wales does need more listings in the town pages, but please make sure people are aware of the difference between entering useful information about their business and touting. --Traveler100 (talk) 16:09, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes to all that you said. When people post listings for a holiday lettings agency without street address in multiple articles, it takes a fair amount of work to delete them all. People wanting to list such agencies need to read this site's rules on rental listings, external links and how to avoid touting and be aware that no business can be listed in more than one article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Remove north, mid and south regions?

The three regions of Wales described in this article have no political status, and weak cultural or natural significance. The ten counties described in these articles make up a proper number for division of Wales. Compare to Germany, where sub-national regions were recently scrapped. What do you think? /Yvwv (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

From the point of view of number of subregions it would make sense but there are historical cultural difference between South and North Wales in regards to economic and ethnic backgrounds. Also the transport links in Wales are very East-West orientated making get in sections distinct. --Traveler100 (talk) 18:56, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

A photo for the Politics section

Following my reorganisation of the 'Politics' section, I've been looking on Commons for a photo. I wanted something that depicted the Senedd building, though stuff like the first picture is a bit similar to the lead image of the article. I looked instead at events depicting traditional costume, and found the others you can see. Aside from #1's similarity to the lead image, I am unsure about featuring people - particularly kids - so prominently, and couldn't really find any guidance around this; Wikivoyage:Image_policy#People_in_photos is of no help, and Commons:Photographs of identifiable people only mentions minors in the context of "an obese child" being a description to avoid (well, duh). Photos depicting children and young people enjoying activities come up in paper brochures and other online guides all the time, but not so much here. Is there a policy I've missed or perhaps a legal concern? If there are other photos you'd like to suggest, preferably ones without a moral dilemma attached to them, then by all means do. Pinging people I know are active on Commons - @AndreCarrotflower, Ikan Kekek:--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:47, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The Senedd building was designed by Richard Rogers, and won numerous environmental awards - #1

Traditional dancers in costume outside the Senedd on St David's Day - #2

Doe-eyed cherubs in traditional dress at a St David's Day event in the Senedd - #3

Traditional dancers in costume outside the Senedd on St David's Day - #4

:I had a look on commons and was disappointed. There are thousands of Flickr images from the Parliament, but I didn't see any of a parliament session - I thought something like First Minister's questions would show the building in use. I am not keen of the photo of kids - it doesn't relate to the topic, the dancers would be ok, but I would rather see politicians going into the building. We could just show a picture of the First Minister, ideally with some opposition leaders. For a different view of the Senedd building, there are some good pictures of its roof. #6 shows the chanmber in use, but unfortunately for a conference not a parliament session . AlasdairW (talk) 22:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The Senedd roof from outside #5

In the Senedd chamber #6

Thanks for commenting and proposing new photos. Certainly, none of ##2-4 relate to politics, though I did think they were more relevant to travel. I like both of your photo proposals, #5 more visually and #6 more thematically (they do normally have their laptops out when in session so I don't think the fact it's not actually a parliamentary session matters), and quite like the fact that the participants in #6 look like they're about to be eaten by the time vortex :).--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 17:36, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Overload of information on bilingual road signs

@ThunderingTyphoons!: When you removed the statement "The result is often an overload of information", you left the comment "Not Really". I checked the Department for Transport document The design and use of Directional Informatory Signs and in Section 4.3 (All-Purpose Roads and Motorway Exit Slip Roads) page 11, I found a recomendation that tthere should be a maximum of six destinations. I counted seven on the sign in question. Since all but one of the destinations are in two languages, then from an ergonomic point of view, we have 13 destinations hence my original comment regarding an overlaod of information. Maybe I should have used the word "data" rather than "information" as we 13 items of data but 7 of information. Martinvl (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't there be an overload regardless of the Welsh, if the recommended number of destinations in 1994 was 6? I felt it was more the opinion of the person who wrote it, rather than something universal. Many drivers in Wales either pick up the Welsh names over time or just tune them out (the latter would admittedly be easier if they changed the font/colour as in Ireland/Scotland).

I found the DofT manual quite an interesting read, though.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 00:35, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@ThunderingTyphoons!: I wrote the statment that there was information overload and I have certainly experienced that sort of thing when driving in Wales. I agree that in Scotland, drivers can easily "tune out" Gaelic text (by means of colour) and likewise in the Irish Republic (by Emglish being in Upper case upright script and Gaelic being in mixed case italic script). The reason that I added this sentence was to warn drivers to be alert for this sort of data overload. I will also admit that I was influenced by items 4 and 6 of this document. Martinvl (talk) 20:49, 9 October 2024 (UTC)