Wales boasts more than 600 castles. The country is the (literal) birthplace of England's Tudor dynasty. King Arthur, his knights and magician Merlin romped through the lush landscape. Even the word "Britain" is a Welsh term.
That -- and family history -- sparked an interest in the United Kingdom's Wales for Kedron Benham. His mother Angie (Evans) Benham, records a Welsh background, with Evans a common name in Wales. Also, Kedron spent a year in Europe as a high school exchange student and traveled to Wales. He will return to Wales this year if his work schedule allows. "I just loved it," he said.
Did You Know?
Wales
• Welsh (Cymraeg) is the oldest language in Britain, dating back possibly 4,000 years to an Indo-European language, which developed into nine language groups — including Celtic, which developed its own family of languages.
• The Celts began migrating from their central European homeland to the area now known as Wales about 1,000 B.C.
• A red dragon has been the symbol of Wales since the Celtic times. The national flag still bears that red dragon.
• History records the arrival of the Romans on Welsh borders at 48 A.D.
• According to legend, St. David advised the Britons, on the eve of a battle with the Saxons in A.D. 550, to wear leeks in their caps to easily distinguish them from their enemies; they emerged victorious. Today, the leeks have evolved into daffodils, another symbol of the Welsh culture, which the Welsh people wear on March 1 — the day honoring their patron saint.
• According to legend, King Arthur fought his last battle at Bwlch y Saethau — the Pass of Arrows — which is below Snowdon’s summit. Llyn Llydaw is the lake where Arthur’s sword Excalibur was thrown. Arthur’s Stone — which is said to be the “pebble” he removed from his boot on his way to the battle of Camlann in A.D. 539 — stands on the Gower peninsula. He threw the stone over his shoulder, and it landed seven miles away on Cefn Bryn Common near Reynoldston.
• The Lancaster House of Britain won control of the throne with the victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 (the last of the War of Roses). Henry Tudor — born in Pembrokeshire — became Henry VII of England. Henry VIII succeeded his father, and his quarrel with the Pope over his wish to divorce to marry Anne Boleyn eventually led England and Wales to leave the Roman Catholic Church. One consequence was the translation of the Bible into Welsh.
• The first Welsh immigrants to America and Canada were as early as the 1600s. In South America, a strong colony of Welsh-speaking ancestors remain today.
• Sixteen of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence in America in 1776 had Welsh roots, including Thomas Jefferson.
• Nearly 366,000 people migrated to Wales from across the world for the boom of the coal industry, 1851 to 1911.
• Today, Wales is one of four countries of United Kingdom: England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
• Wales boasts more castles per square mile than any other country in the world.
• Welsh voters elect 40 members to the United Kingdom Parliament and four members to the European Parliament.
• Jones, Davies and Evans are popular Welsh surnames.
Source: wales.com
In his teens, Kedron Benham read books about Wales and searched for a Welsh tutor, which he found through Skype. Richard Thomas was a Welsh high school teacher and taught the Welsh language for the Welsh government, which supports the growth of the language.
An interest among members of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Rogers spurred Benham to lead the class. He admitted to a conversational knowledge of the language and agreed to guide a class on the Welsh language -- Cymraeg, in Welsh. Members of the church with Welsh backgrounds joined the class.
"It's just one of those things that piqued interest," said the Rev. David Benham, rector of the church and Kedron's father.
Classes will continue at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays.
Angie Benham greeted class members with bara brith -- "bara" meaning bread, and "brith" meaning speckled. And, indeed, the traditional Welsh bread was sprinkled with pieces of dried fruit, giving it that "speckled" look. The bread is marinated in tea and brown sugar, Angie added, and she and Kedron explained the bread is similar to fruit cake, but much lighter.
"When King Arthur and Merlin talked, they spoke in a language that was the predecessor of Welsh," Kedron Benham shared, adding it was based on Latin. "But when Caesar sent messages to his generals to invade Gaul, he wrote them in Greek, because the Latin most often used was too close to the Welsh language and the enemy would be able to read it."
Benham explained that Wales enjoyed a cultural revolution of sorts in the 1990s, after the British parliament returned some of the local governmental power to the Welsh government in the capital Cardiff.
Prior to this, the Welsh language began to disappear as English made inroads in the culture. In fact, Welsh was not allowed in schools, Benham said.
"The National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012 provide that the Welsh and English languages should be treated equally (by public entities)," reads the Welsh government's website: wales.com. Now, Welsh-language classes are required for students up to the age 16.
"What you'll find in Wales is the older people can speak Welsh, and some of the younger people can because they teach it in schools," Benham said. "But people in the middle ages don't know it. Only about one-fourth of the population speaks it fluently."
The Welsh people proclaim they are "not English," Benham said. "They know who they are, and they are very proud of their ancestors."
Tuesday night at the church, Benham introduced the Celtic alphabet to the class members -- from A, pronounced as "ah," to Y, pronounced as a long-E or long-A sound. The class practiced a rolled K sound for the Welsh letter CH, and tried to put their tongue in a position to make an English L sound then blow around it to make the sound for the Welsh LL.
He explained the word "corgi" for a type of short-legged herding dog developed in Wales. "Cor" means midget, and "gi" means dog," Benham said.
"(The language) is a lot like Spanish and German, once you know how to pronounce them," Benham said. "if you don't know, just guess. You'll get pretty close.
"If I'm learning something, I go over it a few times for self-practice," he continued. "Pretty soon you will be able to read aloud (Welsh words), and a Welsh person would know what you're saying."
"Well, I know more than I did," Kedron's father, David, said at the end of the class. "It's nice to know what he's talking about when he tells us about the things he's seen.
Janice Shanahan recognized many words because her grandparents were born in Wales and spoke Welsh in their home, she said. "They emigrated from Wales to Canada, then went back one year later, then came back to Canada again ... They didn't like it," she explained.
"In my experience in Wales, I found they are much friendlier than the English," Kedron Benham said. "The landscape is 'hillier and colder' -- more like North Carolina."
"It's lush," Shanahan added. "And it rains a lot there."
Shanahan's husband Tim -- building a friendly competition with his wife to learn Welsh -- assigned the class homework: to watch the 1995 movie "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain," set in Wales.
"It's good," he promised, then turned to his wife, sticking out his tongue at her.
NAN Religion on 08/23/2014