“It sounds like elves talking” – Polish migrants in Aberystwyth (Wales) and their impressions of the Welsh language

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to gain a better understanding of the perceptions of the Welsh language held by the Polish adult migrants in Aberystwyth, Wales. Using qualitative research methods, we collected data from participants concerning their perceptions of the sound and spelling system of Welsh. Data obtained showed that adult Poles in Aberystwyth perceive the phonetics and phonotactics of Welsh to be markedly different from that of their native Polish. The participants believed Welsh to have small number of vowels and large number of consonantal clusters. By comparing consonantal and vowel inventories we were able to demonstrate that Welsh has a more complex vowel inventory than Polish. The consonantal inventories of both languages show great similarities and should not pose major problems to Polish learners of Welsh, who are also speakers of English. As for the phonotactics, Polish possesses a far more complex inventory of consonantal clusters than Welsh. We show that claims of the study’s participants that Welsh pronunciation is markedly different from Polish is not based on the linguistic grounds. Instead, such claims must be rooted in the social and ideological perceptions of the Welsh language on the part of the participants in the study.