Welsh Dialect Classifications

Native speakers of Welsh are well aware of geographical variation in features of the language, and are able to tell where people come from by listening to the way they speak. Welsh dialectologists have over the years looked at geographical variation in phonology, lexis and grammatical forms and have tried to establish where changes between different features are located. They have shown relatively little interest, however, in defining distinct regional dialects, and dividing the country into separate speech areas. This paper will look at those attempts which have been made in the frameworks of isoglottic dialectology, by John Rhŷs in 1897 and by Alan Thomas in 1973 and 1980, and ethnolinguistics by Rudolf Trebitsch in 1907-1909.