Mwng - Super Furry Animals (2000)
"Mae'n nhw'n dweud bo' ni ar yr ymylo, yn weision bach ffyddlon, yn arw ac estron" (They say we are on the periphery, loyal little servants, rough and foreign)
The Old English term Wēalas meant “foreign” or “outsider”. It was the word the 5th and 6th century Anglo-Saxon invaders used to describe the original inhabitants of Great Britain. As their conquest pushed the speakers of Celtic languages to the edges of the island, the word transformed from a brutal description of the people inhabiting their own lands to the common term we used to describe those who now live on the island’s central west, Wales.
The Welsh, however, refer to both themselves and their land as Cymru, with the language they speak being Cymraeg. The Welsh language has a close modern - and barely alive - relative to the south in Cornish, and also the slightly more active Breton, the language of those who were pushed out of Britain altogether, ending up across the channel in France. Irish and Scottish Gaelic are more distant relatives. But these are all languages that are still fighting the effects of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Great Britain.
Languages do not only need large numbers of speakers to flourish, they also need legal structures, education systems and bodies of cultural works. For a language to truly thrive it must maintain a geographical area where speaking the language is not just a right, but an everyday necessity. Unfortunately, it is also often the case that a language must have the ability to physically protect itself from hostile forces seeking to replace it.
Or have a more unique tactic. While the arrival of English created an enormous threat to the Celtic languages of Great Britain, English itself suffered an existential crisis after the Norman Conquest in 1066, when French became the language of the state. English survived by simply eating French over the next few centuries, bastardising itself beyond recognition, and creating the language I am writing in now, which is effectively Franglais.
As this reconfigured English reclaimed the state, it set about further exerting itself across the island. Between the years 1536 and 1543 the then-English parliament passed a series of laws - known as the Acts of Union - that incorporated Wales in England’s legal structures. As a result the language of administration, the law, and crucially, education in Wales became English. Welsh had lost a number of key assets in its defence.
However, despite this enormous pressure from London, Welsh remained the primary language of a large majority (67%) of the Welsh population up until the mid-19th Century. Without any official status, it was the language’s cultural output that carried the weight of its survival. Although localised eisteddfods had been held since the 12th Century, the first National Eisteddfod of essays, poetry and music was held in 1858 in northern Wales, as not only an exhibition of cultural and linguistic pride, but also a prominent act of resistance against the structural pressures that English was placing on the Welsh nation.
Alongside a strong tradition of literature and music, the language’s other bulwark against English was the church. While the state had become an entity that only operated in English, the church was under no obligation to conduct services in the language, and maintained a tradition of being a Welsh-speaking institution. The publication of the first Welsh bible in 1588 can be seen as crucial in giving the language a cultural garrison capable of resisting Anglicisation. Particularly within the Nonconformist churches that had broken with the Church of England.
However, during the 19th Century it was not only the legal and administrative force of English that Welsh needed to resist, as there was also an incredible economic force that also drove Anglicisation. Early in the century Wales has become the world’s biggest producer of iron, and by the mid-century in Wales more people were being employed by heavy industry than by agriculture. This made Wales the first industrial society. By the end of the century around a third of the world’s coal was being extracted from Wales, and 1 in 4 workers was a coal miner.
This economic and social transformation created large migrations from rural to urban areas and greater contact with English as the language of work and the language of social structures. The incentives to learn English became far more pronounced, and the daily necessity of Welsh decreased. While the burgeoning trade union movement in the second half of the 19th Century sought to protect the economic interests of this industrial workforce, it was, unfortunately, largely indifferent to the Welsh language.
As well as these powerful economic forces, the education system in Wales became increasingly hostile to Welsh. A draconian instrument called the “Welsh Not” was introduced into schools designed to discourage the use of Welsh on school premises. The Welsh Not was a wooden board with the letters WN on it that was tied to a string. The first child caught speaking Welsh in school each day would have to wear the Welsh Not around their neck until the next child was caught. The child who was left wearing the Welsh Not at the end of the day was then punished.
The United Kingdom’s census of 1911 found that the percentage of Welsh speakers had dropped to 43% of the population. Yet the 20th Century would prove to be even more devastating, as technological advances made the cultural dominance of English more pronounced, and the secularisation of Welsh society took people away from the church. By 1981, the percentage of Welsh speakers had dropped to a precarious 17% of a population of 2.8 million.
Despite this decline, the roots of the language’s subsequent defence lay in a BBC radio address in 1962 by the Welsh poet Saunders Lewis called Tynged yr Iaith (The Fate of the Language). In his lecture, Saunders provided a history of the language since the Acts of Union, the then-present state of the language, and predicted that it was heading towards extinction should serious measures not be taken to enhance its usage.
The lecture was seen as being the catalyst for the creation of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society), an activist group that advocated for the right to use the Welsh language for official purposes such as tax returns, electoral forms, birth certificates, and especially for education. The group became notorious for ripping down English-only road signs, painting large-scale slogans in prominent locations, as well as staging protests at media outlets that were broadcasting insufficient Welsh content.
Yet Lewis’s lecture also coincided with the shifting of perspectives towards minority affairs, and a critical reassessment of traditional structures, that was occurring in the 1960s. This included a recognition that there was a cultural importance in the preservation of Welsh, and that the language was not something that simply needed to be stamped out. Progress may have been slow, but the decade was the turning point in Westminster understanding the value of cultural pluralism.
The first official recognition of this emerging perspective came in 1967 with the Welsh Language Act, which allowed for the use of oral evidence to be submitted to courts in Welsh. The act also allowed (although did not require) for various official forms to be issued in Welsh. These were small steps, but were crucial in giving advocates for the language a platform to build upon.
Although the 1980’s began with the census revealing a further decline in the language, what was to follow in the next two decades was a revolution in Welsh affairs. After the Thatcher government initial reneged on a commitment to grant a licence to an exclusive Welsh language television station, her government reversed their position again, and in 1982 the channel S4C (Sianel Pedwar Cymru) - Channel Four Wales - was launched, providing the language with a prominent outlet for what had become the era’s dominant from of media and public information.
Then followed a series of reforms including the 1988 Education Reform Act which gave Welsh full recognition as a core subject in the school curriculum. Subsequently, the 1993 Welsh Language Act established the principle that, in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice, the Welsh and English languages should be treated on a basis of equality in Wales, and that Welsh should be promoted and facilitated.
The 1998 Government of Wales Act led to the creation of the Welsh National Assembly (Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru) - known now as the Senedd - which transferred a number of powers from the UK parliament to Wales (although far less powers than those granted to the also newly formed Scottish parliament). But crucially education became a responsibility of the new assembly, and in 1999 Welsh was made a compulsory subject for all pupils in Wales (either as a first or a second language) for 11 years, from the ages of 5 to 16.
Although the presence of the language in the education system has given Welsh a renewed prominence, this does not mean there is a policy of creating a fully bilingual population. However, the Welsh population survey that was concluded in September 2021 found that now close to 30% of the population - or 892,500 people - had a good knowledge of the language, although this decreased to around 24% of the population who could read and write fluently. The Welsh government’s strategy is to increase those fully literate in Welsh to at least one third of the population by 2050.
While the language now has a state infrastructure to defend, support and promote it, the resilience of the language in the face of a hostile British state and the cultural juggernaut of English can be attributed to a great tradition of the arts within the Welsh-speaking communities. Although all cultures have strong forms of artistic expression that are central to their identities, Wales has a particular reputation as the “Land of Song.” With the choral music that emerged from its Nonconformist churches driving much of the world’s perception of the nation over the past few centuries.
This tradition of song, of course, has attached itself to popular - and not so popular - forms of music. While a number of Welsh bands singing in English have had considerable success, a strong Welsh language music scene has also continued to exist in the country. Despite the temptation to sing in English in order to reach a wider audience, singing in Welsh has not only been a natural form of expression for Welsh speakers, but also an important act of resistance to the cultural and political dominance of English.
The Super Furry Animals are a band who have straddled that line. Emerging in the mid-1990s with a pair of mostly Welsh language EPs, the band subsequently found great success in the UK after switching to English. The band’s first three albums - Fuzzy Logic, Radiator, and Guerrilla - brought them considerable critical acclaim and a prominent presence in the UK’s music press. With their playful and imaginative neo-psychedelia and surrealist lyrics finding a dedicated audience among those who were tiring of Britpop’s 1960s nostalgia, as well as its Anglophilic chest-beating.
Yet their decision to switch to singing in English also brought them some initial hostility from the Welsh language press, who felt this was an act of betrayal. Here the band found themselves trying to negotiate their comfortability and confidence in being Welsh, and the ardent and aggressive nationalism that formed part of the politics around the Welsh language.
The band would often bemoan the sight of Welsh flags at their shows, seeing this as essentially the same as the St George’s Cross being flown at an English band’s concert. The band rejected the idea that it is only the nationalism of dominant groups that people should be suspicious of. That it was not just power that made nationalism dangerous, but a cultural insularity and an exclusive identity as orientating features.
The band instead saw themselves as European. The European Union had given smaller nations a larger identity to orientate themselves around, one that allowed them to embrace their cultural distinctiveness while eschewing a cultural insularity. The Welsh independence party, Plaid Cymru, remains a staunchly pro-European party, seeking to rejoin the EU should they manage to achieve their goal of separating from the UK. Although given the Labour Party’s firm grip on populous South Wales (and thus the Senedd), this doesn’t look likely in the foreseeable future.
Of course, the band’s distaste for nationalism did not mean overlooking the historical attempts to suppress the Welsh nation, nor the innate cultural differences between Wales and England. A song like Mountain People from Radiator is built around the historical power imbalances between the two nations, and a sense that the Welsh are a distinct people that require recognition as such. The subdued ballad could be mistaken for romanticism were it not for the way it morphs into a bizarre techno wig-out halfway through.
For the Super Furry Animals fourth album, Mwng, the band decided to return Welsh. There was a certain cunning and subversion to this. Having built a loyal fanbase and a keen media interest by singing in English, the band was able to pivot this attention towards the Welsh language. Giving Welsh an exposure it may otherwise not have had.
The album also saw a shift in the Super Furry Animals’ musical direction. After the technicolour onslaught of Guerrilla, the band chose to pursue a more minimal approach to instrumentation, coupled with a lo-fi production, although without sidelining their creativity and imagination. The album was also a lot darker in tone than their previous albums. More introspective and forlorn.
Mwng addressed many themes directly related to the Welsh nation and Welsh language. Ymaelodi â'r ymylon is something of a bitter retort to the sense that the Welsh are on the periphery of British society, looked upon with scorn and disdain by the English. A - not without merit - feeling that has become entrenched in Welsh thinking. And one that the deindustrialisation of much of South Wales has only exacerbated, as decisions made in London have led to the region’s economic decline, and placed renewed stresses on its social fabric.
These impersonal economic forces, driven by people who are both far away and insulated from their effects, also drives Pan Ddaw'r Wawr. A song about how the forces of globalisation had led to the dominance of mega-languages like English and Spanish, and threatened the existence of Welsh, and similar indigenous languages which struggle for space, both within nation-states, and within the new cosmopolitanism. Francis Fukuyama’s Last Man - a concept he adapted from Nietzsche - was not going to be a Welsh speaker.
Yet, despite this pessimism, during the Covid-19 pandemic there was a noticeable uptick in Welsh learners on the hugely popular app Duolingo. The BBC reported that these new learners were not only Anglophone Welsh people, but instead came from a range of different countries around the world. The same global forces that can work to reduce humanity’s vast array of unique cultures, can also breed an incredible curiosity in them as well.
This curiosity was also apparent in the British public’s reaction to Mwng upon its release in 2000. The album entered the UK’s charts at number 11, a phenomenal achievement for a non-English language album. Recognising this, in the House of Commons, Plaid Cymru MP, Elfyn Llwyd, proclaimed the album to be part of “a new wave of confidence in the Welsh nation.”
The album’s influence on younger Welsh musicians has also been apparent, with a noticeable increase in the number of musicians who feel confident to use Welsh as the primary language for the art. Being aware that this doesn’t have to silo them into a niche market within Wales itself, but can be a powerful tool for a much broader communication.
The importance of using music not only to communicate in minority languages, but to build a cultural catalogue that can reinforce the language. Or, in the case of Gwenno, attempt to re-establish a language. After releasing her debut album mostly in Welsh, Gwenno then turned to her other native language of Cornish. Being one of only around 500 fluent speakers of the language, and inspired by the success of Mwng, she has recognised that for the language to once again flourish it needs a strong body of cultural works to provide attraction to it.
Taken outside of its cultural, political and linguistic context, Mwng is a strong album on its own, worthy of great merit. Usually it should not be deemed extraordinary for a band to sing in their native language. Yet, due to the history of English domination within the UK, and the policies of the British government which marginalised the language for so long, Mwng has become a revolutionary album.
Yet in its success, it is not to be overlooked that there has also been a strong demonstration that the British public were willing to buy and listen to an album in a language that they didn’t understand. The shift in thinking towards the protection of minority languages, cultures, and pluralism in general that began in the 1960s has now firmly taken root. This is an overwhelmingly positive development that couldn’t have been imagined by the Welsh nation for the bulk of the past several hundred years.