Welsh vs Walsh

My mum and I were having a discussion and Sh was wondering why the people of Wales are Welsh not Walsh. So told her TSR would have the answer! So why Welsh not Walsh?

We have a slightly strange mutation for the Welsh word for Welsh so I guess we did the same for in English.

^^^^ Claire is right, a lot of it is to do with origin and transliteration.

I believe it's to do with a Germanic word spelt: wælisc (old English) which sounded like an {eh} sound. It meant 'foreigner' (lovely). Middle English and earlier didn't have a set spelling structure and relied on phonics alone… as spellings became standardised and words were borrowed from numerous different languages to accommodate a growing vocabulary and various conquests, the English transliteration of it became "Welsh" versus "Walsh" as Walsh has a different phonetical pronunciation in other words and is thus confusing.

This 'bodge' can be seen in numerous modern foreign languages today, including French and Spanish. A notable one in Spanish. The word 'agua', which means water is feminine. Thus, by logic it should be: 'la agua'. This is difficult and confusing to say and so the Spanish say this word as if it were masculine: 'el agua'. Why? Simply because it makes more sense phonically.

So, in short… the answer to your question is simply… it sounds better than Walsh (which would have required 'changing the name' of the country). It mightn't be correct or logical, but that's why.

Also, moving this to foreign languages.

As a closing point, the following sentence is English (believe it or not): Mē līcode þeċ tō grētenne. <— this alone shows you just how much our language has changed over the centuries. That's the beautiful thing about languages, they're always evolving.

Welsh does sound much better than walsh I however refute your logic that welsh is a foreign language, although unfortunately we are down to only around 500,000 speakers now:P

It's not technically foreign but I had to move it away from Chat

Maybe we need a general language section rather than solely being a "foreign" one.

I would love to learn Welsh, but alas I simply find it far too difficult. I agree, it would be good to have one!

Welsh is my 2nd language and i didnt properly start learning until I was 7 and picked it up reasonably welsh, i think other languages such as finnish and swedish are much harder . I would say speaking isnt too bad (for example hello=helo and bore da= good morning) , but learning how to correctly write welsh in incredibly difficult. (this openlearn intro is pretty good is you fancy picking up some very simple phrases http://www.open.edu/openlearn/languages/welsh/croeso-beginners-welsh/content-section-0)

Hey, this is brilliant! Thank you Claire! PRSOM