The Welsh heritage of Philadelphia
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Whenever I drive through the near northwest suburbs of Philadelphia, the names of the towns and streets there make me feel as though I've been transported to Wales: Bryn Mawr, Bala Cynwyd, Narberth, Uwchlan, Llanalew Road, Llewelyn Road, Cymry Drive, Llanelly Lane, Derwydd Lane…. By chance, through some sort of elective affinity, today I happened upon the following article about that very subject:
"Welcome to Wrexham, Philadelphia and the Welsh language", Chris Wood, BBC (11/12/23)
Rob McElhenney's attempts to learn Welsh provided a highlight of television show Welcome to Wrexham.
But if things had been different, the language may not have been so alien to him – and he might have spoken it in school or even at home.
It was the intention of settlers in parts of his native Philadelphia for the government and people to use Welsh.
However, the attempts in 1681 did not prove as successful as those later in Patagonia, Argentina.
I knew that, early on, German was widely used in America but that, with the coming of the First World War, its prestige rapidly plummeted. The story of Welsh in America was somewhat different in its details, though the results were the same.
Despite the fact that I have been a professor at the University of Pennsylvania for nearly half a century and was well aware that our mascot is the Quaker (it seems that nobody objects), I have learned many new things about Penn's Welsh Quaker roots from this article. Quakerdom is also important for the superb colleges at Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and Haverford, as well as some of the finest high schools in the region. But I didn't realize the full extent to which Quakerdom, and its Welsh background, were intertwined with the history of the Philadelphia region.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor, writer and creator McElhenney started learning Welsh after buying Wrexham AFC with Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds.
But the language was spoken in his hometown on-and-off for four centuries, after two waves of immigration helped shape the state of Pennsylvania.
In fact, the original intention was to call Pennsylvania "New Wales", according to Connor Duffy, who is from Philadelphia and gives presentations on the history.
Hundreds of Welsh-speaking Quakers from rural parts of Wales began arriving in the late 1660s, after facing persecution in Great Britain for their beliefs, Mr Duffy said.
He added: "William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, converted to Quakerism at a young age and was a strong advocate of religious freedom and democratic values.
"The king granted him a massive tract of land in North America to settle a debt with the Penn family.
"Believe it or not, Penn's first idea for a name for this land was 'New Wales', but King Charles II overruled him and the name Pennsylvania or 'Penn's Woods' was chosen to honour Penn's father, whom the king owed a debt to."
The Welsh Quakers believed an agreement was reached to create a "Welsh Tract" on 40,000 acres (160sq km), where the language of government, law, business and daily life would be Welsh.
But Mr Duffy said this failed to happen, adding: "The Welsh came to know Penn as 'Diwyneb', or 'Faceless' for reneging on their agreement."
However, the settlers left their mark.
In the 1880s, when the Pennsylvania Railroad was built, laying the foundations for suburban Philadelphia, it ran through what was the Welsh Tract.
Giving new areas Welsh names was seen as a sign of affluence by the wealthy residents who moved in.
Many were named by the president of the railroad – George Brooke Roberts, a direct descendant of one of the first Welsh settlers in the 1680s.
He lived at his ancestor's estate "Pencoyd" and raised funds to build the Church of St Asaph, Bala Cynwyd.
[VHM: "Pencoyd in 1291 was written as "Pencoyt". The name derives from the Celtic 'penn' with 'coid', meaning 'wood's end'." (source) Cf. Welsh coedydd ("woods"),
When I start to think about it, everywhere I turn I find how important Wales and the Welsh are for the history and character of this region, and that holds from institutions to individuals. My colleague at Sino-Platonic Papers, Paula Roberts, is of Welsh extraction, but not via the Quaker route. The first Roberts (then spelled Roberds with a D) she knows about came to Philadelphia in about 1730 from Wales, to take up lands as a farmer but refused to become Quaker. All that side were farmers. They started moving west, like many Americans. Paula's Roberts ancestors had many interesting and exciting adventures on the way, but eventually her father and mother settled in Boise, Idaho, where she grew up.
Somehow, Paula's Welsh roots called her back to the Philadelphia area, and when I met her she was living in Wynnewood. Wynnewood was named in 1691 for Dr. Thomas Wynne (< Welsh gwyn ["fair white"]), William Penn's physician and the first Speaker of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
Roberts is a surname of English and Welsh origin, deriving from the given name Robert, meaning "bright renown" – from the Germanic elements "hrod" meaning renown and "beraht" meaning bright. The surname, meaning "son of Robert", is common in North Wales and elsewhere in the United Kingdom
Lingering observation: the Welsh certainly do love "ll", "dd", and "y"!
Selected readings
- "Welsh 'prifysgol'" (4/25/18) — means "university", as, for example, Aberystwyth
- "Tolkien on walh" (5/26/07) — J.R.R. Tolkien on the Germanic root of words such as Welsh, Walloon, Vlach and walnut (from his essay "English and Welsh", originally a lecture given at Oxford in 1955), highly recommended
Etymological notes on "Welsh":
From Middle English Walsch, Welische, from Old English wīelisċ (“Briton; Roman; Celt”), from Proto-West Germanic *walhisk, from Proto-Germanic *walhiskaz (“Celt; later Roman”), from *walhaz (“Celt, Roman”) (compare Old English wealh), from the name of the Gaulish tribe, the Volcae (recorded only in Latin contexts).
This word was borrowed from Germanic into Slavic (compare Old Church Slavonic Влахъ (Vlaxŭ, “Vlachs, Romanians”), Byzantine Greek Βλάχος (Blákhos)).
Doublet of Vellish. Compare Walloon, walnut, Vlach, Walach, Gaul, Cornwall.
(Wiktionary)
—–
Old English Wielisc, Wylisc (West Saxon), Welisc, Wælisc (Anglian and Kentish) "foreign; British (not Anglo-Saxon), Welsh; not free, servile," from Wealh, Walh "Celt, Briton, Welshman, non-Germanic foreigner." In Tolkien's definition, "common Gmc. name for a man of what we should call Celtic speech," but also applied in Germanic languages to speakers of Latin, hence Old High German Walh, Walah "Celt, Roman, Gaulish," and Old Norse Val-land "France," Valir "Gauls, non-Germanic inhabitants of France" (Danish vælsk "Italian, French, southern"). It is from Proto-Germanic *Walkhiskaz, from a Celtic tribal name represented by Latin Volcæ (Caesar) "ancient Celtic tribe in southern Gaul."
As a noun, "the Britons," also "the Welsh language," both in Old English. The word survives in Wales, Cornwall, Walloon, walnut, and in surnames Walsh and Wallace. It was borrowed in Old Church Slavonic as vlachu, and applied to the Rumanians, hence Wallachia.
- "Elective affinities: Japanese bonds of affection" (8/24/24)
Seonachan said,
August 26, 2024 @ 10:42 pm
I had dimly remembered the Welsh Tract being in present-day Delaware. Wikipedia tells me that was a second Welsh Tract granted in 1701.
I believe there was also a large Welsh community in northeastern Pennsylvania, around Scranton and Wilkes Barre.
Philip Anderson said,
August 27, 2024 @ 1:34 am
When I was learning Welsh, I read a historical novel set during the Welsh settlement, “Y Rhandir Mwyn” (the gentle region) translated into English as “The Fair Wilderness”:
https://llyfrau.com/?p=706
Philip Taylor said,
August 27, 2024 @ 3:38 am
« [T]he Welsh certainly do love "ll", "dd", and "y" » — they do indeed, to the extent that they have succeeded in persuading the Unicode consortium to recognise (at least) the first as a letter in its own right :
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1efb/index.htm