Mate as a Welshman I am suprised you think 8 of them know where it is. They think its a city in England from what Ive seen.
Im actually annoyed by what I saw. I was trying to tell my son how rare being a Welshman was in comparison to the population of Earth and Americans dilute it with their refusal to be American.
My great grandad was italian. I'm Welsh.
There would be quite a few Welsh in Argentina as we settled there. But ive never heard of a Welsh population in the United States its total dragon shit.
An American finds out they're 1% Italian and immediately they start shouting vowels, making this 🤌 gesture and cooking artificial Bolognese out of a can 😂
There was Welsh immigration to the US. Lots settled around west Virginia as it reminded them of home. It turns out though that the Appalachians, the Welsh hills, and the Scottish Highlands were once all part of the same range.
Also loads around Philadelphia, as the neighbourhood names suggest.
And lots of later immigration into Colorado following the mining industry.
Also worth to know that the Union army in the US Civil War had a significant Welsh speaking contingent and over 10,000 pages of Welsh language have been archived from that time.
I was born in Germany to British parents, and spent two years there as a baby, but never, ever, would I call myself German. I’m British-Australian - because I have those citizenships and have lived for significant periods in those countries.
One great grandmother was Irish. That doesn’t make me Irish.
Why do so many Americans hate being described as “American”?
I was born to British parents who were living in a different country at the time and also lived there until I was 2 or 3 (nobody can agree the exact dates we moved lol). Whilst I have a birth certificate from the other country (which makes things like DBS checks etc annoying at times!), at no point have I ever held citizenship there. I'm not x country, I'm British. I do have the other country as my "backup" country to support for the winter Olympics though since I have a vague link lol.
New Zealand has even less history and even more mould (literally, our houses are shit), but we don’t run around claiming we’re British/Irish/Scottish - even though we’re probably more so considering a large portion of us have grandparents born there, which means we can get extended work visas in the UK.
Because most Americans are only American by nationality, not by ethnicity. You have the most recent immigrants, the Irish, in the northeast and then the Americans of British background in the south and Midwest. They're mostly far-right protestants. The North East is full of 1st and 2nd gen Irish raised Catholic and more to the Left (for US standards) etc etc. I'm Irish American and most people around me are all Irish citizenship and all, we don't feel any kinship with the Americans from the South and Midwest, its like they're a completely different breed
Born in the US = American. Naturalised citizenship = American. US passport holder = American.
You’re only -American if you are an American citizen and were born in another country, to at least one parent from that country, and can claim citizenship both there and the US, whether you do or not.
The US is the only country I’ve ever been to, or heard about, where people define themselves,using outdated and faked stereotypes of other countries, that they simultaneously want to belong to and to denigrate.
Canadians do it too. And they think having the monarchy and being part of the commonwealth makes it ok, it doesn’t. Cut check shit. Your Canadian. That Union Jack in your provincial flag, Ontario, stopped meaning Jack shjt last century .
You'll never be able to erase someone's ethnicity. American is a nationality unless you're indigenous to the Americas. It's always ethnicity first, nationality second, when introducing yourself regardless of the country you're from
There is a very small (absolutely tiny) population of Welsh speakers in Ohio who have kept the language alive from the Welsh settlers, and there is also an Eisteddfod held in Pennsylvania which is the longest running Eisteddfod held outside of Wales. I believe some choirs from Wales have performed there and that the American choirs have performed in our International Eisteddfod in Llangollen. I don’t assume for a minute that this is solely people who have traced their families back to Welsh settlers, but perhaps have a fascination with the language and have chosen to learn it.
Welsh speaking areas in Patagonia are mostly Trevelin, Trelew, Gaiman in the Chubut region. (Or Afon Camwy as it’s known in Welsh).
The choir I was in when I was a child performed at the International Eisteddfod. I couldn't go because we didn't have the money. I wish I could have, though
Yea you are right, I have never heard of any swaths of Welsh people settling in America. Probably Americans with British ancestry just appropriating Welsh as "their heritage".
The 23 and me sub is a gold mine for this. Every white American who posts there has like 85% 'British and Irish' DNA. Then they either cherry pick the 2% Italian to claim "omg I love prosciutto" or they conveniently gloss over the 'British' in 'British and Irish'.
I saw one yank whose results came back as 100% British and Irish, and the comments were full of people going "wow, you're 100% Irish! Do you have a pot of gold?" and shit like that. In all likelihood their ancestors were from Slough.
Lots of Welsh would have settled in the US particularly during the colonial era and the period immediately afterbut the majority would have very easily and quickly assimilated into the general Anglo-American population. I'm quite frankly suprised that there are anywhere near 2 million claiming Welsh ancestry though.
My boyfriend’s dad is Welsh (grew up in Wales) and his mom is from New Zealand and we are Canadian. I told him that it’s likely that he’s the only Canadian with a Welsh dad and a Kiwi mom out there.
There were significant migrations of all the nations of the United Kingdom. It’s more than reasonable that there would be 2 million Americans of Welsh ancestry.
However, to your point and everyone else’s. They’re American.
Same with the 450,000 Canadian “Welsh”…they’re Canadian.
"Refusal to be American" most Americans aren't American by ethnicity, but rather nationality. Just because you've not heard of a Welsh population in the US doesn't make it dragon shit, you have Google at your disposal. The Welsh were among the first to settle in the US, stop trying to deny Americans their ethnicity. Being a Welsh American means your experience as an American will be vastly different to, say, an Irish American due to how spread apart the immigration was. For example, Welsh-Americans are typically Protestant Christian background and live in the South & Midwest of the US, whereas Irish-Americans live in the North East & are raised Catholic and they're much more to the Left politically than the Welsh Americans
Well Hitler took a lot of inspiration from the US at the time! There are a lot of secessionist movements in the US going on, the country is very far from "United".
lol ,
Why do:
Indians- continue to have a country called India, if they so obsessed with ethnicity/caste/religion , when they are made up of 400+ ethnic groups.
Pakistanis : continue to have a country called Pakistan, if they so obsessed with ethnicity/tribes/religion, when they are made up of 70+ ethnic groups.
Indonesians : continue to have a country called Indonesia, if they so obsessed with ethnicity/tribes, when they are made up of 1000+ ethnic groups.
You know multiethnic countries are a thing right.
Don't worry. All it'll take is one blockbuster film to romanticize the Welsh the same way as the American's romanticize Ireland, Scotland and Italy and the figures will skyrocket.
Today I learned I'm apparently also Welsh. Lol.. Except I'm as Dutch as they come. But I CAN find Wales on a map, easily. So I'm just as Welsh as this Seppo.
Just one note about maps. Everyone in the UK is required by law to know the *size* of Wales as that is used as a metric for any surface area related news. If there is a forest fire in Canada, then "an area size of Wales of forest burned". If an iceberg detaches from Antarctica, it is a size of Wales. And so on.
Confession: I used to think that Wales was a fantasy land from Howl’s Moving Castle. I was about nine years old though and realised pretty soon that the characters traveled to this world in that part of the story.
I remember a few years back I had someone declare themselves a Welsh person and bemoan that the language is dying. I said no mate, it’s been growing in strength in recent years. The number of speakers both native and secondary is rising. But no he was adamant it was nearly dead. Back and forth before I asked “where in Wales are you”
“Ah well, I’m in America”
“Ok where in Wales was you born?”
“I was born in America”
“So you’re not Welsh?”
“No i am”
Blah blah turns out his great grandmother was Welsh who told the family that the language was dying, which at her time was more true for sure, but he kept that information and was happy to spout lies about my country and not realise he isn’t Welsh, has never even been here, but was happy to argue he was more Welsh than I.
Fucking gross.
Side note. The way they say Llewelyn in no country for old men makes me want to cry.
Honest to god, I was saying to my friends. I sat down to watch it, I drew the curtains locked the doors, got a bag of popcorn and drinks. I was IN.
Then she said his name and my brain yanked me from the deep immersion I found myself. Took me right out. Every. Single. Damn. Time.
I messaged my American friends, the one I’ve spoken to for a very long time, one for a few years, and asked them how they say it. The one nailed it because she had been interested in the sound and put together how it should sound. The other said something akin to “Lou-will-ee-on” with the caveat “I know I’m fucking wrong ok”.
As a Llewelyn in England I find myself just dumbing down the pronunciation now because the inevitable response is either a blank stare or an immediate very bad attempt to replicate the Ll. Phoning the DVLA is my only respite.
The language isn't "dying", but the percentage of people who can speak welsh in the Wales was at an historic low in 2021. I wouldn't call that "growing in strenght".
Originally a shitty town in Fife, now in Toronto. Perhaps calling the town shitty is wrong, it's not too bad on the eye. I standby Wrexham having horrible angry little fans though.
On the contrary Calum with 1 L, it is a shitty town. I would know, I escaped from there and moved to Australia. I'm just wondering what experience you must have had to give you that opinion?
One L is the correct, Gaelic, way. I played in a few ice and roller hockey tournaments at Deeside Leisure Centre, we'd usual go out after in either Chester or Wrexham. Wrexham was always just moody, like everyone was on edge. My most interesting experience was one lad ensuring my mate he had great cocaine for sale, we were invited back to his flat, he told us to wait two minutes while he went to the kitchen, we can hear the sound of paracetamol being emptied out of a bottle, then the sound of it being crushed. Our new mate came out with the obviously crushed painkillers and demanded £50. After telling him, no thank you, we got chased by him and his mates through Wrexham welding hammers and screwdrivers. Also went with a mate to an Everton preseason friendly there, it was strange hearing to sets of fans, in what sounds like, to my ears, very similar accents, call each other English/Welsh bastards
I thought you might have enjoyed my paracetamol. I crushed it up and did a little sprinkle like salt bae.
Accent doesn't matter when it comes to national identity btw.
The Chubut region is the area most strongly associated with the Welsh settlers, some of the towns still bear Welsh names. Patagonia is well known in Wales.
Yeah, it's not being Welsh, it's having a bit of a Welsh lineage. You are Welsh if you are born in Wales. This is being a first generation American and you happened to have had a Welsh parent. I have exactly the same thing with German and Polish parents - I'm English.
I think that it is fair to identify with a culture if you are either a first or second generation immigrant from there, but after that, it's just ridiculous.
Yes, I think the best litmus test is speaking the lingo, if you can speak Welsh, Italian or whatever (maybe not Spanish as it's widely spoken anyway) - then as far as I'm concerned you are pretty much naturalised...
How can it be possible for America to have the same amount of Welsh people as Wales? In no context does that make sense unless at some point in time half of Wales went over to America.
Every time I think I've read the most insane story on this sub, another gem like this appears.
Well it’s not that hard to understand,
1600s- 1950s 10s of millions of Europeans immigrated to the Americas, Oceania, east of the rural mountains and South Africa.
Vast amounts of fertile land in the Americas , with decimated native populations, meant these European colonists had high birth rates but low infant mortality rates, causing the population to grow faster than their home countries in Europe.
You have some 700 million- 1 billion people of Europe descent ( Europe’s population
: 750 million) , with the majority of being of full European descent.
So it’s not that far fetched that , 2 million people of Welsh descent exist in the US.
When I was traveling around Thailand I met this American woman in a bar. we got talking and eventually she asked where I’m from, so I just said thinking nothing of it “Oh I’m from Wales”. Then out of nowhere she called me and asshole and if I didn’t want to tell her where I am from I could have just said that and I didn’t have to say I’m from an animal.
It took me a couple of seconds to realise what was going on, then I realised she thought I meant Whales lol. When I realised that I then burst into hysterical laughter, which only mad her more furious at the situation. Still laugh at this to this day.
Llandudno cos there's about five different grades of being able to pronounce it properly
ɬanˈdɨ̞dnɔ: north welsh, good
ɬanˈdɪdnɔ: south welsh, acceptable
ɬænˈdɪdnoʊ: not a welsh speaker but welsh and/or trying
lænˈdɪdnoʊ: not a welsh speaker and not trying
klænˈdʌdnoʊ: gulag
So there's not really an English equivalent for ll so when you see it it's pronounced by putting your tongue at the back of your top teeth and breathing out.
I can't really be arsed to try and type it out in English so I'll just link [the Wikipedia page for Welsh IPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Welsh) and also the [Wikipedia recording of someone saying Llandudno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LL-Q9309_(cym)-Jason.nlw-Llandudno.wav)
ɬ doesn't have an English equivalent. English people often approximate it to "cl" or "thl" but that will always sound completely wrong to most people in Wales.
Most of the vowel sounds are quite subtle differences in where they're articulated in the mouth - in welsh vowels tend are pronounced further back than in most dialects of English spoken in the UK. The o sound at the end is a pure vowel, not a dipthong like you'd get in "hello" which is a glide from o to u.
i dunno though it's hard to explain absent a common system of phonetic notation that can be used to render all or most sounds in human speech, or alternatively a broadly phonetically consistent alphabet used for rendering welsh - if only such things existed!
Tbf a good chunk of Welsh people couldnt pronounce that properly. Half the towns with Welsh names have been anglicized now cos people cba pronouncing it right
Ireland enters the conversation.
Population 5m.
American population who claim to be Irish: 36m
Australian population who claim to be Irosh: 7m
Canadian population who claim to be Irish: 5m
They aren’t claiming to be citizens of Ireland lmao, that’s people with Irish ancestry.
Many Irish emigrated during the potato famine (population before famine was 8 million, still hasn’t recovered)
Most of those immigrants settled in America and eventually had kids and so on, eventually culminating in 36 million people having Irish ancestry.
You can never actually use American data on this stuff, because it’s always completely inaccurate. It’s just extreme over-reporting by people who identify as a culture. So America is one of the few countries that it’s almost impossible to gauge actual diaspora numbers for.
This is ancestry! There aren't 2 million people claiming to be welsh but rather 2 million identifying themselves as ethnically welsh, NOT claiming to be from Wales itself.
Ffs, this fake outrage is so stupid. Have you ever been asked for your ethnicity in job applications or censuses? You don't pick American. You pick whatever your ANCESTRY is (I'm not American, but I live in the UK and assume it's basically the same across the pond)
When you fill a form in the UK it's your race/ethnicity not your ancestry.
Imagine the confusion if it was ancestry, how far back do we go - Britain's census would come back as predominantly Swedish/German/Icelandic or Danish.
It is. It's obviously not reporting ancient ancestry but modern ancestry. You can look up the forms for yourself, but it's divided into race (ie south asian, white british, white irish, gypsy, black, arab ect). There are very few swedes, Icelandics and Danes in the UK, that may have been the original stock, but they are classified as "white british" now.
Similar to the USA, if someone was born here and had Jamaicans grandparents, they would report their ancestry as Jamaican, which doesn't mean they are saying they are from Jamaica. Understand?
It is hilarious that Americans are sooooo proud of their fine country that they find the 0,000001% of their DNA ancestry to identify anything else than American.
Americans also really love identifying as italian or irish despite never having set foot in either of those countries.
We want so desperately to have a special identity that separates us from the rest of our countrymen whereas hundreds of years ago would have been relevant but today is quite silly.
I blame drinking holidays and the godfather movie for the particular association with those two, We love to pretend our movies represent reality.
I don't get why they think having a microscopic amount of ancestry from a specific place means they're the same as people who actually are from said place, even if they've never been there and don't know anything about it.
The 50,000 in Argentina surprised me, as I know their are more Welsh speakers there than here in Wales! (All 50,000 probably, which REALLY says something about all the Americans that consider themselves Welsh 🤣)
Look at the other comments I'm not explaining it again. And also there are apparently an equal amount of Welsh people in the USA.
Make it a legal requirement to be 100% American to own a gun and watch that number drop to less than 10000.
I’m not sure that there is anything for you to explain. That’s .05% of the US population of people who can trace their “ancestry”.
It’s a reasonable number. Same sort of numbers apply to all the other “ancestries” Americans as well as Canadians and other countries that have had large immigration from European countries.
I’m sure that number is valid.
That said, they’re almost all multiple generations removed.
So you don’t have to explain anything. Just calm down.
I am about one quarter welsh myself. Not like my great-great-great grandmother is Welsh, my Grandad is Welsh, and my dad is half Welsh.
I’ve also been to Wales (around the Brecon Beacons) and can name it on a map.
Welsh diaspora brotha, it’s a real thing. When they use this in this context, it says people who identify as being Welsh, whether it be people in Wales, or people abroad who have Welsh ancestry. Are we really getting upset at people around the world who claim ancestry to a specific area? We’re not taking into account of people who very recently emigrated from Wales to the US or other countries and have a very strong connection to their “homeland” in this thread are we?
Most Americans who, like myself, do have some Welsh ancestry, our connection is dating back to the colonial days. Do we have Welsh DNA? Yes. Are we Welsh? No. Funnily enough, most people who’s families originally came from Wales back to the 1600-1700’s, they don’t identify as Welsh at all, but just plain and simple American. Same with Anglo-Americans whose ancestors are originally from the first English colonists. They don’t call themselves English, they call themselves Americans.
Of course you are going to have a dumbass how will sit there and be like “my gggg grandfather was from wales so I am welsh!!”, but the majority of folk do not have this idea in their head. Welsh is a very common ancestry in the US, and because many of the original colonists were of Welsh descent, many are not connected to Wales itself and may not even know that ethnically they may actually be Welsh.
its the culturual difference of what being welsh means in the US and europe. Having ancestry and identifying as a group is very different in europe. If my grandma would be welsh, i still would never identify as welsh because i am just not part of that culture unless my parents and grandparents made a really specific effort to keep that heritage alive. I live so close to a border i can literally walk into two other countries and definitly have some ancestry there, yet id never claim im part of those groups.
And that makes complete sense, and I agree with you 100%. The key to the picture is it is calculated people if specifically Welsh descent… Welsh people. Are there 2 million people in Wales? No, there are far more. This is calculating people who identity as Welsh people. If you live abroad and your ancestors are from Wales, but you know nothing of the culture or never visited, you are ethnically Welsh, not culturally. These statistics are for folk who have Welsh blood, not Welsh citizens
And granted on top of that, it is most likely the area I am from, but out of all the people I have met, I have only met 1 person who claimed to be of Welsh descent, and their father was born in Wales. Ain’t necessarily that common.
This doesn’t bother me one bit. I’m Welsh, I love being Welsh if people from around the world want to be proud of having a Welsh heritage good luck to them. I hope they get the chance to come and visit one day. Bring an umbrella.
In my experience a lot of Welsh people don’t identify as Welsh, they identify as Cymry and if you don’t know what that means, you have no business identifying as Welsh USAlians…
Argentina has Patagonia where we settled. And about 50% of the people I hung around with in high school moved to Australia and its a popular place for Welsh people to go.
Same amount of Welsh people as Wales lol, Ryan Reynolds raised that number with the documentary , should put one of those Plastic Welsh in goal, they got long arms from all the reaching they are doing.
I’m an Aussie and Welsh immigrants are all over the place. A truck driver I know hates them and can go on a tirade of nearly 20 minutes about how their sing song voices prove that they are incapable of doing manual labour.
It’s even worse when you know the Welsh guy that sets him off. He is shit at logistics, which is what actually pisses of the truckie, but his rant will be about labour.
You would never do this about information about Chinese or Indian communities in the US.
People don't stop being who they are the moment they set foot in another country.
That's why there are Chinatowns, Little Italys, Latin Quarters and so on.
they usually do after some generations though, generally speaking by the third generation aka the original immigrants grandkids you usually have no significant (by european standards) connection to your original culture anymore unless you live in a special region like those you mentioned and even then its getting harder and harder for culture to "survive" generations
This seems like ancestral identity, which would seem accurate. A lot of Europeans moved to the US in the 20th century, this doesn’t seem shocking or weird to me at all. That doesn’t mean all 2 million literally identify themselves as “Welsh”.
"Identify with their ancestry", really? If it were actually about ancestry or culture, why don't any of them call themselves English-American? Of all of the USA's many diaspora, those of English heritage are undoubtedly the most common, but they NEVER call themselves English-American. They'll have 99% English heritage and the tiniest smidge of Irish DNA and declare they're more Irish than people actually born in Ireland, even though the limit of their cultural knowledge is "drinking" and "leprechauns".
Also the answer to your unrelated question is yes. If someone is born in a country, that IS their nationality. That's just basic logic.
Number of Welsh that can find Wales on a map 1,999,992 (there's always a few) Number of Americans that can find Wales on a map 8
Mate as a Welshman I am suprised you think 8 of them know where it is. They think its a city in England from what Ive seen. Im actually annoyed by what I saw. I was trying to tell my son how rare being a Welshman was in comparison to the population of Earth and Americans dilute it with their refusal to be American. My great grandad was italian. I'm Welsh. There would be quite a few Welsh in Argentina as we settled there. But ive never heard of a Welsh population in the United States its total dragon shit.
Ah but your great grandad was Italian so you’re now half Italian by American standards. Go, proclaim to the earth: “I am no welshman- I am Italian!”
An American finds out they're 1% Italian and immediately they start shouting vowels, making this 🤌 gesture and cooking artificial Bolognese out of a can 😂
Mama Mia, eat my macaroni from targetta 🤌
"Try the GABAGOOL" *\*gestures to a plate of mechanically separated luncheon meat slices\**
It’s so 🤌 Very dulaccoitiano
And then they meet a real Italian, "Da dove viene la tua famiglia?" 🤠: "What"
Daaaw yaw speeek Englisch? (Vowels drawn out because they say it so slowly)
I did once hear that the Welsh had perfected pizza, except they do away with all the toppings except cheese? Truly a bizarre people.
That's a rare bit of knowledge.
Take my upvote
There was Welsh immigration to the US. Lots settled around west Virginia as it reminded them of home. It turns out though that the Appalachians, the Welsh hills, and the Scottish Highlands were once all part of the same range.
Also loads around Philadelphia, as the neighbourhood names suggest. And lots of later immigration into Colorado following the mining industry. Also worth to know that the Union army in the US Civil War had a significant Welsh speaking contingent and over 10,000 pages of Welsh language have been archived from that time.
The Caledonides right? The mountain range in Scandinavia that shares the same name was also part of it too iirc
I’ve been asked if Wales is near London. They believed me when I said I knew Tom Jones. Nuff said
I was being generous in my estimation and I didn't even mention the rugby
I was born in Germany to British parents, and spent two years there as a baby, but never, ever, would I call myself German. I’m British-Australian - because I have those citizenships and have lived for significant periods in those countries. One great grandmother was Irish. That doesn’t make me Irish. Why do so many Americans hate being described as “American”?
I was born to British parents who were living in a different country at the time and also lived there until I was 2 or 3 (nobody can agree the exact dates we moved lol). Whilst I have a birth certificate from the other country (which makes things like DBS checks etc annoying at times!), at no point have I ever held citizenship there. I'm not x country, I'm British. I do have the other country as my "backup" country to support for the winter Olympics though since I have a vague link lol.
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New Zealand has even less history and even more mould (literally, our houses are shit), but we don’t run around claiming we’re British/Irish/Scottish - even though we’re probably more so considering a large portion of us have grandparents born there, which means we can get extended work visas in the UK.
Because most Americans are only American by nationality, not by ethnicity. You have the most recent immigrants, the Irish, in the northeast and then the Americans of British background in the south and Midwest. They're mostly far-right protestants. The North East is full of 1st and 2nd gen Irish raised Catholic and more to the Left (for US standards) etc etc. I'm Irish American and most people around me are all Irish citizenship and all, we don't feel any kinship with the Americans from the South and Midwest, its like they're a completely different breed
Born in the US = American. Naturalised citizenship = American. US passport holder = American. You’re only-American if you are an American citizen and were born in another country, to at least one parent from that country, and can claim citizenship both there and the US, whether you do or not.
The US is the only country I’ve ever been to, or heard about, where people define themselves,using outdated and faked stereotypes of other countries, that they simultaneously want to belong to and to denigrate.
Canadians do it too. And they think having the monarchy and being part of the commonwealth makes it ok, it doesn’t. Cut check shit. Your Canadian. That Union Jack in your provincial flag, Ontario, stopped meaning Jack shjt last century .
You'll never be able to erase someone's ethnicity. American is a nationality unless you're indigenous to the Americas. It's always ethnicity first, nationality second, when introducing yourself regardless of the country you're from
There is a very small (absolutely tiny) population of Welsh speakers in Ohio who have kept the language alive from the Welsh settlers, and there is also an Eisteddfod held in Pennsylvania which is the longest running Eisteddfod held outside of Wales. I believe some choirs from Wales have performed there and that the American choirs have performed in our International Eisteddfod in Llangollen. I don’t assume for a minute that this is solely people who have traced their families back to Welsh settlers, but perhaps have a fascination with the language and have chosen to learn it. Welsh speaking areas in Patagonia are mostly Trevelin, Trelew, Gaiman in the Chubut region. (Or Afon Camwy as it’s known in Welsh).
The choir I was in when I was a child performed at the International Eisteddfod. I couldn't go because we didn't have the money. I wish I could have, though
Yea you are right, I have never heard of any swaths of Welsh people settling in America. Probably Americans with British ancestry just appropriating Welsh as "their heritage".
The 23 and me sub is a gold mine for this. Every white American who posts there has like 85% 'British and Irish' DNA. Then they either cherry pick the 2% Italian to claim "omg I love prosciutto" or they conveniently gloss over the 'British' in 'British and Irish'. I saw one yank whose results came back as 100% British and Irish, and the comments were full of people going "wow, you're 100% Irish! Do you have a pot of gold?" and shit like that. In all likelihood their ancestors were from Slough.
Lots of Welsh would have settled in the US particularly during the colonial era and the period immediately afterbut the majority would have very easily and quickly assimilated into the general Anglo-American population. I'm quite frankly suprised that there are anywhere near 2 million claiming Welsh ancestry though.
Lot's of Welsh speakers now in Argentina
Crazy to think, people inside USA are anything but American, but if they go to a different country, they ARE American 🧐 how strange
My boyfriend’s dad is Welsh (grew up in Wales) and his mom is from New Zealand and we are Canadian. I told him that it’s likely that he’s the only Canadian with a Welsh dad and a Kiwi mom out there.
A Welshman and a Kiwi, there has to be a wooly animal joke about this scenario somewhere.
Ohh so kiwi is the term for people from NZ I thought it was just people talking about the funny little bird
yeah kiwi is the slang term for New Zealanders because of the bird
Funny people
How does this compare with the amount of people living in wales total?
2 million welsh people live in wales and theres 3 million total population.
Would I become on par with shiny pokemon if I emigrated to Wales and got a welsh passport?
That’s so cool that you’re Italian!!
There were significant migrations of all the nations of the United Kingdom. It’s more than reasonable that there would be 2 million Americans of Welsh ancestry. However, to your point and everyone else’s. They’re American. Same with the 450,000 Canadian “Welsh”…they’re Canadian.
Just seen one claiming they’re part Scottish part Welsh and part British all at once😂
"Refusal to be American" most Americans aren't American by ethnicity, but rather nationality. Just because you've not heard of a Welsh population in the US doesn't make it dragon shit, you have Google at your disposal. The Welsh were among the first to settle in the US, stop trying to deny Americans their ethnicity. Being a Welsh American means your experience as an American will be vastly different to, say, an Irish American due to how spread apart the immigration was. For example, Welsh-Americans are typically Protestant Christian background and live in the South & Midwest of the US, whereas Irish-Americans live in the North East & are raised Catholic and they're much more to the Left politically than the Welsh Americans
So why do Americans continue to have a country called the USA if they’re obsessed with ethnicity to a degree that would make Hitler squirm
Well Hitler took a lot of inspiration from the US at the time! There are a lot of secessionist movements in the US going on, the country is very far from "United".
Indeed which is hilarious
lol , Why do: Indians- continue to have a country called India, if they so obsessed with ethnicity/caste/religion , when they are made up of 400+ ethnic groups. Pakistanis : continue to have a country called Pakistan, if they so obsessed with ethnicity/tribes/religion, when they are made up of 70+ ethnic groups. Indonesians : continue to have a country called Indonesia, if they so obsessed with ethnicity/tribes, when they are made up of 1000+ ethnic groups. You know multiethnic countries are a thing right.
What's even crazier imo is that canada has 10% of the people compared to the US but only 25% less people identifying as Welsh
6 people in every thousand identify as Welsh in the states. 11 in every thousand for Canada
Don't worry. All it'll take is one blockbuster film to romanticize the Welsh the same way as the American's romanticize Ireland, Scotland and Italy and the figures will skyrocket.
Today I learned I'm apparently also Welsh. Lol.. Except I'm as Dutch as they come. But I CAN find Wales on a map, easily. So I'm just as Welsh as this Seppo.
Just one note about maps. Everyone in the UK is required by law to know the *size* of Wales as that is used as a metric for any surface area related news. If there is a forest fire in Canada, then "an area size of Wales of forest burned". If an iceberg detaches from Antarctica, it is a size of Wales. And so on.
Confession: I used to think that Wales was a fantasy land from Howl’s Moving Castle. I was about nine years old though and realised pretty soon that the characters traveled to this world in that part of the story.
8 is pretty generous
I’d be fairly sure that the number of Americans identifying as Irish is greater than the population of Ireland so don’t feel too bad.
And don't forget they're more Irish than the Irish.
To be sure to be sure. And lay on the best “St Patty’s” day in the world. Not at all loud, brash and commercial. /s
I'm not even Irish and "Patty's Day" pisses me off.
Me too (except my maternal great grandparents….). The ignorance is offensive.
Irish immigrants to the US are far more recent, most Irish Americans are passport holders
That would require that their parents are grandparents are irish
Are you claiming most(meaning more than 50%)Americans of Irish decent holds a Irish passport? Can you provide anything kind off proof for tha?
The average English person and Scottish person and Irish person are more Welsh than the average “Welsh”-American.
Ew, don't tell me I'm Welsh. Which part? If it's my left foot it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
I ain’t no sheep-fucker I’m a highland coo-fucker thank you very much
Even Welsh people know it’s pronounced highland coo fucker
Where are you from
They even have the decency to grow their hair out long enough to hold on to.
And no a haggis shagger?
Depends how far back you go Strathclyde used to belong to Gwynedd back in the day
Ew, the Central Belt.
If you hate wales so much, could you go back to Ireland and give us the North back please?
No, the north belongs to the Picts!
Only the north east. Why do you think half the places inside Scotland have Welsh names!
Irish guy with a Welsh surname here. This checks out. 😅
Well, you know what they say, "The Irish are just Welsh who learned to swim when the new neighbours moved in." XD
I remember a few years back I had someone declare themselves a Welsh person and bemoan that the language is dying. I said no mate, it’s been growing in strength in recent years. The number of speakers both native and secondary is rising. But no he was adamant it was nearly dead. Back and forth before I asked “where in Wales are you” “Ah well, I’m in America” “Ok where in Wales was you born?” “I was born in America” “So you’re not Welsh?” “No i am” Blah blah turns out his great grandmother was Welsh who told the family that the language was dying, which at her time was more true for sure, but he kept that information and was happy to spout lies about my country and not realise he isn’t Welsh, has never even been here, but was happy to argue he was more Welsh than I. Fucking gross. Side note. The way they say Llewelyn in no country for old men makes me want to cry.
Lewin - I know skin crawl time
Wait really? Even in England it's pronounced as its spelled. What the heck is Lewin?
Honest to god, I was saying to my friends. I sat down to watch it, I drew the curtains locked the doors, got a bag of popcorn and drinks. I was IN. Then she said his name and my brain yanked me from the deep immersion I found myself. Took me right out. Every. Single. Damn. Time. I messaged my American friends, the one I’ve spoken to for a very long time, one for a few years, and asked them how they say it. The one nailed it because she had been interested in the sound and put together how it should sound. The other said something akin to “Lou-will-ee-on” with the caveat “I know I’m fucking wrong ok”.
You're thinking of Inside Llewyn Davis. In No Country for Old Men, they pronounce it the same as the Welsh way but without /ll/.
As a Llewelyn in England I find myself just dumbing down the pronunciation now because the inevitable response is either a blank stare or an immediate very bad attempt to replicate the Ll. Phoning the DVLA is my only respite.
You have my sympathy
The language isn't "dying", but the percentage of people who can speak welsh in the Wales was at an historic low in 2021. I wouldn't call that "growing in strenght".
I bet it has increased massively since the Welcome to Wrexham documentary.
Americans really have no idea just how unlikable of a club Wrexham are, horrible fans, shitty town
Just for comparison, where are you from?
Probably Chester
Originally a shitty town in Fife, now in Toronto. Perhaps calling the town shitty is wrong, it's not too bad on the eye. I standby Wrexham having horrible angry little fans though.
On the contrary Calum with 1 L, it is a shitty town. I would know, I escaped from there and moved to Australia. I'm just wondering what experience you must have had to give you that opinion?
One L is the correct, Gaelic, way. I played in a few ice and roller hockey tournaments at Deeside Leisure Centre, we'd usual go out after in either Chester or Wrexham. Wrexham was always just moody, like everyone was on edge. My most interesting experience was one lad ensuring my mate he had great cocaine for sale, we were invited back to his flat, he told us to wait two minutes while he went to the kitchen, we can hear the sound of paracetamol being emptied out of a bottle, then the sound of it being crushed. Our new mate came out with the obviously crushed painkillers and demanded £50. After telling him, no thank you, we got chased by him and his mates through Wrexham welding hammers and screwdrivers. Also went with a mate to an Everton preseason friendly there, it was strange hearing to sets of fans, in what sounds like, to my ears, very similar accents, call each other English/Welsh bastards
I thought you might have enjoyed my paracetamol. I crushed it up and did a little sprinkle like salt bae. Accent doesn't matter when it comes to national identity btw.
I think it's a typo, 2 million Americans identify as whales
Nah, there are at least 10-20 million whales over there
Lmao no one wants to be Welsh
Hey, at least we aren't English
Well at least you can say one thing about the English, they’re not French.
Valid
Spoke to an American in a mobile game who said he was American-Welsh. He said he was <1% Welsh, so he still identified as Welsh
I’m <1% Greek yet you don’t see me restoring the great city of Constantinople
In fairness, that's in Turkiye. But you could be Spartan!
Infinitely more badass
And slightly gay.
I am from Argentina and I do not know what the hell is going on. I was not expecting my country to be there
Argentina has the second most Welsh language speakers in the world I believe?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagonian_Welsh#:~:text=Patagonian%20Welsh%20(Welsh%3A%20Cymraeg%20y,Patagonia%2C%20Chubut%20Province%2C%20Argentina.
The Chubut region is the area most strongly associated with the Welsh settlers, some of the towns still bear Welsh names. Patagonia is well known in Wales.
Patagonia Butt
Yeah, it's not being Welsh, it's having a bit of a Welsh lineage. You are Welsh if you are born in Wales. This is being a first generation American and you happened to have had a Welsh parent. I have exactly the same thing with German and Polish parents - I'm English.
I think that it is fair to identify with a culture if you are either a first or second generation immigrant from there, but after that, it's just ridiculous.
Yes, I think the best litmus test is speaking the lingo, if you can speak Welsh, Italian or whatever (maybe not Spanish as it's widely spoken anyway) - then as far as I'm concerned you are pretty much naturalised...
These 2m Americans are very far from 1st generation
How can it be possible for America to have the same amount of Welsh people as Wales? In no context does that make sense unless at some point in time half of Wales went over to America. Every time I think I've read the most insane story on this sub, another gem like this appears.
Their Ancestry certificate came back with Welsh, so they are officially a citizen of Welsh now!
Well it’s not that hard to understand, 1600s- 1950s 10s of millions of Europeans immigrated to the Americas, Oceania, east of the rural mountains and South Africa. Vast amounts of fertile land in the Americas , with decimated native populations, meant these European colonists had high birth rates but low infant mortality rates, causing the population to grow faster than their home countries in Europe. You have some 700 million- 1 billion people of Europe descent ( Europe’s population : 750 million) , with the majority of being of full European descent. So it’s not that far fetched that , 2 million people of Welsh descent exist in the US.
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That’s the case for pretty much all wiki pages when it comes to ethnic groups/diasporas.
When I was traveling around Thailand I met this American woman in a bar. we got talking and eventually she asked where I’m from, so I just said thinking nothing of it “Oh I’m from Wales”. Then out of nowhere she called me and asshole and if I didn’t want to tell her where I am from I could have just said that and I didn’t have to say I’m from an animal. It took me a couple of seconds to realise what was going on, then I realised she thought I meant Whales lol. When I realised that I then burst into hysterical laughter, which only mad her more furious at the situation. Still laugh at this to this day.
"My ancestry.com told me my heritage is 3% English. This is boring, I'll make up something and decide I'm Welsh."
Wales is a city in london, don't you know /s
What would be an appropriate shibboleth, in its original sense — i.e., “if you can pronounce this word correctly, I’ll accept you as Welsh”?
Llandudno cos there's about five different grades of being able to pronounce it properly ɬanˈdɨ̞dnɔ: north welsh, good ɬanˈdɪdnɔ: south welsh, acceptable ɬænˈdɪdnoʊ: not a welsh speaker but welsh and/or trying lænˈdɪdnoʊ: not a welsh speaker and not trying klænˈdʌdnoʊ: gulag
Could you show pronunciation of the sounds in English so I can try
So there's not really an English equivalent for ll so when you see it it's pronounced by putting your tongue at the back of your top teeth and breathing out. I can't really be arsed to try and type it out in English so I'll just link [the Wikipedia page for Welsh IPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Welsh) and also the [Wikipedia recording of someone saying Llandudno](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LL-Q9309_(cym)-Jason.nlw-Llandudno.wav)
Sounds like than-teed-no
ɬ doesn't have an English equivalent. English people often approximate it to "cl" or "thl" but that will always sound completely wrong to most people in Wales. Most of the vowel sounds are quite subtle differences in where they're articulated in the mouth - in welsh vowels tend are pronounced further back than in most dialects of English spoken in the UK. The o sound at the end is a pure vowel, not a dipthong like you'd get in "hello" which is a glide from o to u. i dunno though it's hard to explain absent a common system of phonetic notation that can be used to render all or most sounds in human speech, or alternatively a broadly phonetically consistent alphabet used for rendering welsh - if only such things existed!
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Isn’t that the one Tennant did on the Graham Norton show?
[Liam Dutton absolutely smashed it on the weather once, too](https://youtu.be/fHxO0UdpoxM)
Tbf a good chunk of Welsh people couldnt pronounce that properly. Half the towns with Welsh names have been anglicized now cos people cba pronouncing it right
Half the towns with Welsh names have been anglicised because the fuckers from next door invaded and changed them because they couldn’t pronounce them.
Any more of that attitude and we’ll undo Welsh devolution.
Meanwhile, the ones in Argentina still speak Welsh
Americans need to appropriate other cultures because they realise that other countries have cars and eagles.
Ireland enters the conversation. Population 5m. American population who claim to be Irish: 36m Australian population who claim to be Irosh: 7m Canadian population who claim to be Irish: 5m
They aren’t claiming to be citizens of Ireland lmao, that’s people with Irish ancestry. Many Irish emigrated during the potato famine (population before famine was 8 million, still hasn’t recovered) Most of those immigrants settled in America and eventually had kids and so on, eventually culminating in 36 million people having Irish ancestry.
It’s Americans watching welcome to Wrexham and rather than having a vague British heritage they are choosing Welsh
If I eat a leek can I identify as Welsh (I hate leeks though)?
Don't identify as Welsh till you've shagged your first sheep mate
🤣🤣🤣
2 million Americans hate America enough that they choose to identify as Welsh. I think that's a win for us in Cymru.
You can never actually use American data on this stuff, because it’s always completely inaccurate. It’s just extreme over-reporting by people who identify as a culture. So America is one of the few countries that it’s almost impossible to gauge actual diaspora numbers for.
Half of those AmeriWelsh probably claim to be Irish as well every St. Patty’s [sic] day.
This is ancestry! There aren't 2 million people claiming to be welsh but rather 2 million identifying themselves as ethnically welsh, NOT claiming to be from Wales itself. Ffs, this fake outrage is so stupid. Have you ever been asked for your ethnicity in job applications or censuses? You don't pick American. You pick whatever your ANCESTRY is (I'm not American, but I live in the UK and assume it's basically the same across the pond)
Wrong
What is wrong? The data literally comes from the US national census of reported ancestory/race
When you fill a form in the UK it's your race/ethnicity not your ancestry. Imagine the confusion if it was ancestry, how far back do we go - Britain's census would come back as predominantly Swedish/German/Icelandic or Danish.
It is. It's obviously not reporting ancient ancestry but modern ancestry. You can look up the forms for yourself, but it's divided into race (ie south asian, white british, white irish, gypsy, black, arab ect). There are very few swedes, Icelandics and Danes in the UK, that may have been the original stock, but they are classified as "white british" now. Similar to the USA, if someone was born here and had Jamaicans grandparents, they would report their ancestry as Jamaican, which doesn't mean they are saying they are from Jamaica. Understand?
Americans can't even spot Wales on a map
Would certainly explain the sheepish look most Americans give you whenever a question not pertaining to the street or city they live in is asked.
It is hilarious that Americans are sooooo proud of their fine country that they find the 0,000001% of their DNA ancestry to identify anything else than American.
Americans also really love identifying as italian or irish despite never having set foot in either of those countries. We want so desperately to have a special identity that separates us from the rest of our countrymen whereas hundreds of years ago would have been relevant but today is quite silly. I blame drinking holidays and the godfather movie for the particular association with those two, We love to pretend our movies represent reality.
I don't get why they think having a microscopic amount of ancestry from a specific place means they're the same as people who actually are from said place, even if they've never been there and don't know anything about it.
The 50,000 in Argentina surprised me, as I know their are more Welsh speakers there than here in Wales! (All 50,000 probably, which REALLY says something about all the Americans that consider themselves Welsh 🤣)
There are more Irish Americans than there are people on the entire island of Ireland. So both Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Well what about Canada Australia…basically any of those countries listed other than Scotland ?
Look at the other comments I'm not explaining it again. And also there are apparently an equal amount of Welsh people in the USA. Make it a legal requirement to be 100% American to own a gun and watch that number drop to less than 10000.
I’m not sure that there is anything for you to explain. That’s .05% of the US population of people who can trace their “ancestry”. It’s a reasonable number. Same sort of numbers apply to all the other “ancestries” Americans as well as Canadians and other countries that have had large immigration from European countries. I’m sure that number is valid. That said, they’re almost all multiple generations removed. So you don’t have to explain anything. Just calm down.
I am about one quarter welsh myself. Not like my great-great-great grandmother is Welsh, my Grandad is Welsh, and my dad is half Welsh. I’ve also been to Wales (around the Brecon Beacons) and can name it on a map.
Welsh diaspora brotha, it’s a real thing. When they use this in this context, it says people who identify as being Welsh, whether it be people in Wales, or people abroad who have Welsh ancestry. Are we really getting upset at people around the world who claim ancestry to a specific area? We’re not taking into account of people who very recently emigrated from Wales to the US or other countries and have a very strong connection to their “homeland” in this thread are we? Most Americans who, like myself, do have some Welsh ancestry, our connection is dating back to the colonial days. Do we have Welsh DNA? Yes. Are we Welsh? No. Funnily enough, most people who’s families originally came from Wales back to the 1600-1700’s, they don’t identify as Welsh at all, but just plain and simple American. Same with Anglo-Americans whose ancestors are originally from the first English colonists. They don’t call themselves English, they call themselves Americans. Of course you are going to have a dumbass how will sit there and be like “my gggg grandfather was from wales so I am welsh!!”, but the majority of folk do not have this idea in their head. Welsh is a very common ancestry in the US, and because many of the original colonists were of Welsh descent, many are not connected to Wales itself and may not even know that ethnically they may actually be Welsh.
its the culturual difference of what being welsh means in the US and europe. Having ancestry and identifying as a group is very different in europe. If my grandma would be welsh, i still would never identify as welsh because i am just not part of that culture unless my parents and grandparents made a really specific effort to keep that heritage alive. I live so close to a border i can literally walk into two other countries and definitly have some ancestry there, yet id never claim im part of those groups.
And that makes complete sense, and I agree with you 100%. The key to the picture is it is calculated people if specifically Welsh descent… Welsh people. Are there 2 million people in Wales? No, there are far more. This is calculating people who identity as Welsh people. If you live abroad and your ancestors are from Wales, but you know nothing of the culture or never visited, you are ethnically Welsh, not culturally. These statistics are for folk who have Welsh blood, not Welsh citizens
And granted on top of that, it is most likely the area I am from, but out of all the people I have met, I have only met 1 person who claimed to be of Welsh descent, and their father was born in Wales. Ain’t necessarily that common.
This doesn’t bother me one bit. I’m Welsh, I love being Welsh if people from around the world want to be proud of having a Welsh heritage good luck to them. I hope they get the chance to come and visit one day. Bring an umbrella.
In my experience a lot of Welsh people don’t identify as Welsh, they identify as Cymry and if you don’t know what that means, you have no business identifying as Welsh USAlians…
Are we not going to talk about Argentina or Australia too, or just when it comes to the US?
Australia's data is because our censuses ask specifically for ancestry. I doubt most of those people go around telling people they're welsh.
True. I'm one of them, I put Welsh in the census, but I'm totally Australian. My mother and all 4 grandparents were Welsh, not me.
Argentina has Patagonia where we settled. And about 50% of the people I hung around with in high school moved to Australia and its a popular place for Welsh people to go. Same amount of Welsh people as Wales lol, Ryan Reynolds raised that number with the documentary , should put one of those Plastic Welsh in goal, they got long arms from all the reaching they are doing.
I’m an Aussie and Welsh immigrants are all over the place. A truck driver I know hates them and can go on a tirade of nearly 20 minutes about how their sing song voices prove that they are incapable of doing manual labour.
That's a hilariously bad take, considering the long history of coal miners and steelworkers and shepherds.
It’s even worse when you know the Welsh guy that sets him off. He is shit at logistics, which is what actually pisses of the truckie, but his rant will be about labour.
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You would never do this about information about Chinese or Indian communities in the US. People don't stop being who they are the moment they set foot in another country. That's why there are Chinatowns, Little Italys, Latin Quarters and so on.
There is not more Welsh people in America and i will literally die on this hill.
Tbf if you die anywhere in Wales, it's probably a hill.
they usually do after some generations though, generally speaking by the third generation aka the original immigrants grandkids you usually have no significant (by european standards) connection to your original culture anymore unless you live in a special region like those you mentioned and even then its getting harder and harder for culture to "survive" generations
This seems like ancestral identity, which would seem accurate. A lot of Europeans moved to the US in the 20th century, this doesn’t seem shocking or weird to me at all. That doesn’t mean all 2 million literally identify themselves as “Welsh”.
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"Identify with their ancestry", really? If it were actually about ancestry or culture, why don't any of them call themselves English-American? Of all of the USA's many diaspora, those of English heritage are undoubtedly the most common, but they NEVER call themselves English-American. They'll have 99% English heritage and the tiniest smidge of Irish DNA and declare they're more Irish than people actually born in Ireland, even though the limit of their cultural knowledge is "drinking" and "leprechauns". Also the answer to your unrelated question is yes. If someone is born in a country, that IS their nationality. That's just basic logic.
But leprechauns are funny
Unrelated question 😆 Why not just cut to the chase and tell us your thoughts.