"English and Welsh" is
J. R. R. Tolkien's inaugural O'Donnell Memorial Lecture of 21 October 1955. The lecture sheds light on Tolkien's conceptions of the connections of
race,
ethnicity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
, and
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
.
Publication
It was first published in ''Angles and Britons'' in 1963 and was republished in ''
The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays
''The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays'' is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's scholarly linguistic essays edited by his son Christopher and published posthumously in 1983.
All of them were initially delivered as lectures to academics ...
'' in 1983.
Contents
Tolkien begins with an overview of the terms "
British", "
Celtic", "
Germanic", "
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country ( Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the No ...
", "
English" and "
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
", explaining the last term's etymology in ''
walha''.
Tolkien also addresses the historical
language contact between
English and
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh