Digitally preserving Wales’ place-name heritage

Place-names are a very emotional subject in Wales, with frequent campaigns aiming to protect and protect the names of mountains, hills, lakes, cliffs, farmhouses and so on and so forth. Welsh language place-names are found across Wales (even in England!) from Flint to Pembrokeshire, and from Chepstow to Aberystwyth. In an age where everything is becoming more and more digital, it is vitally important at the same time to protect our culture for the future which means recording our heritage digitally.

Cymdeithas Enwau Lleoedd Cymru or the Welsh Place-Name Society has a comprehensive space online which includes news, videos and resources and their site on Facebook.

According to the website, “Our place names face a serious and constant threat of being changed, translated or disregarded.”

Mapiau Cymru is another site that actively records names on a map digitally. There is a digital collection of voice of Wales which includes recordings correctly pronouncing place names from Anglesey to Monmouth. openstreetmap.cymru is a map that is an alternative to Google Maps, where thousands of Welsh names have been recorded.

For information, the Welsh Language Commissioner has a long list of standard Welsh place names.

As part of the fascinating series Cynefin on S4C, presenter Tudur Owen traces the origins of some of the placenames in Wales and beyond through short clips on YouTube. If you put Cynefin: S4C in the search engine on YouTube, there are very interesting explanations of many names such as London, Llandudno and Casgwent (or Chepstow).

And if you are interested in the origin of names, the University of Wales Dictionary has a website which contains the origin of names.

There are also groups on Facebook such as Eryri Wen who are campaigning to protect names of the Eryri terrain including the galleries in the Dinorwig slate quarry. The Facebook page is constantly updated and which also has a lively discussion on reviving old names of Eryri. You might keep an eye on Llanberis based MenterFachwen’s Facebook page in which they are busy recording local placenames in Eryri and quarry galleries in Dinorwig slate quarry.

So, remember, there are plenty of platforms and organisations that are active in digitally protecting our landscape heritage and living history.

Written by Deian apRhisiart, Digital Inclusion Advisor at Digital Communities Wales