Campaign to stop Welsh place names being changed to English

WALES is “losing its heritage” as more and more Welsh place names are being changed into English, it has been claimed.

Now a petition calling to put a stop to it will be discussed by the Welsh Parliament.

More than 15,000 people have backed a campaign which claims indigenous place and house names are gradually being eroded.

The petition states that “little by little, the country is losing its heritage” and “this must be stopped for the sake of future generations”.

The topic has been hotly debated over recent months, with BBC news presenter Huw Edwards wading into a row over the loss of Welsh place names and one town councillor on Anglesey describing it as “nothing short of linguistic cleansing”.

That row centred over the Anglesey beaches of Porth Trecastell and

Amlwch’s Lamor Llan or Traeth Dynion, which have respectively often become known as “Cable Bay” and “The Creek”.

Last December, a campaign was launched for residents in Rhondda Cynon Taf and Merthyr Tydfil to “save” their favourite Welsh place names.

The issue has also been highlighted by comedian Tudur Owen.

In a BBC-produced video, the radio presenter said: “Replacing Welsh place names with English ones just because some people can’t pronounce them or they just don’t like the sound of them is not OK.”

Referring to Llyn Bochlwyd in Eryri (Snowdon), which has now started being referring to as “Lake Australia” due to its outline resembling the shape of the continent, he added: “We have a choice, do we keep these names and stories and tell them to the generations that will inhabit this land after we’re gone, or do we let them be deleted because they’re difficult to pronounce?”

Huw Edwards described the practice as having been “going on for years – with some really gruesome and offensive examples – and virtually nothing’s been done about it”.

This is not the first time that the topic has hit the headlines, with efforts in 2015 to establish a statutory register of certain names which should be recorded and then protected.

The same year saw several local authorities follow the lead of Ceredigion by urging homeowners not to anglicise the names of their homes or smallholdings.