The Old Language Endures: Cymraeg in North America

In the 1600s and 1700s, thousands left Cymru in search of a better life. Many landed in Pennsylvania, on the east coast of what is today the United States. According to Cymru Pennsylvania, this state retains the distinction of the highest Welsh-American population in the country still today, with about 150,000 claiming Welsh identity. Their early ancestors left their traces in the places they named: Bala Cynwyd, Berwyn, Lower and Upper Gwynedd, Narberth, North Wales, and Radnor. 

Later immigration, however, moved further into the continental heartland. By the 1800s, Ohio was one of the primary destinations for new arrivals. You find fewer Welsh place names, but they’ve left their trace. 

Follow Ohio’s Welsh Scenic Byway from Gallipolis to Jackson, and you will come across their old churches—including the Welsh Congregationalist Church in Oak Hill that was home to a Welsh-speaking congregation for more than 100 years, up until the mid-twentieth century. Today, it’s the home of the Welsh-American Heritage Museum (due to reopen this year following renovations). 

Just 15 minutes west, you’ll find Welsh flags hanging across the small college town of Rio Grande. And, at the heart of all things Welsh in the community: the Canolfan Madog ar gyfer Astudiaethau Cymreig (Madog Center for Welsh Studies). 

Dan Rowbotham’s Journey from the Aeron Valley to the Ohio River Valley

Named in commemoration of the Mexican-American War, Rio Grande was founded in 1874. But Welsh people from Ceredigion had been living in the area for generations, with the first wave arriving in 1818. 

Two centuries later, Dan Rowbotham followed their footsteps from his own village in Ceredigion. 

“The original Welsh from 1818 left from Cilcennin, a village maybe 10 miles away from the village I grew up in,” Rowbotham says. “However, between three and four thousand left from a small area around the Aeron Valley / Mynydd Bach area. Llangeitho (my village) is in that area, and there’s actually a lot of people who left there to come here to Gallia / Jackson!” 

In 2018, Rowbotham arrived at the Canolfan Madog as the Davis intern, an internship program which brings a Welsh speaker to support cultural exchange and language learning in the community.

“I have found the community incredibly welcoming, but have found the support for everything Welsh fairly mind blowing,” Rowbotham says. “This area frequently displays more pride in its heritage than a lot of places back in Cymru.”

Even when he left in 2020 at the conclusion of his internship, the Welsh community in North America stayed front of mind for Rowbotham. Through the pandemic, he participated in online activities and events, getting involved with the Welsh-language programme through Cor Cymry Gogledd America (the Welsh Choir of North America).

Things took an unexpected turn when he returned to Ohio en route to the North American Festival of Wales in 2022: he was offered a position as director of the Madog Center. 

“I left with an informal offer of the director job,” Rowbotham says. “After about a month of thinking, I decided that the director job at North America’s only Center for Welsh Studies was exactly what I wanted to do next.”

The Language Learners: Why Americans Want to Learn Cymraeg

The Madoc Center offers Cymraeg lessons at the community level—meaning, not for academic credit. 

“The motivation varies for our learners,” Rowbotham says. “Primarily the interest stems from people’s heritage, but we also see people who have an academic interest or other reasons—such as an interest in J.R.R. Tolkien, and, more recently, the success of Welcome to Wrexham.” 

Ellen S. falls into the latter category of learners. She credits Susan Cooper, author of The Dark Is Rising series, and Alan Garner, the author of The Owl Service, with piquing her interest.

“Cooper’s The Grey King has an interaction among childhood friends where the Welsh one teaches some Welsh pronunciation to the English one,” Ellen says. “The Welsh fascinated me. Later, they made an audiobook of it (read by Richard Mitchley), so I got to actually hear the Welsh.”

Ellen started learning Cymraeg herself. First, with Duolingo. Then italki, an online platform where freelance language instructors. That’s how she found her way to Cymraeg classes with the Canolfan Madog. 

“I saw this great tutor on italki named Dan Rowbotham, but he was no longer teaching on the platform,” Ellen says. “I did some internet searches and discovered his amazing Madog Centre Zoom classes at Rio, and have been avidly taking them ever since. I think I am on my fifth semester?” 

David Jones is another learner through the Canolfan Madog, inspired by his family’s heritage. 

“I started out wanting to read Cymraeg during genealogy research started in 2018,” Jones says. 

Two years later, he started in-person classes through the Madog Center in Columbus, the capital of Ohio, an hour and a half north of Rio Grande.

“After that, I went down to the Madog Center to continue in-person class,” Jones says. “In the fall 2024, I started online classes when the in-person option was discontinued.”

Jones enjoys the challenge.

“As a senior, it keeps my mind engaged,” he explains. “And as someone who practiced engineering for over 45 years, it is more difficult than puzzles.” 

He also relishes the connection to his family. 

“I enjoy the thought that I may have been able to understand my second great grandparents in their language,” he says. “It is part of my heritage.”

The Future of Yr Hen Iaith in North America

Jones’ interest in his Welsh heritage is becoming more of a rarity in the Gallia-Jackson corridor of southeastern Ohio. 

“The interest and pride is clearly generational,” Rowbotham says. “I think ‘Welshness’ stopped being passed down in the later part of the twentieth century. This has pushed us to work differently, look at things that can continue to engage people, focusing on young people, which is great as we’re located at a university and community college.”

On the other hand, Cymru’s international profile has risen in recent years—in part, thanks to the success of the men’s football team in qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, and, particularly for a North American audience, the way Welcome to Wrexham has made Welsh identity accessible to a broader audience.

“There has certainly been an increased Welsh presence in global media in the last 5 years or so, and as a result, people are more aware,” Rowbotham says. “There’s more interest in this small country that isn’t England. There is still a lot of work to do, but we certainly see more people finding us through media related sources.” 

Rowbotham hopes to convert this interest at the international level into opportunity on the local level.

“Our home institution has seen huge enrollment growth and campus developments which has allowed the Madog Center to also develop,” Rowbotham explains. “With this, we are able to focus on increasing our community engagement — on campus, locally, statewide, across North America and also to maintain relationships back in Cymru — as well as focusing on expanding our academic purpose, to support research and also to provide unique Welsh Studies opportunities here at Rio.”

This could even include the possibility of bringing back the university’s former minor in Welsh studies — an amazing feat at a time when schools across the United States are cutting language and ethnic studies programmes.

“We continue to strengthen partnerships and create new partnerships to ground ourselves as the home for Welsh Studies, but more importantly the North American base to learn Cymraeg.”

More than two centuries later, yr hen iaith barhau yng Ngogledd America. The old language endures in North America.