Rita Williams’s papers

Professor Heather WILLIAMS, research fellow (CAWCS)

Résumé :

Rita Williams (1933-2018) fut une linguiste spécialiste du breton qui a fait sa carrière à l’Université d’Aberystwyth. Sa contribution aux études bretonnes et à l’amitié entre la Bretagne et le pays de Galles est importante, et lui a mérité le Collier de l’Hermine en 1996. Autrice de dictionnaires gallois-bretons et de plusieurs traductions du breton en gallois (d’œuvres par Roparz Hemon, Ronan Huon, Naig Rozmor) elle a aussi adapté le manuel Brezhoneg… buan hag aes de Pêr Denez au public galloisant.

Nous sommes très reconnaissantes à sa famille, qui a donné ses archives en rapport avec la Bretagne au projet. Ces documents seront prochainement disponibles à la consultation au CRBC. La série la plus frappante est peut-être les quelques 48 lettres écrites par Pêr Denez entre 1974 et 2008, où il est question de traductions, de publications, et des souvenirs de celui-ci de Gallois qu’il a connus.

Rita Williams’s collar of the Ermine
From the family of Rita Williams, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Rita Williams (1933-2018) was a lecturer in Breton at the University of Aberystwyth for most of her career and worked tirelessly to promote the Breton language and literature in Wales and to facilitate exchange and friendship between Brittany and Wales. She was rewarded with the prestigious Urzh an Erminig / Ordre de l’Hermine prize awarded in 1996.

As she was in touch with many prominent members of the Breton movement over a long period, and corresponded with a number of these, the project is extremely grateful to her family for entrusting to us her papers relating to links with Brittany, to be preserved at the CRBC. Around one hundred letters, postcards and notes have been preserved, as well as some press cuttings and photographs. The majority of the material is in Breton, with some in French or Welsh.

Pêr Denez

Rita Williams’s 1984 CV, page 2
(Rita Williams’s Papers, CRBC)

The most striking series here is the 48 or so letters from Pêr Denez (1921-2011) to Rita Williams between 1974 and 2008. The letters reflect their work for their respective minority cultures and show the extent of the cooperation that was possible in the worlds of publishing and education at a time when many Bretons had fluent Welsh, and a significant number of students in Wales learnt Breton. Projects discussed in the letters include Rita Williams’s own translation of Pêr Denez’s Breton language coursebook Brezhoneg Buan hag Aes into Welsh as Cyflwyno’r Llydaweg (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1981). Rita Williams explains in her cv (which is included in her papers) that in her role as lecturer in Breton she felt that she must focus her efforts on producing teaching materials and translations from Breton, as no such resources existed in either English or Welsh. In a letter of 20 May 1974 Pêr Denez gives Rita Wiliams permission to ‘amend and improve!’ his book, hoping that she will continue her translation work. He gently reminds her about it in September 1974, but by 1976 urges her to please finish it! Finally in 1977 he is relieved to hear that she has finished it and is using it with her students in Aberystwyth, and he informs her in the same letter that he has finished his own doctoral work on the Breton dialect of the fishermen of Douarnenez. Since he was awarded his doctorate in Rennes in 1967, the reference is perhaps to his adapting the work for publication as Geriadur brezhoneg Douarnenez, which was published in four volumes (1980-1985).

A long letter of 1 June 2002 is of particular note as it contains some eight pages of Pêr Denez’s reminiscences of his own involvement with the Welsh and of points of contact between the Welsh and the Bretons. As if responding to a series of questions or prompts he mentions many individuals active in the Welsh national movement, including Plaid Cymru’s general secretary, J.E. Jones, and its leader, Gwynfor [Evans], the husband and wife team, Dr Noëlle Davies and D.J. Davies of Pantybeiliau, Gilwern, together with the linguistician and dialectologist Dr Ceinwen Thomas who shared their home. Other party members mentioned are Delwyn [Philips], whose house in Birmingham was a staging post for Bretons fleeing to Wales and Ireland in the difficult post-war years, Beti Jones (whom he visited in Ireland), and Lili Thomas of Aberystwyth, and Lisa Rowlands, as well as prominent cultural figures such as the professor and poet Bobi Jones and his wife Beti, and Meic Stephens of the Welsh Arts Council. Also mentioned is Morwenna Jenkin, daughter of Cornish parents active in Mebyon Kernow and Gorseth Kernow, who was one of Rita’s students at Aberystwyth in the late 1970s, and later became a Diwan teacher and helped establish in Brest the first-ever Breton-medium secondary school. D. J. Williams, a pioneering member of Plaid Cymru, is named, as is his book Hen Dy Ffarm, a classic account of life in rural Carmarthenshire at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Pêr Denez also mentions here the Rev. J. Eirian Davies, Methodist minister, poet and husband of Jennie Eirian, who was a Plaid Cymru parliamentary candidate and editor of Y Faner in the years leading up to her death under ambiguous circumstances in 1982. The dramatist Siôn Eirian was their son. Some Bretons are also named in the context of connections between Wales and Brittany. Paol Kentel (Quentel) who was in touch with both T. Gwynn Jones, and the Rev. J. Dyfnallt Owen, Congregationalist Minister and author of a travelogue on Brittany O Ben Tir Llydaw [From the Headland of Brittany] (1934). Also Roparzh Steven, active in Breton nationalist circles and who was in Wales during the war. Several letters by him to prominent Welsh figures are found in the National Library of Wales (see papers of Dyfnallt, Dr Noelle Davies and William and Myfi Williams).

Many other letters discuss arrangements for visits between Wales and Brittany, and other translations and projects such as her dictionary Geiriadur Bach Llydaweg-Cymraeg (1984), which is now published in expanded form on a dedicated website Hafan (bzh.cymru). Discussion of various translation projects can be found in several of Pêr Denez’s letters, including the granting of formal permission to Rita Williams to use previously published material. These references are fascinating, not least because not all the projects came to fruition: a particularly disappointing find in this context is her plan to translate Anjela Duval into Welsh for Honno Press, mentioned in 1994. The references are also useful because some of Rita Williams’s translations into Welsh are not well known in Wales since they were published only in the Breton press; an interesting example is her translation of a poem by Pêr Denez in memory of Trefor Beasley, published in Al Lanv (1994), pp. 70-71.

From left to right : Carl Williams, Pêr Denez and Rita Williams.
Photograph taken from Rita Williams’s Papers (CRBC).
We would be glad to hear from the copyright owner, whom we have not been able to identify.

In discussing why he learnt Welsh Pêr Denez explains that his first visit to Wales was to the Eisteddfod at Bae Colwyn, thanks to D.R. Hughes (‘Myfyr Eifion’) (1874-1953), who was a National Eisteddfod secretary (and whose papers in the National Library of Wales contain some letters to him by Pêr Denez). He also mentions Plaid Cymru summer schools, and visits to Pantyfedwen, a now demolished hotel in Borth, near Aberystwyth, where inter-Celtic youth summer camps were held. Similarly useful to the historian of the Breton movement is Pêr Denez’s letter of 15 July 2004 in which he writes about the founding of the important journal Al Liamm with Ronan Huon.

The letters also testify to a number of individual and group visits in both directions between Wales and Brittany. Lecturing trips by Rita to Brittany are discussed in autumn 1974, and notably in the 1980s, when she was guest lecturer at Rennes University under the sponsorship of the British Council.

Other correspondents

The poet Naig Rozmor (1923-2015) corresponded with Rita Williams in the late 1990s, and sent her signed copies of some of her works.

Writer and language campaigner Ivona Martin (1907-2005) is also represented here by seven letters or cards.

There are three letters from May 1994 from Ronan Huon (1922-2003) to Rita Williams, each giving her formal rights to translate various of his works.

Town twinnings

The post-war initiative of town twinning across Europe was fully embraced by the Bretons and the Welsh, and a total of around 40 such relationships are in place between their towns and villages, many of which were established during the 1980s and 1990s.1 So it is no surprise to find letters here about twinning committee work and exchanges, for instance correspondence in 2004 with Mikeal and Yvonne Conq, Plougin (Plouguin), twinned with Trefdraeth, Pembrokeshire. Another letter, from Gustave Jourdren, Loctudy, who was ‘président d’honneur’ of the Loktudi-Fishguard twinning committee tells of a visit by 35 Bretons to Wales, that took in Castell Henllys, Scolton Manor, and the inauguration of ‘Parc Loktudi’ in the rain to mark the tenth anniversary of the twinning. In the same letter the Welsh are invited to Loctudy at Whitsun the following year.

Education visits

Breton language campaigners have frequently looked to Welsh-medium education as a model, as a letter from Jean-Pierre Quemener of Lycée Jean Moulin, Châteaulin demonstrates. Writing to Rita Williams in English in 1984 he explains that he is planning a trip to Wales ‘to have a close look at how bilingualism works in Wales’, notably in education, the media, administration and road signs. A year later (7 July 1985) a letter regarding a coach trip of Bretons to Wales, with an outline of the proposed itinerary arrived from Paul Kadoz. Rita Williams often facilitated such trips, sometimes acting as translator, and at other times as tutor in Welsh at summer schools in Brittany. Tokens of appreciation of her work are preserved here, such as a message from Yvonne and Émile Tollec of Sizun.

References

Rita Williams – Wicipedia (wikipedia.org)

1 Llydawyr yn dathlu Gŵyl Ddewi ‘i gynnal perthynas’ – BBC Cymru Fyw

Addendum (22.08.2024) : Heather Williams published an article on Rita Williams in the dictionary of Welsh biography.


OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Dream-CollEx (15 janvier 2024). Rita Williams’s papers. DreAM-CollEx. Consulté le 21 avril 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/11oef


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