The Landsker Line () is a term used for the language border in Wales between the largely Welsh-speaking and largely English-speaking areas in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire. The English-speaking areas, south of the Landsker line and known as Little England beyond Wales, are notable for having been English linguistically and culturally for many centuries despite being far from the England–Wales border.
History
During the 11th and 12th centuries both invaders and defenders built more than fifty castles during a complex period of conflict, effectively to consolidate the line. The southernmost was Laugharne; others included Wiston, Camrose, Narberth, and Roch. These are often referred to as "frontier castles" but they were in fact set back a considerable distance from the frontier itself. In the heart of the Norman-dominated area, the two great fortresses were at Pembroke and Haverfordwest. There were other fortresses within the colonised area as well, including Manorbier, Carew and Tenby.
The Landsker has changed position many times, first moving north into the foothills of Mynydd Preseli during the military campaigns of the Early Middle Ages, and then moving southwards again in more peaceful times, as the English colonists found that farming and feudalism were difficult to maintain on cold acid soils and exposed hillsides.
When historians began to gain interest in the linguistic divide, they used the term "landsker", or "lansker", for example by Richard Fenton in 1810, though the term had been used much earlier by antiquarian George Owen of Henllys in 1603. It remains in common use. Local people may not be familiar with the term, but they recognise that the language divide stretching from St Bride's Bay to Carmarthen Bay remains very distinct.
Language and genetic differences
The differences in the proportion of Welsh speakers persists in the 21st century and is illustrated by the map derived from the 2011 census.
Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics reported in 2015 "unexpectedly stark differences between inhabitants in the north and south of the Welsh county of Pembrokeshire" in DNA signatures.
In-depth description
The term Landsker is a word of Anglo-Saxon origin used in southwest England and along the anglicised South Wales coast. It signifies a permanent, visible boundary between two tracts of land, and may be a natural feature (e.g. a river) or an artificial feature (e.g. a hedge or a line of marker stones). In Wales, its official use became obsolete at the end of the eighteenth century.
In 1939, the term was first applied to the linguistic frontier in southwest Wales. The linguistic boundary, in general, is neither visible nor permanent. Commentators have taken up the use of the word in this context in the last 50 years, so that in the 21st century it is usually understood to mean the language boundary.
The language boundary is an example of a cultural frontier that has persisted, without legal status, for ten centuries or more. The boundary (with Welsh to the north and east, and English to the south and west) starts on St Bride’s Bay and follows a serpentine course eastwards until it meets the River Taf just north of Laugharne in Carmarthenshire. Traces of a boundary also persist across the Llansteffan peninsula and the country near Kidwelly, and it reappears strongly in the boundary between English and Welsh Gower. The area to the south of the line was referred to in the 16th century as Anglia Transwalliana (Little England beyond Wales).
In 1603, George Owen provided a snapshot description of the language boundary and 'Little England beyond Wales', and provided an antiquarian account of the settlement of English speakers in southwest Wales. This provides the “traditional” view: that the area was cleared of native Welsh by the Norman invaders in the early 12th century, and was planted with Flemings from elsewhere in England. However, Owen pointed out that there was no trace of Flemish custom or language in his time. In fact, traditional Pembrokeshire English is lexically related to the Early English of southwest England, and in all probability the anglicisation of the Welsh coast paralleled the anglicisation of Devon and Cornwall, perhaps concurrently. A 2003 DNA study showed that people in 'Little England' are genetically indistinguishable from the people of southern England.