Welsh, or Cymraeg as the language terms itself, is an Indo-European language belongs to the Celtic family of languages. The language is a distant cousin to Irish and Scots Gaelic, and a closer brother to Breton and Cornish. Half a million people within Wales can speak and possibly another few hundred thousand in England and other areas overseas.

In most heavily populated areas of Wales, such as the cities of the South-east, Cardiff and  Newport, the language of everyday life is normally English, but there are other areas, notably the northern counties of Gwynedd and Anglesey, and the western counties Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, the Welsh language often remains the everyday language of life. The Welsh word for the country is Cymru, the land of the compatriots, and its the people are known as Cymry.

Despite its formidable appearance to English speakers, Welsh is a language whose spelling is entirely regular and phonetic, so that once you know the rules, you can learn to read it and pronounce it without too much difficulty. For young children learning to read, Welsh provides far fewer difficulties than English does, as English’s spelling inconsistencies, such as silent letters, are not found in Welsh, in which all letters are pronounced.

THE WELSH ALPHABET: (28 letters)
A, B ,C ,Ch, D, Dd, E, F, Ff, G, Ng, H, I, L
Ll, M, N, O, P, Ph, R, Rh, S, T, Th, U, W, Y

(Note that Welsh does not possess the letters K, Q, V, X or Z, and the letter J is a recent addition to accommodate borrowed English words, such as John, Jones, Jam and Jiwbil (Jubilee). The Welsh vowels are A, E, I, O, U, W and Y.

Source:http://www.data-wales.co.uk/accent.htm