While it may look like a typo, Llanhyfryddawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyrhafnauole is, in fact, the new name of an old village in western Wales. The English translation of the new name is both angry and charming: “A quiet beautiful village, an historic place with rare kite under threat from wretched blades.”

The wretched blades in the name of the village refer to turbines, and activists in the village of Llanfynydd are renaming their town in protest against a proposal, submitted by Gamesa Energy UK, to erect a 40-meter tall mast on the edge of the village. This mast will test whether the region is suitable for a wind farm, which would create energy through turbines. Given that the project is, at this moment, only for a single mast, the name change does seem a bit eccentric and somewhat gimmicky, since this unwieldy name, with 66 letters, is now the longest place name in the United Kingdom (although it is considerably shorter than the little hill named Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturipukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu in New Zealand).  

Meirion Rees, a resident of the village, which is still technically named Llanfynydd, claims reasonably and correctly that “Welsh place names reflect unique landscape features, and hundreds of years of historical events and cultural traditions.”

Regardless of whether this protest can affect the results of the wind farm project, the use of the Welsh language as a vehicle of protest is certainly welcome; at a time when only one-fifth of Wales’s population of 2.75 million people speak Welsh, the residents of Llanfynydd are helping to keep the Welsh language alive.

Mimi Hanaoka