My name’s Bethan Tovey-Walsh.
I’m a linguist
and markup-languages geek.
I’m a member of the Invisible XML (iXML) community group, and I’m currently working on an iXML processor in Python. I’m also the editor of Geirfan, an online dictionary for adult learners of Welsh.
I completed a PhD in Applied Linguistics and Welsh at Swansea University in 2025. The wonderful Tess Fitzpatrick and the fabulous Rhys Jones were my supervisors, and my research focused on code-switching and lexical borrowing in Welsh-English bilinguals. My thesis, entitled “The Word made Welsh: The semiotics of code-switching and borrowing in a minority language”, can be downloaded from Swansea University's online repository.
I occasionally write cryptic crosswords, and I introduced the crossword corpus I’m (very slowly!) building at the inaugural Markup UK conference in 2018. In a past life, I completed a DPhil in Anglo-Saxon literature, supervised by Malcolm Godden at Oxford, and then went to work for the Oxford English Dictionary.
When my brain needs a break I love various kinds of textile crafts, including weaving, crochet, and embroidery, as well as drawing and painting.
I live in Swansea, in southern Wales, with my husband—a recovering Texan who's learning Welsh.
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