A major rally is set to take place in Carmarthen this weekend in response to concerns over the falling number of Welsh speakers in the county. Welsh-language pressure group, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, will shift its emphasis from its campaign against the excess of second homes and AirBnBs to campaigning for a full property act.
It comes after data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of Welsh speakers had fallen by 24,000 between 2011 and 2021. While the highest number of Welsh speakers over the age of three was in Gwynedd with 73,600 Welsh speakers and then in Carmarthenshire with 72,800, there had been a fall in the proportion of speakers in the language over the last decade in both counties.
But the percentage of Welsh speakers in Carmarthenshire drastically fell from 43.9% in 2011 to 39.9% in 2021. This was the largest decline in the percentage of Welsh speakers of any local authority area in the country, ONS reported.
