Whether you speak it or not, this week was a big week for the Welsh language.
Many people, including myself, had hoped the latest census data on Welsh language ability would show an increase. After all, thanks to the Cymru Men’s Football Team qualifying for the World Cup, we’ve seen the world embrace the Welsh language and people of all ages and backgrounds sing ‘Yma o Hyd’ and feel inspired to learn and use the language.
However, the figures showed a decrease, for the second census in a row, from 562,000 to 538,000 – from 19% of the population to 17.8%. The figures noted a decrease of Welsh speakers in all regions of Wales, apart from central south Wales. It also noted a sizable decrease in speakers aged 3-15 years old. As a result, we are now further away from reaching the target of a million Welsh speakers by 2050 than we were a decade ago.
These results will be very disappointing for Welsh Language campaigners, likewise for those of us whose mother-tongue, the language that we first spoke, and the language in which we have built our lives, is Welsh. For us, Welsh is not a ‘dead language,’ or ‘a language of the past’ – it is the language of our day-to-day lives and the language for our future.
But crucially it will also be disappointing to many people who don’t speak Welsh, or who only have a few words or are learning the language. It’s a part of our identity here in Wales, whether we speak it or not, and belongs to each of us.
Why has there been a decrease?
There will be plenty of people asking why there has been a decrease. The First Minister suggested this week that Covid had limited the access of young people to Welsh Language resources around the time of the Census. Whereas in Plaid Cymru, we have noted that the trend of language decrease seems to go hand-in-hand with areas of high second home ownership which as we know, is a significant problem in many parts of Wales. Some have also suggested that there is a brain drain, whereby our young people are moving from typically strongholds of the language to places where there are more employment opportunities.
Certainly, further work is needed to understand the results. As more analysis is done, it should become clearer over the next weeks and months, what the reasons are. And in turn, there must also be greater scrutiny on the steps being taken to support the Welsh language by the Labour Welsh Government.
After all, spurred by a decrease in the last census 10 years ago and a high-profile campaign by Cymdeithas yr Iaith, the Welsh Government put in place a target of one million speakers by 2050.
But the data shows that it is not enough to simply set a target – it needs to be backed up by action.
The Welsh Government talk a lot about the importance of the Welsh Language, but they do not seem to be putting into action those all-encompassing measures which could really make a difference to the fate of the language and its accessibility. They must use every tool and every power we have in a way that contributes to people’s ability to learn, speak, and live in Welsh. This is particularly true in areas like housing, education, and the economy.
There are also steps that we can all take. If we truly believe that the language belongs to everyone in Wales, then we must have a shared ambition for a truly bilingual Wales. We only have to look at how the Football Association of Wales has embraced the language, making it a central part of everything that they do. Welsh is not harder to learn than any other language, but we must give our young people every opportunity to do so. We must also support adults to learn and take every opportunity to use the Welsh that we have such as ‘diolch’, ‘bore da’ and ‘nos da’.
Welsh Government must also continue to support increasing the number of teachers with Welsh Language abilities. Both bringing more people into the profession and upskilling those teachers who are already in place. We also need to increase the investment in Welsh medium schools and support English medium schools along the language continuum so that more can become Welsh medium schools.
Through the cooperation agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Government, there is a commitment to a new Welsh Language Education Bill. This must end the current postcode lottery when it comes to the Welsh Language, and ensure every young person leaves school in Wales able to speak both of their nation’s languages and with the opportunity throughout their lives to use it.
Cymraeg belongs to everyone in Wales, but we need more than warm words to ensure our language survives – we need radical action.
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