Decline of the Welsh language

Over the years, the decline of the Welsh language has been publicised widely. However, I wonder whether this was really is exaggeration to shock the public and gain government grant or genuine concern for the language. In order to decide, I have researched some key facts from surveys and censuses to see how much the language has decline and what the initial and modern causes were.

Although more that 80% of people could speak welsh in mid 1800s, according to the 1891 census, out of a population of 1.5 million, only 54.4% were able to speak the language. This is likely to be due to the industrial revolution because many Welsh speakers search for jobs in England and more non-Welsh speakers moved to Wales.
 

Twenty years after the census, there was a decrease of 10.9%, showing that already the language was in danger. If that decline continued similarly, the language would have died out completely by the 21^st century.

But this did not happen and at the next census there was only a drop of 6.7%. This hinted that the problem may not have been as serious as once thought however the worry remained, so people began to revive the language.

In 1967, the Welsh Language Act was passed. This enabled the courts and government to use Welsh much more both in written records and public administrations. In 1993, another Act was put in place which ensured that Welsh is treated equally to English in the public sector.

In theory, these changes should have boosted the language because there were more opportunities to use it. However, the figures show that between 2001 to 2011 there was a 1.8% decline. Although the decline is now more gradual, there is definitely still a problem and the language is not safe.

The cause of this continual decrease in speaking population could be slightly due to the death of speakers and migration. However, the most worrying problem is that children are reluctant to learn Welsh as a second language and any who are brought up in a welsh-speaking family learn English and are embarrassed to use the language.

These figures and reasons show that there is a massive problem. Tomorrow we will see whether it is possible and how we could save the language.