How can we save the Welsh language?

As we saw yesterday, there has been a vast decline of Welsh. This is worrying because it is crucial to maintain their culture and history. It is likely to be possible to save the language and possibly to revive it to its former popularity, but it would take a lot of money and work.

Firstly, language must be promoted to all Welsh inhabitants. More schools should teach more lessons in Welsh from primary school level so that students have a firm understanding of the language. Although all students up to the age of 16 must have some lessons in Welsh, I think that the age and the amount of lessons should be increased. Also, the Welsh GCSSE should be offered to all students in the British Isles.

If more school children are taught, this will boost the profile and reputation off welsh and therefore will spread positive awareness. Hopefully this would make more people learn the language, especially if they were moving to the area. But in order for them to learn, there need to be more accessible organisations to teach them.

The main problem is that although people do know the language, they do not use them socially. This is because there are many areas that are English dominated. This means that the residents would have to make an effort to recall and use the language.

I believe that if some of these things are firmly put into place, the number of Welsh speakers should increase for the 2021 census.

 

 

 

There are many different ways that you could learn Welsh yourself, including:

• Watch 'S4C Digidol' - a Welsh television programme available in britain on freeview.

• Buy an audio course to immerse yourself in the language
• Search your local community for a Welsh teaching society or school
• Follow Learn Cymraeg on facebook for regular updates

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.

Wales!

Thank you very much for looking at my blog, I have now had well over 400 views from 10 different countries! Tomorrow I am going to Wales for a week before I return to sixth form. While exploring, I hope to do some research about the Welsh language and why its’ popularity is decreasing. So, next week I will be able to upload some posts about the current state of the language and its’ future.

In the meantime, I wonder how many of these phrases you can pronounce…

English	Welsh
Hello	Helô / Hylô / Shwmae / S'mae
Good morning	Bore da
Pleased to meet you	Mae'n dda gen i gwrdd â ti / Neis cwrdd â ti (inf)
How are you?	Shwmae? Sut mae? (inf)
I’m fine thanks, you?	Da iawn, diolch. A tithau? (inf)
What’s your name?	Be(th) ydy dy enw di? (inf)
My name is…	... dwi / ... ydw i

Phrases and correct pronunciation can be found on: http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/welsh.php