A WORD FROM WALES

Language decline requires new solutions.....

Helo eto! And welcome to another edition of A Word From Wales: a weekly newsletter for the Welsh disapora in the US. Normally, we feature around three stories in each newsletter, but this week’s edition will focus on one story alone- the Welsh language figures revealed in the 2021 census. We’ll be covering the basic figures which came to light, looking at the political fall-out and considering a new idea for language revitalization.

The sobering language statistiscs in Wales revealed this week

Worrying drop in Welsh Speakers.

The official census figures which were revealed this week were disappointing by any reckoning. And a wake-up call for everyone who considered that the future of Cymraeg was now a given in modern Wales.

The Office for National Statistics’s census showed a decrease of some 40,000 Welsh speakers in Wales since the last census in 2011, from 582,000 Welsh speakers down to 538,000 presently.

With the percentage of Welsh speakers throughout Wales dropping 1.2%, from 19.% to 17.8%.

After a couple of decades when it seemed that Welsh was stabilizing itself both in terms of numbers and percentage wise( 1991 and 2001), it’s a bitter irony that 20 years of Welsh Devolution has seen a 5% drop in the number of Welsh Speakers, from 22 5% to 17.8%.

It all brings to mind the warning issued by language pioneer Saunders Lewis in the 1960ies, that more political freedom for Wales could actually hasten the decline of Cymraeg.

Unless certain conditions were in place before such developments took place to bolster the language on the ground.

Lewis argued that the traditional Welsh-speaking areas in the west: Ynys Mon, Gwynedd, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire should ensure that public life in these areas were conducted though the medium of Welsh.

So that the language be given a specific territorial domain, where it would predominate in all aspects of life in those area- from which it could then spread to the rest of Wales.

“O’r geto Cymraeg y cyfyd gwladwriaeth Cymru” he wrote. ( From a Welsh ghetto, a Welsh state will emerge)

In the years since Lewis’s warning, only one of those authorities- Gwynedd- has actually implemented his Welsh language policy idea, with Gwynedd still on top of the language table in Wales with 64% speaking Welsh in the county( down a percentage point since 2011)

Ynys Mon is second on 56%( again down a percentage point), with Ceredigion in third on 45%( down two percentage points) and Carmarthenshire in fourth, on 39%( down 4 percentage points no less).

This weakening of the territorial integrity of the heartland areas is of huge concern to language experts, who argue that a minority language must have swathes of areas where it a living ,community language over and above any official status a language may have on a governmental level.

Another worrying feature of the census is the fact that the schooling system- long considered to be fertilizer for the language, seems to have become fallow ground by now.

There was a 6% drop in the numbers of Welsh speakers between 5 and 15, from 40% to 34%.

With all the pressures on school teachers today, increasingly having to mop up a host of emotional and social problems in the classroom, perhaps it’s not unexpected that their language regeneration work has had to take a side seat at present.

Or perhaps, it’s another wake-up call, to not consider traditionak schooling as THE answer to the language crisis.

And that new creative answers are needed in our wider society in Wales.

The census as a blunt and cold instrument.

One thing to remember about the census is that is the creation of the British State, through the ONS( Office of National Statistics).

Indeed, it could be argued that it is a colonial tool to some extent, designed to sap the Welsh spirit, with its emphasis on a number of cold and closed questions.

And its test ethos transporting many people back to their formative educational experiences perhaps, which as we know, were quite negative for many people.

“Do you speak Welsh, Do you write Welsh, Do you read Welsh” ?

There’s no nuance, no subtlety, no cultural context to these questions at all, and as such they contain nothing at all about the potential of the language in people’s lives and in the life of the nation itself either.

With the census due to be phased out, it’s high time for a made in Wales model which is more in tune with Welsh sensibilities. A new model could also seek to re-dress a historical wrong as well, as the present census does not record Welsh speakers in England and Scotland.

One commentator estimated last year that there could be as many as 300,000 Welsh speakers living in these nations, having moved from Wales to search for work opportunities not available back home.

Dafydd Williams in the centre, with yours truly on the right and John Medwyn Jones subject of “ Y Sgowsar” on the left

Friendship the key to language’s future

There’s been no lack of ideas how the Welsh Government should respond to the census figures.

528,000 Welsh speakers is a long way from their much proclaimed “One million Welsh speakers” policy, but then many suspected that this slogan was just a tokenistic gesture towards the language to make Welsh Labour look good.

With no real intentionality and purpose embedded within it, and as such the target has been missed by almost 500,000 speakers.

There are others who maintain that showing too much faith and trust in a government to develop and make a minority language thrive is misguided.

And that any enforcing of the language from above could indeed alienate people and throttle any interest they could have in Cymraeg.

In a post this week, Blogger and Utuber, Dafydd Williams from Aberyswyth argued that a different strategy entirely should be adopted, with an emphasis on growing the language from below.

With the answers ultimately provided by ordinary people in their own communities.

“If every Welsh -speaker could commit to ‘adopt’ a non-Welsh speaker in their community, and introduce the language to them through friendship and companionship- i’m sure thic could make a big difference’ said David.

“This friendship could take the form of some basic Welsh lessons, informing people about Welsh hisory and sign-posting them to other agencies which could help them along the way on their language journey of adventure.”

He added that language should be about connection and forming bonds with people, rather than bureaucracies and official bodies.

“I think there’s a huge need for more friendships in people’s lives right now especially after the past three years- and new “language friendships” could fit in very well with the mood of the zeitgeist right now”.

Syniad da iawn Dafydd- let’s hope people are listeneing!

Dyna ni am wythnos yma. A Word From Wales will be back next weekend.