The Welsh language is under more threat than ever
Bubble — By Barry Taylor on January 8, 2010 7:00 am
Once-thriving Welsh-speaking communities continue to die out as local people seek work and affordable housing elsewhere
STATISTICS can be selectively chosen to make any kind of point. Take the Welsh language, for example. The 2001 census showed that the number of people who speak Welsh had risen significantly, and that trend will no doubt continue in the statistics of the next census as well.
The demand for Welsh-medium education is higher than it has ever been, even outside the traditional Welsh-speaking areas. Adult Welsh classes are filling up all over Wales, and Welsh is even a language of government these days, enjoying (in theory, at least) equal status with English on the floor of the Senedd Siambr. Surely anyone can see that the Welsh language has been saved? The erosion of the language has been stopped in its tracks, and the position of the language is now stronger than it’s been for many decades. That much is obvious, right?
Well actually, no. That’s only half the story. There are more people who speak Welsh, it’s true, but the survival of Welsh depends on its use as a community language. Most communities where Welsh is the majority language are being diluted by monoglot English-speaking incomers, which threatens the status of Welsh as a community language.
In many of our coastal and rural areas young people often cannot afford to stay in their communities, as they are generally priced out of the housing market and often have poor employment prospects. Their only choice is to leave to find work and affordable housing, and their place is taken by incomers who can afford the houses but don’t speak Welsh. Then the linguistic nature of the community gradually (or not so gradually, in some cases) changes as more and more people there speak only English, and less and less speak Welsh. It doesn’t take long before the linguistic make-up of the community has changed to the extent that the default language of the community is English. When the Welsh language ceases to be the language of the community as most of the people there don’t speak it, it is in danger of dying out. Within a generation it will be effectively dead in that community.
Even worse – many of the houses in the community are not only bought by outsiders, but are just used as holiday homes. There are villages and streets in parts of Wales that are almost empty outside of the tourist season, while locals have been displaced because they can’t afford to live there. How can this be right or fair?
The Welsh language now is under more threat than it has ever been. To many people in Wales, this is unacceptable. So what can be done to arrest the decline?
The Government should put tighter restrictions on the housing market, to take both language and local economic issues into account. The emphasis in new development should be on building affordable houses for local people, rather than the current practice of building a token percentage of affordable housing as part of larger developments aimed primarily at wealthy incomers. Local authorities should also be able to place restrictions on the number of people from outside the area who are allowed to move in and buy houses, to give the advantage back to local people. This policy would help rural communities in both Welsh and English-speaking areas, so it’s not something that would need to be introduced purely on linguistic grounds.
Tied in with this would come the necessary powers to enforce this policy with estate agents who would otherwise seek the largest profit over the good of the communities in which their housing stock is situated.
In considering any planning applications in rural Wales, particularly in tourist areas, it should be a requirement that planning authorities must consider the impact of any mooted housing development on the linguistic make-up of the community. Again, emphasis should be on local homes for local people, and taxes on second homes should be much higher than on main residences, to discourage people from buying holiday homes.
The right to buy council houses should be abolished, to avoid further erosion of the social housing stock available in Wales. More properties should be made available for young families to rent in their local area. Money should be invested in the building of new housing stock specifically for local people to rent.
Job creation should, of course, be a priority. This means encouragement for new companies and industries (or new branches of already existing ones) to locate in areas of Wales outside the M4 and A55 corridors. People will only stay in their communities if there are sufficient employment opportunities within easy reach of those communities. In order to make more of Wales accessible and therefore more able to attract and sustain businesses, better north-south transport links would be required. This would ideally include a direct rail route and improved road links.
In short, the needs of Welsh communities and the people living in them should take preferences over those of holiday home buyers and other incomers.
Of course, there are those who would see all this as unnecessary. Some of them would claim to be in favour of saving the Welsh language (though many would not even go that far) but not at the expense of changes in the housing market. What we need to consider is this: once the Welsh language is gone, it will be gone forever. Once Welsh-speaking communities are eroded away to the point of nothingness, we cannot bring them back. If Welsh is to survive as anything other than an academic interest or a part-time hobby for learners, radical action is needed now to preserve its status in those communities in which it is still (for now) the majority language. Otherwise we will have lost one of our greatest treasures for all time, and it will be nobody’s fault but our own.
- For more information, visit Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg.
Tags: Welsh Language
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60 Comments
I am having to relearn the language as my mam (yes the old british spelling) was not taught it as it was looked down upon on the east Wales borders to learn welsh.
The joke is even Cardiff was majority welsh speaking to as late as 1850 with 100,000 welsh speakers in Liverpool in the census of 1901……………..some people I meet don;t realise the language decline has been so quick and severe and thats why they think its a joke. The true brythonic languages of this island are dying out and the state has the arrogance to make out the word Britain and Briton relates in any way to english culture all the time.
I am currently a member of a small Welsh language group. I was taught French from age 8 and my parents nor Grandparents were Welsh speakers. the fact that I now have to learn my own language really ticks me off. Especially when i meet Welsh speakers who make me feel inferior because i can’t speak Welsh.
I was almost assaulted in London recently by a man from North Wales who screamed at me in the street in front of hundreds of people that I am not fit to be called welsh and i should be ashamed that I cannot speak the language. I have many more stories about people from south Wales being looked down on by welsh speakers from the North and West.
They should consider themselves lucky that they have known the language from birth. I won’t let these petty minded people put me off though, I will carry on ‘trio dysgu siarad Cymraeg’ (I hope I spelled that correctly as writing Welsh is far less important to me than speaking correctly at the moment) and ignore the people that think they own our language.
Welsh is for everyone North, south, East or West!!
Diolch
Granny
welsh is my first language, speak it at home and school but never around town because majority of people are english. The Dialog at home is much the similiar so when I go to the west of wales I find it harder to speak to other welsh users.
Shwmai!
I really like this artical Diolch.
I am from Australia and i love the welsh language… I have started learning welsh a couple of months ago and progressing quickly. Even though i am Australian i have been teaching my family and friends welsh.
When i have kids, I shall do the same.
I wish some people can take welsh more seriously in the times we live in now.
I am actually thinking about being a welsh teacher in australia. Not many people here even knows that wales has there own language.
I went to a Welsh medium school in Swansea, and am a fluent speaker. I grew up speaking the language at home – however now I am an adult almost all my conversations with other adults are in English, regardless of whether they are Welsh speakers or not.
I think the language is doomed – the problem is, it is simply not seen as ‘cool’ by most young people. You used to get detention at my school if you talked in English – yet in the playground that was the only language people spoke….as it’s the language of popular music, films, fashion, etc.
There current language policies actually make things worse, as if you aren’t a Welsh speaker it’s harder to get a job in media or government – therefore driving talented anglophone Welsh away to England. We need these people to stay!
The future of Welsh is to become a part time language spoken in a few pockets up north but not a living language. If we think we can turn the major population centres that draw the young people of this country to be Welsh first language, then we are dreaming.
As a proud Welshman I’m sad to say it, but the Welsh language’s days as a working language are numbered.
It might be time to consider saving what has gone before for the future, a language institute as a preservation centre.
The aim is to get all kids to speak Welsh fluently then we can safeguard the future. Build loads of WM schools and let the language grow that way.
“In considering any planning applications in rural Wales, particularly in tourist areas, it should be a requirement that planning authorities must consider the impact of any mooted housing development on the linguistic make-up of the community.”
Should be a requirement? It IS a requirement; its called “Technical advice note 20″. As for stopping English people from buying houses in Welsh speaking Wales…don’t you think that that might infringe the “Right to free movement of peoples” enshrined in the European charter of human rights? And then there is the pesky fact that we already know that it is people WITHOUT Welsh language skills that are “Forced out” of the Fro Cymraeg to find work in England whilst a good few Welsh speakers migrate to Cardiff where Welsh language skills are a saleable commodity. What are we saying, Welsh speakers can come and go as they please in Wales but non-Welsh speakers are barred from settling in coastal and rural locations? And when we already know that new business start ups are often the result of inward migration how exactly do we stimulate new employment without allowing people to live in the Fro Cymraeg? We want your money and your business but not you?
And, Black Bart, remember that programme “The Welsh Not”? Did it tell you anything? You can teach children to speak Welsh but why would they actually speak it if it’s not their first language? Welsh Medium education is a finite phenomenon….Wales cannot provide the Teachers to sustain its long term growth and the law of diminishing returns means that as we struggle to provide first class teachers, results in those schools will stall….already English Medium benchmarked GCSE results are overhauling Welsh Medium results and WM secondary schools are finding it hard to teach some subjects that Universities value.
Re: Dafydd Williams’s assertion that it’s harder to get a job in the media or government if you’re not a Welsh speaker.
It’s a commonly made assertion but is there any actual proof that speaking Welsh gives someone a disproportionate advantage in the Welsh jobs market?
If memory serves me right there was a survey a few years back to find the %age of Welsh speakers working in the Assembly, and it found that it was less than 20% of the workforce spoke Welsh. Which is less than the national %age of Welsh speakers which is over 20%.
Following years of experience of various internet forums & message boards forgive my scepticism of these types of postings – thy are rarely as ‘sincere’ as they initially appear.
There are a number of contradictions in Barry’s piece. He wants to encourage new companies and industries to locate in Welsh-speaking areas, without providing housing for incoming monoglot entrepreneurs or managers. He wants to attract businesses to rural Wales through improved transport infrastructure, but his proposals for new north-south road and rail links have no economic rationale: commuters and freight in Wales overwhelming travel east-west.
I sympathise with the plight of young people who are priced out of rural communities. But this is not the whole story: all over the world, cities have *always* been magnets for young people – they offer more educational and job opportunities, better social amenities, and the chance to be around lots of other young, single people.
You cannot change the facts of economic geography, or the rational preferences of young people, simply by reforming the planning system and building a few new north-south roads.