Ball Martin, M?ller Nicole. The Celtic Languages

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676 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

further 8.4 per cent received some of their tuition through the medium of Welsh. A total

of 47.1 per cent were taught Welsh as a second language only and for 32.4 per cent Welsh

was not on the curriculum (Table 14.8). The bulk of the latter category came from the

most heavily anglicized areas. Of the 83,373 pupils who were not taught Welsh at all,

39,683 (47.5 per cent) were at school in Gwent, 19,301 (23.1 per cent) in South Glamor-

gan and 10,075 (12 per cent) in West Glamorgan. The largest number of pupils were in

category (D), that is for them Welsh was taught as a second language within the school

curriculum. It was not used as a medium of instruction for any other subject. In most cases

the contact hours were insufﬁ cient and since the children did not hear Welsh being spoken

outside the classroom, the motivation to succeed and to attain a working level of ﬂ uency

Table 14.7 Primary schools teaching through the medium of Welsh 1987–8. Source:

Statistics of Education in Wales, Schools No. 2 (1988)

zClwyd

Dyfed

Gwent

Gwynedd

Mid

Glamorgan

Powys

South

Glamorgan

West

Glamorgan

Wales

A Schools having classes

where Welsh is the sole or

main medium of instruction

13.9% 35.0% 2.6% 69.7% 8.9% 15.8% 5.8% 9.5% 20.7%

B First- and second- language

pupils in classes where some

of the instruction is through

the medium of Welsh

4.0% 19.5% 0& 8.6% 0& 2.6% 0& 0.6% 5.4%

Second- language pupils

in classes where some of

the teaching is through the

medium of Welsh

10.3% 16.1% 0& 18.2% 1.6% 6.2% 3.2% 3.0% 7.7%

Schools having classes

where Welsh is taught as

a second language but not

used as a teaching medium

71.4% 20.1% 0& 3.0% 85% 72.8% 54.2% 80.4% 46.7%

Schools where no Welsh is

taught

0.4% 9.3% 97.4% 0.5% 4.5% 2.6% 36.8% 6.5% 19.5%

Table 14.8 Number of pupils/Welsh medium teaching. Source: based on Statistics of

Education in Wales, Schools 1988

School category No. of pupils

A 31,320 12.2

B 6,088 2.4

C 15,325 5.9

D 121,246 47.1

E 83,373 32.4

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT OF WELSH 677

was lacking.

At present, as the above statistics suggest, there are grave inconsistencies in

the teaching of Welsh at primary level in different parts of Wales.

During 1987–8 a total of ﬁ fty- three secondary schools in Wales engaged in Welsh-

medium teaching. Sixteen of these taught ten subjects or under. Another fourteen schools

taught between eleven and ﬁ fteen subjects using Welsh, and a total of twenty- three schools

used Welsh for teaching over sixteen subjects. It is quite evident that what started as an

‘Ysgolion Cymraeg’ phenomenon is now operated in non- designated bilingual schools and

most of these are in the traditional Welsh- speaking areas. Twenty- one out of the twenty-

four secondary schools in Gwynedd use Welsh as a medium of instruction for subjects

other than Welsh language and literature. Such an expansion in the use of the language has

resulted in a demand for subject textbooks in Welsh. This gap is gradually being ﬁ lled.

Since 1975 Gwynedd Local Education Authority has led the ﬁ eld in implementing

a positive bilingual policy in all its schools and recently in all further- education estab-

lishments within the county: ‘the aim is to reinforce the bilingualism of pupils from

Welsh- speaking homes while at the other end the main aim is to develop the bilingual-

ism of Welsh learners’ (Gwynedd County Council 1975: vii). All pupils in Gwynedd

primary schools receive Welsh lessons. The majority (54.2 per cent) are taught mainly

through the medium of Welsh and a further 39.4 per cent are in classes where some of

the teaching is through the medium of Welsh, and only 6.4 per cent have a minimal con-

tact through a formal Welsh lesson alone. The aim as laid out in the Gwynedd Language

Policy Document is: ‘to consolidate and develop each child’s Welsh and English capabili-

ties in all aspects both active and receptive, so as to ensure that he/she can speak, read and

write ﬂ uently and conﬁ dently in both languages on transferring to the secondary school’

(Gwynedd County Council 1975: i). To achieve such aims the schools have been actively

encouraged to use Welsh across the curriculum and thereby expand children’s knowledge

through the medium of Welsh. In the case of learners it is an example of extending their

receptive control, which ultimately leads to an extended productive control of the lan-

guage. Teaching resources in the form of athrawon bro (peripatetic language teachers)

were introduced to show the local teacher how to teach Welsh effectively to children of

different linguistic backgrounds and to do that across the curriculum.

Since the 1970s Gwynedd, like the rest of rural Wales, has experienced in- migration

of English- speaking families in such numbers that they could not be assimilated into the

education system as it was without changing it drastically. At the beginning of the 1988–9

school year, a total of 678 monoglot English newcomers were registered in Gwynedd pri-

mary schools. The Authority’s language policy was being stretched, and more resources

were required to supplement the language centres which the Authority ﬁ rst established in

1984. The ﬁ rst centre was at Caernarfon. The main aim of the centre was to give intensive

language teaching to newcomers aged between 7 and 11 years old, thus enabling them to

integrate without much difﬁ culty into the life of the local community school, and without

disrupting the language policy currently operating. By 1988 six such centres had opened,

three in west Gwynedd, one in east Gwynedd, one on Anglesey and one in Meirion. A

Welsh Ofﬁ ce grant made this possible. The length of time the child spent at each centre

was approximately one school term. At any one time no more than twenty children could

be accommodated. The 1988–9 statistics show that double the number of children could

have received this intensive language training if only the facilities had been available.

With such an inﬂ ux of young English families into rural Wales such attempts to integrate

them linguistically, culturally and socially into the fabric of the local communities are

extremely important. By now there has been an expansion of such language facilities, but

there is an additional complication in that a signiﬁ cant proportion of the incomers now

678 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

come from the newer member states of the EU in eastern Europe, thus complicating the

home background–school regime relationship.

At the secondary school level, the standard and degree of Welsh- medium teaching

varies according to the linguistic characteristics of the catchment area of each particular

school. It can vary from a 70 per cent intensity in some schools to 20 per cent in others.

There is also provision for developing the linguistic control of those who are learners so

that they can beneﬁ t from Welsh- medium teaching. Gwynedd’s policy is indeed progres-

sive, and it is the ethos of that policy that has inﬂ uenced other parts of Wales as a result

of twenty years’ experience of ﬁ nessing the obligations of the National Curriculum. The

Education Reform Act 1988 has had a great impact upon the role of Welsh in education,

for it introduced Welsh as a core subject in the National Curriculum for pupils in Welsh-

medium schools and as a foundation subject in all other maintained schools.

A summary of the key results for January 2006 reveals that there were 458 Welsh-

speaking primary schools (29 per cent of the total number) with 52,867 pupils on roll,

three more schools and 75 more pupils than in 2005. The proportion of primary school

pupils taught in classes where Welsh is used as the main medium of teaching rose from

19.6 per cent in 2005 to 20.1 per cent in 2006. The percentage of pupils assessed in Welsh

at the end of Key Stage 1 decreased slightly from 20.1 per cent to 20.0 per cent, and the

percentage assessed in Welsh at the end of Key Stage 2 increased slightly from19.1 per

cent in 2005 to 19.3 per cent in 2006.

Tables 14.9 (opposite) and 14.10 (p. 680) record the distribution of maintained primary

schools by LEA and the pupils taught Welsh as a ﬁ rst language in year groups 1–6 by LEA

for 2006. Gwynedd, Carmarthenshire, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Ceredigion are notable in

terms of the total numbers identiﬁ ed in Table 14.10. What is signiﬁ cant, however, is the

role of the school in producing ﬂ uent children from non- Welsh- speaking homes (Table

14.9). This is particularly evident in the case of Caerphilly and to a lesser extent Rhon-

dda Cynon Taf and Cardiff, although it is an increasing feature over much of Wales. The

growth in the number of Welsh- medium secondary schools and the total number of pupils

are recorded in Table 14.11 (p. 681). For secondary schools in January 2006, 15.2 per cent

of pupils in year groups 7–11 (compulsory school age) in maintained secondary schools

were taught Welsh as a ﬁ rst language, up from 14.8 per cent in 2005. A further 83.9 per

cent were taught Welsh as a second language. The percentage of Year 7 pupils taught

Welsh as a ﬁ rst language increased from 15.5 per cent in 2005 to 16.7 per cent in 2006.

The percentage of pupils assessed in Welsh as a ﬁ rst language at the end of Key Stage 3

increased from 14.5 per cent in 2005 to 15.7 per cent in 2006, slightly higher than the per-

centage of Year 9 pupils reported as having studied Welsh as a ﬁ rst language (15.3 per

cent) (National Statistics: Statistical Bulletin, 2007).

The proﬁ le demonstrated in Table 14.12 (p. 681) of maintained secondary pupils by

ability to speak Welsh by LEA suggests signiﬁ cant spatial variations and a quite com-

plex relationship between ﬂ uency gained at home and ﬂ uency and competence acquired

as a result of formal education. The county with highest number of pupils who speak

Welsh at home is Gwynedd at 4,436, the lowest is Blaenau Gwent with only two pupils.

The county with highest number who do not speak Welsh at home but who are ﬂ uent as

a result of their education is Rhondda Cynon Taf at 2,533, the county with the lowest

number is Merthyr Tudful with only two students. The county with the highest number

who speak Welsh but not ﬂ uently is Caerphily with 4,510 and county with the lowest is

again Blaenau Gwent. Unsurprisingly given the total number of pupils involved (18,643)

the county with the highest number of pupils who cannot speak Welsh is Cardiff at 13,880.

The country with the lowest number is Ceredigion at 281.

Table 14.9 Maintained primary school pupils, aged ﬁ ve years and over, by ability to speak Welsh, by LEA, 2006. Source: Ofﬁ ce of National

Statistics, Welsh in Schools, Table 4, 2007*

LEA Speaks Welsh at home Do not speak Welsh at

home but can speak it

ﬂ uently

Speaks Welsh but not

ﬂ uently

Cannot speak Welsh Total pupils

no. % no. % no. % no. % no.

Isle of Anglesey 1,548 35.2 117 2.7 1,544 35.1 1,191 27.1 4,400

Gwynedd 4,494 57.0 260 3.3 2,002 25.4 1,125 14.3 7,881

Conwy 822 11.5 60 0.8 1,853 25.9 4,432 61.8 7,167

Denbighshire 600 9.2 293 4.5 2,453 37.5 3,192 48.8 6,538

Flintshire 239 2.2 212 2.0 2,953 27.7 7,251 68.1 10,655

Wrexham 261 2.9 207 2.3 1,022 11.4 7,445 83.3 8,935

Powys 708 7.9 316 3.5 5,468 61.1 2,464 27.5 8,956

Ceredigion 1,485 35.5 466 11.1 1,811 43.3 422 10.1 4,184

Pembrokeshire 544 6.6 343 4.2 1,520 18.6 5,783 70.6 8,190

Carmarthenshire 2,869 24.6 628 5.4 2,874 24.6 5,303 45.4 11,674

Swansea 404 2.6 407 2.6 1,287 8.3 13,396 86.5 15,494

Neath Port Talbot 588 6.2 473 5.0 1,003 10.6 7,385 78.2 9,449

Bridgend 240 2.5 392 4.1 899 9.4 8,013 84.0 9,544

The Vale of Glamorgan 378 4.1 193 2.1 863 9.3 7,878 84.6 9,312

Rhondda, Cynon, Taff 1,100 6.7 1,074 6.6 2,221 13.6 11,981 73.2 16,376

Merthyr Tydﬁ l 140 3.4 287 6.9 277 6.7 3,426 83.0 4,130

Caerphilly 46 0.4 1,297 9.9 4,985 38.2 6,720 51.5 13,048

Blaenau Gwent 80 1.6 47 1.0 819 16.8 3,926 80.6 4,872

Torfaen 23 0.3 239 3.6 2,934 44.1 3,455 51.9 6,651

Monmouthshire 76 1.3 33 0.6 4,076 69.7 1,660 28.4 5,845

Newport 21 0.2 284 2.6 2,784 25.9 7,668 71.3 10,757

Cardiff 945 4.4 1,049 4.9 1,799 8.4 17,611 82.3 21,404

Wales 17,611 8.6 8,677 4.2 47,447 23.1 131,727 64.1 205,462

* The data mainly represent parents’ perceptions of their children’s ﬂ uency and will not necessarily be the same as the ability shown by the pupil in their school work.

Source: Annual Schools’ census.

Table 14.10 Pupils taught Welsh as a ﬁ rst language in maintained primary schools in year groups 1–6, by year group, by LEA, 2006. Source:

Ofﬁ ce of National Statistics, Welsh in Schools, Table 5, 2007

LEA Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6

no. % no. % no. % no. % no. % no. %

Isle of Anglesey 472 70.8 556 73.3 533 75.2 562 73.9 552 73.6 539 71.8

Gwynedd 1,154 90.5 1,154 90.2 1,217 92.3 1,287 93.2 1,184 93.3 1,271 94.5

Conwy 258 23.2 274 24.2 294 24.5 275 21.7 259 21.5 261 20.9

Denbighshire 216 22.0 245 22.8 234 20.8 252 22.5 203 18.8 218 18.9

Flintshire 99 6.0 110 6.2 92 5.2 122 6.6 92 5.1 111 6.0

Wrexham 129 8.6 145 9.7 142 9.6 114 7.7 140 9.5 132 8.8

Powys 184 13.6 237 16.2 202 13.6 220 14.1 196 13.0 211 13.4

Ceredigion 459 70.6 489 71.4 518 73.0 500 71.3 491 70.2 556 74.1

Pembrokeshire 252 19.8 260 19.2 280 20.0 231 16.4 246 17.9 222 16.2

Carmarthenshire 986 54.0 935 51.1 956 50.3 1,021 49.7 1,019 50.0 1,027 52.2

Swansea 287 11.6 250 10.1 254 9.7 260 9.6 232 8.9 211 8.1

Neath Port Talbot 249 17.4 255 16.9 269 16.8 253 16.1 228 13.6 214 12.8

Bridgend 123 8.3 140 8.9 133 8.4 141 8.1 108 6.9 117 7.4

The Vale of Glamorgan 158 10.7 166 10.7 143 9.2 137 8.5 148 9.5 136 8.5

Rhondda, Cynon, Taff 505 19.7 507 18.9 533 19.5 478 16.3 461 17.0 414 15.0

Merthyr Tydﬁ l 70 10.6 71 10.9 66 10.0 84 11.5 72 10.1 63 9.0

Caerphilly 277 13.4 274 13.1 251 11.5 239 10.3 231 10.6 209 9.5

Blaenau Gwent 33 4.2 51 6.3 35 4.4 43 5.3 27 3.2 32 3.7

Torfaen 63 6.6 82 7.9 101 8.9 67 5.6 73 6.5 61 5.0

Monmouthshire 28 3.1 33 3.6 22 2.4 25 2.4 19 1.9 12 1.2

Newport 52 3.1 55 3.1 53 2.9 51 2.8 54 3.0 46 2.5

Cardiff 420 12.6 428 12.2 425 11.7 396 10.9 357 9.6 342 9.5

Wales 6,474 20.2 6,717 20.1 6,753 19.6 6,758 18.9 6,392 18.4 6,405 18.2

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT OF WELSH 681

Table 14.11 Welsh- speaking secondary schools and pupils, 1990–2006.

Source: Ofﬁ ce

of National Statistics, Welsh in Schools, Table 15, 2007

1990– 2000–1 2001–2 2002–3 2003–4 2004–5 2005–6

Secondary schools

Number of schools 44 53 53 53 54 54 54

Number of pupils 27,897 38,007 38,817 39,458 40,169 40,221 40,828

1 September for 1990–, and January thereafter.

2 Welsh- speaking secondary schools as deﬁ ned in Section 354(b) of the Education Act 1996. A Welsh-

speaking secondary school is one where more than half of foundation subjects, other than English or

Welsh or Religious Education, are taught wholly or partly in Welsh.

Table 14.12 Maintained secondary pupils by ability to speak Welsh by LEA, 2006

Source: Ofﬁ ce of National Statistics, Welsh in Schools, Table 16, 2007

LEA Speak

Welsh

ﬂ uently

at home

Do not speak

Welsh at home

but can speak

it ﬂ uently

Speaks

Welsh

but not

ﬂ uently

Cannot

speak

Welsh

Data not

available

Total

pupils

Isle of Anglesey 1,611 439 1,535 397 0 3,982

Gwynedd 4,436 726 1,697 402 0 7,261

Conwy 690 243 3,339 2,373 0 6,645

Denbighshire 797 357 2,469 3,147 0 6,770

Flintshire 182 263 1,693 7,030 0 9,168

Wrexham 238 443 798 5,359 0 6,838

Powys 483 333 3,613 3,504 12 7,945

Ceredigion 1,632 580 1,677 281 30 4,200

Pembrokeshire 627 414 2,791 3,512 0 7,344

Carmarthenshire 2,497 915 3,573 3,931 0 10,916

Swansea 420 499 3,498 9,193 0 13,610

Neath Port Talbot 579 535 1,512 6,362 0 8,988

Bridgend 20 40 856 7,303 0 8,219

The Vale of Glamorgan 377 357 3,806 3,640 0 8,180

Rhondda, Cynon, Taff 737 2,533 1,077 11,604 0 15,951

Merthyr Tydﬁ l 11 2 649 3,093 0 3,755

Caerphilly 81 929 4,510 6,293 0 11,813

Blaenau Gwent 3 7 409 4,066 0 4,485

Torfaen 203 496 2,504 3,866 0 7,069

Monmouthshire 10 6 3,350 1,357 0 4,723

Newport 11 7 2,449 6,705 0 9,172

Cardiff 617 910 3,236 13,880 0 18,643

Wales 16,262 11,034 51,041 107,298 42 185,677

1 The data mainly represent parents’ perceptions of their children’s ﬂ uency and will not necessarily be the

same as the ability shown by the pupil in their school work. Source: Annual Schools’ census.

682 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

A second feature of this data set is that whilst Gwynedd (4,436), Anglesey (1,611) Cere-

digion (1,632) and Carmarthenshire (2,497) each have relatively high numbers who speak

Welsh ﬂ uently at home, it is only Carmarthenshire which has double the number who

cannot speak Welsh ﬂ uently or not at all at 7,504. In part this represents the geo linguistic

reality of demographic change and within family language transmission, but it also reﬂ ects

Carmarthenshire’s vacillating experience of Welsh medium provision as opposed to the

more ‘progressive’ educational policies of other counties within Y Fro Gymraeg.

The current aim is to create a bilingual Wales, and a heavy burden has been placed

upon the statutory education system to realize this aim. A great deal will depend on

adequate funding, on the availability of proper teaching resources in terms of teachers

and material, and on the introduction of specialist retraining courses for teachers. Spe-

cial skills are required for second- language teaching especially if the language is to be

more than a subject on the curriculum and is to become a vehicle for all kinds of experi-

ences and knowledge. Many more teachers need to be recruited for linguistic training in

Welsh, so that there are adequate numbers of competent teachers in all areas at all levels

extending from nursery to secondary.

An interesting development has been the National

Practitioners’ Training Programme, run in north Wales by Bangor University and in south

Wales by Cardiff University. By the spring of 2008 ﬁ ve very successful courses had been

run in each centre. The teachers are seconded from their schools to receive intensive

training in Welsh language skills and to refresh their communication skills in key areas.

Supply cover costs are met from the Welsh Assembly Government- funded scheme and

this proven model is to be replicated on a larger scale in order to meet some of the struc-

tural demands inherent in the insufﬁ cient supply of Welsh- medium teachers within an

education system which is becoming increasingly bilingual.

The effectiveness of the proposals will depend on the expertise, good will and enthusi-

asm of teachers and at grass- roots level on the pupils themselves. They need to realize that

there is a point in learning Welsh, that it can be used in a cross- section of relevant social

situations. The teaching, learning and the use of Welsh must be advantageous for social

communication if it is to be successful.

One of the agencies which has helped strengthen and boost the role of Welsh over the

past forty years or so is the nursery schools movement, Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin. The

ﬁ rst Welsh- medium playgroup was established in Cardiff in the late 1940s because young

parents saw the beneﬁ ts of such sessions for their pre- school youngsters to socialize, play

and extend their range of acquaintances and experiences through the medium of Welsh. In

an anglicized area this had a sound sociolinguistic base because it helped expand the chil-

dren’s range of registers and established Welsh as the language of play. By the mid- 1960s

there were approximately 20 similar groups in existence and by 1971 when Mudiad Ysgo-

lion Meithrin was ofﬁ cially established there were 70 playgroups operating, attracting

less than 1 per cent of the pre- school age group. By 1973 a total of 137 Mudiad Ysgo-

lion Meithrin groups operated and by 1978 this ﬁ gure had more than doubled to 280 with

approximately 3,200 children attending. By 1983 the number of groups had increased to

403 and later in 1988 there were 538 groups plus 320 mother- and- toddler groups. During

1988 a total of 11,258 children attended these playgroups, with 4,510 coming from Welsh-

speaking homes but the majority (6,748) from non- Welsh- speaking homes. The most

recent ﬁ gures for 2006/7 suggest that there were 550 MYM groups, and a further 450

‘Cylchoedd Ti a Fi’ which enable mothers and their toddlers to experience Welsh- medium

pre- school activities.

The Mudiad’s vision and policy rest squarely on the necessity to give every child, irre-

spective of language background, colour or creed, an opportunity to learn through play in

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT OF WELSH 683

a Welsh linguistic environment. The linguistic policy is explained to every parent at the

outset and English- speaking parents are often surprised at how easy it is for young chil-

dren to learn a second language through play. Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin serves a dual

role in contemporary Wales. It strengthens and consolidates Welsh as a social language,

and it has a part in changing the attitudes of non- Welsh speakers by showing them that

bilingualism is preferable to monolingualism. The ﬁ gures for 2007 show how success-

ful Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin has been in attracting non- Welsh- speaking parents. It is no

longer a case of mounting a rearguard action to stop further erosion in traditional Welsh-

speaking areas, but also a real attempt to regain ground which was lost one, two or three

generations ago. In the mother- and- toddler groups the mothers remain present through-

out the session and non- Welsh speakers are encouraged to learn simple words and phrases

based on the daily activities of their children – dressing up, going to bed, eating. The

informal language- learning aspect is aimed at both child and parent simultaneously. Par-

ents are encouraged to learn with their children. This gives added motivation to parents to

attend local language- learning classes.

The expansion in the number of playgroups from 137 in 1973 to 517 in 2006/7 and the

introduction of mother- and- toddler groups in 1980 reaching a total of 451 such groups

in 2006 is quite remarkable. The core grant to MYM from the Welsh Language Board

stands at about £1,123, 600 and the organization also draws down ﬁ nance from a number

of other organizations, giving it a total income in 2006/7 of £5,816,248.

To that extent it

is an excellent example of a central agency, with a clear mandate, being able to navigate

its way through the various ﬁ nancial channels with considerable success and acumen.

This work in conjunction with the Ysgolion Cymraeg gives children an opportunity to be

bilinguals even when family background is not so. The next step is to generate a steady

ﬂ ow of new bilingual adults. Children who learn Welsh as a second language are far more

likely to gain total ﬂ uency and conﬁ dence if they have the opportunity to use the language

within their own homes as well as within their peer group in the playgroup and at school.

ADULT WELSH LEARNERS

During the 1960s and early 1970s adult Welsh classes were part of the night- school scene

but there was no structured course aimed speciﬁ cally at adults and especially at achiev-

ing oral ﬂ uency. Most classes taught literary Welsh, which often meant that learners could

not identify in the spoken Welsh of their areas the patterns and structures which they were

taught in class. When trying out their newly acquired Welsh phrases, learners were fre-

quently ‘corrected’ by native speakers who found listening to literary Welsh being spoken

a very unnatural experience because of its formal connotations. Such classes were often

sporadic, and held during the winter months, one evening per week, lacking progression

from one year to the next. Several residential summer courses were held which brought

learners from different areas together and gave them intensive tuition for a limited period.

Because of an upsurge in interest and greater demand for Welsh classes from parents,

grandparents, employees and newcomers to Welsh- speaking areas and because of immense

improvements in the facilities available, the success rate in gaining competent ﬂ uency

was much higher during the 1980s. In 1974 the University of Wales appointed a Welsh

Language Ofﬁ cer with the speciﬁ c task of organizing structured courses for adult learn-

ers. The result was the Wlpan Welsh course – an intensive course aiming primarily at

oral ﬂ uency extending over two hours per session several times a week for a period of

twelve weeks or so, giving a total of one hundred contact hours. Other more advanced

684 THE SOCIOLINGUISTICS OF THE CELTIC LANGUAGES

post- Wlpan courses follow, aimed at extending the learners’ range of registers, oral and

spoken, informal and formal. The initial emphasis is upon teaching oral Welsh, taking

great care to introduce dialect features local to the area. Literary Welsh is taught at a later

stage. The ﬁ nal stage of this course leads to an examination and, for successful candidates,

the University of Wales Certiﬁ cate of Proﬁ ciency in Welsh is awarded. Several of these

candidates have progressed to university to follow a degree course in Welsh. The Certiﬁ -

cate itself is also taken as a professional qualiﬁ cation by employees such as those of local

government authorities, social services, the civil service and the banks. The Welsh Joint

Education Committee has now appointed an ofﬁ cer in charge of teaching Welsh to adults

whose main contribution is that of setting out assessment objectives for different levels

of learners and arranging courses for both tutors and students. It publishes information

sheets several times a year which set out the various day courses, publications and devel-

opments relevant to the adult- learner scene. It also disseminates information about CYD

(Cymdeithas y Dysgwyr, ‘Learners’ Society’; cyd means ‘joining’ or ‘union’) and Pont

(Bridge), a society that aims to integrate learners into the mainstream of Welsh- language

social and cultural life. These, coupled with the advent of Welsh clubs in anglicized areas,

not only supply social settings where learners can socialize with native speakers, and thus

have opportunities to speak the language with non- learners, but they also help to dispel

the old tendencies which Carol Trosset describes:

All learners I spoke to agreed that the hardest thing about learning Welsh is getting

opportunities to speak it. In general people do not speak to learners in Welsh. Even

when they know that someone is learning Welsh and wants to hear it spoken, Welsh

speakers will tend to use English in his presence. Learners attempting to converse in

Welsh with native speakers often ﬁ nd that the ﬁ rst time they make a linguistic mis-

take, thus signalling their lack of total ﬂ uency, the Welsh speakers will switch to

English.

(Trosset 1986: 169)

It is now realized how important it is to integrate learners into Welsh life inguistically,

socially and culturally. CYD, Pont, Cymdeithas yr Iaith, Merched y Wawr (Welsh version

of the Women’s Institute), Yr Urdd and local Welsh societies have an important role in

accomplishing this end. The story of Nant Gwrtheyrn on the Lleyn peninsula amply illus-

trates the enthusiasm and determination within Wales in the 1980s to set up a viable Welsh

language centre in what was once an abandoned village. The will for the language to sur-

vive, the intensity of feelings concerning the language, and the dramatic spread of Welsh

education from nursery to adult level could be considered as the most important hallmarks

of the 1980s. The decade could be labelled ‘The Welsh learner’s decade’ and at the current

rate of growth, there will be more second- language Welsh speakers than there are native

speakers in the foreseeable future. Today Nant Gwrtheyrn has diversiﬁ ed its provision and

now faces a very vibrant future after experiencing considerable ﬁ nancial difﬁ culties.

PUBLISHING

The past three census reports indicate a deﬁ nite relationship in some areas between lan-

guage shift and low literacy levels in Welsh. This situation came into being partly due to

the English education system, and partly due to the weakening of the role of the Sunday

school within the local communities. Even in strong Welsh- speaking areas, people who

THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC CONTEXT OF WELSH 685

prefer to speak Welsh rather than English will feel far more at ease reading and writ-

ing in English rather than in Welsh. Reading and writing in Welsh progressively became

a middle- class/educated/professional phenomenon. In many working- class and indus-

trialized areas, the domains of Welsh became restricted to a ﬁ nite number of ﬁ elds and

relationships and to the oral medium only. By the 1950s the once proliﬁ c publication

trends in terms of books, periodicals and journals had been reversed and the whole future

of Welsh publishing was in the balance. The readership was continually shrinking and the

spectrum of material which saw the light of day was restrictive in its appeal. There was a

real danger of the written word in Welsh becoming a mode restricted to academics, poets

and literary critics. Publishing in Wales was in a critical state. In October 1951 the gov-

ernment established a committee under the chairmanship of A. W. Ready to examine the

state of Welsh- language publishing. Its ﬁ ndings were disturbingly forthright: ‘A bookless

people is a rootless people, doomed to lose its identity and its power of contributing to the

common fund of civilisation . . . If the published language goes, the language itself as a

cultural medium will soon follow: and if Welsh goes a bastardized vernacular will take its

place.’ Action had to be taken.

The outcome of the report was the establishing of the Welsh Books Committee under

the aegis of the Welsh Joint Education Committee. In 1954 it launched a scheme to

increase the supply of interesting and appealing books to schools. At the same time a net-

work of Welsh book societies was established to promote the role of popular Welsh books

and therefore extend the readership network among adults. This latter movement even-

tually resulted in the establishment of the Welsh Books Council in 1961. In 1956 central

government established an annual grant of £1,000 for ﬁ ve years to aid publishers in the

publication of Welsh books for adults only.

By the mid- 1970s four separate bodies were providing ﬁ nancial support to authors and

publishers in Wales – The University of Wales Press Board, The Welsh Joint Education

Committee, The Welsh Arts Council and The Welsh Books Council. Positive steps were

made to rationalize this situation as highlighted in the Ready Report (Home Ofﬁ ce 1951:

2). But this support system had developed in an ad hoc manner and central co- ordination

was lacking. These were the main points raised in 1978 by the Council for the Welsh

Language’s report Publishing in the Welsh Language: ‘the need for a general strategy is

inescapable . . . the very nature of the present system, developed ad hoc over a number

of years often makes co- ordination of purpose and effort difﬁ cult. It also runs the risk of

not being completely attuned to customer demand which in our opinion, is the most im-

portant factor of all’ (1978b: 79–80). After 1981 the Welsh Books Council administered

the Government Grant to the publishers of Welsh books for adults, with support from the

Welsh Arts Council. Between 1981 and 1986 the Welsh Books Council supported a total

of 546 titles, and the Welsh Arts Council supported 44 titles in the 1982–7 period. Finan-

cial support for these publications totalled £638,720 (Market Research Working Party

1988: 10–12).

In the late 1960s the Welsh Joint Education Committee became responsible for the

publication of Welsh reading books. The Welsh Reading Books Scheme was based on the

principle of guaranteed sales. The local education authorities were committed to buying a

total of 1,300 copies of each title. This also guaranteed that new, interesting and appealing

children’s books reached the targeted readership. Between 1982 and 1988, this scheme

supported a total of 129 titles at a cost of £592,020 (Market Research Working Party

1988: 14). In 1978 the Welsh Books Council accepted an invitation to administer a new

grant aimed at fostering leisure reading for children and young adults. This rectiﬁ ed the

imbalance that had previously existed within this age range. Books of a high standard in