Languages of Wales
| Languages of Wales | |
|---|---|
| Official | English (99%)[1] Welsh (29.3%),[2] |
| Immigrant | Urdu, Somali, Cantonese, Polish, Irish |
| Foreign | French German Italian Spanish |
| Signed | British Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
| Part of a series on the |
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The languages of Wales include the Welsh language, which is an official language of Wales, and treated equally to English. The official languages of the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) are also Welsh and English. As of June 2022, 30% of people in Wales can speak Welsh and 99% can speak English according to the annual population survey.
Official languages
Welsh is an official language of Wales, and is treated equally to English.[3][4] The official languages of the Senedd are Welsh and English.[5]
Welsh
Welsh is a Celtic language primarily spoken in Wales. It is the traditional language of Wales but was supplanted in large part by English, becoming a minority language in the early 20th century.[6] For the year ending 30 June 2022, the Welsh Annual Population Survey showed that 29.7%, 899,500 people aged three or older were able to speak Welsh.[7] According to the 2011 census, Welsh is spoken by 19% of the population.[8]
Main language
In Wales, 96.7% of usual residents (2.9 million) aged three and above spoke Welsh or English as their main language. This was compared to 97.1% in 2011.[9]
Of the 101,000 people in Wales who did not speak Welsh or English as a main language in 2021, 78.0% said they could speak English well or very well, similar to 77.1% in 2011. 22.0% of people who did not speak English or Welsh as a main language could not speak English very well or at all.[9]
In both 2011 and 2021, Polish was the most spoken main language after Welsh and English, accounting for for 0.7% of the population (21,000), up from 0.6% in 2011. Arabic was the next most common main language in Wales at 0.3%, up from 0.2% in 2011.[9]
British Sign Language (BSL) was the preferred language of 900 (0.03%), up from 800 in 2011. An additional 300 usual residents used another form of sign language or communication system other than BSL.[9]
English
According to the 2011 census, English is spoken by 99% of the population.[1]
Welsh English
Welsh English or Anglo-Welsh is the distinct form of English used in Wales.
Aside from lexical borrowings from Welsh like bach (little, wee), eisteddfod, nain and taid (grandmother and grandfather respectively), there exist distinctive grammatical conventions in vernacular Welsh English. Examples of this include the use by some speakers of the tag question isn't it? regardless of the form of the preceding statement and the placement of the subject and the verb after the predicate for emphasis, e.g. Fed up, I am or Running on Friday, he is.[10]
In South Wales, the word "where" may often be expanded to "where to", as in the question, "Where to is your Mam?". The word "butty" is used to mean "friend" or "mate".[11]
There is no standard variety of English that is specific to Wales, but such features are readily recognised by Anglophones from the rest of the UK as being from Wales, including the (actually rarely used) phrase look you which is a translation of a Welsh language tag.[10]
Welsh Romani
Welsh Romani (or Welsh Romany; sometimes also known as Kååle[12]) is a variety of the Romani language which was spoken fluently in Wales until at least 1950.[13] It was spoken by the Kale group of the Romani people who arrived in Britain during the 15th century. The first record of Roma in Wales comes from the 16th century. Welsh Romani is one of the many Northern Romani dialects.[14]
Sign languages
In 2017, the British Deaf Association claimed there were about 6,000 British Sign Language (BSL) users in Wales.[15] Ongoing training and courses in BSL are offered in Wales by the Wales Council for Deaf People (WCDP), a voluntary umbrella organisation.[16]
Makaton has limited use in Wales. It is not a sign language but a system using signs and symbols to help people who find speaking difficult, such as people with Downs syndrome.[17]
Norman French and Latin
Latin is also used to a limited degree in certain official mottos, legal terminology (habeas corpus), and various ceremonial contexts. Latin abbreviations can also be seen on British coins. The use of Latin has declined greatly in recent years. At one time, Latin and Greek were commonly taught in British schools.[18]
See also
References
- ^ a b QS205EW - Proficiency in English, ONS 2011 census. Out of the 2,955,841 residents of Wales over the age of three, 2,936,536 (99%) can speak English "well" or "very well". Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- ^ "'Encouraging' increase in Welsh speakers". BBC News. 22 September 2018. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
- ^ "Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011". legislation.gov.uk.
- ^ "Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 | Law Wales". law.gov.wales. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
- ^ "Official Languages Scheme" (PDF). Senedd.Wales.
- ^ "The Industrial Revolution". Wales History. BBC. Retrieved 30 December 2011.
- ^ "Welsh language data from the Annual Population Survey: July 2021 to June 2022". GOV.WALES. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
- ^ QS206WA - Welsh language skills, ONS 2011 census. Out of the 2,955,841 residents of Wales over the age of three, 562,016 (19%) can speak Welsh. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
- ^ a b c d "Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion in Wales (Census 2021)". GOV.WALES. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
- ^ a b Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, pp. 335
- ^ "Why butty rarely leaves Wales". Wales Online. 1 October 2006.
- ^ "ROMLEX: Romani Dialects". romani.uni-graz.at.
- ^ Price, Glanville (2000) Languages in Britain and Ireland, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
- ^ Norbert Boretzky: Kommentierter Dialektatlas des Romani. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004 p. 18
- ^ Price, Ben (15 March 2017). "Sign language costs 'too high' for some families". BBC News. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
- ^ "WCDP - A voice with you". Welsh Council for Deaf People. WCDP. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
- ^ "Call for Makaton signs to be taught in Wales' schools". BBC News. 6 May 2019. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
- ^ Bryn Mawr Classical Review 98.6.16. Ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved on 2011-03-17.