Cardiff is a multi-cultural melting pot that attracts people from across the globe. Yet its metropolitan nature can often disguise the city’s growing Welsh community. Home to 33,000 Welsh speakers, the language is growing steadily in the capital, particularly in the West.
Map showing numbers of Welsh speakers in Cardiff 1999-2001:
Historically, Cardiff was not a Welsh-speaking city, but it has since been transformed. There is greater confidence in the language, and people are increasingly proud to speak it, as these figures published by Cardiff Council show:
- 1991: 18,064 Welsh speakers in Cardiff (those who could read, write and/or understand Welsh)
- 2001: 31,944 Welsh speakers
The Welsh language itself has been in the spotlight recently. Last week the Welsh Language Measure was approved by Assembly Members, and there have been suggestions that S4C should broadcast English programmes, amid plans to scale back the broadcaster.
I spoke to Professor Mark Drakeford, and discovered that while Cardiff boasts 33,000 Welsh speakers, that impressive figure amounts to just 11% of all Welsh speakers in Wales.
Prof Drakeford served as Rhodri Morgan’s chief special adviser for almost ten years, and is now the prospective Labour candidate for the Cardiff West constituency, following Morgan’s decision to retire.
Having grown up in Carmarthen he moved to Cardiff in 1979. He spoke of how far the Welsh language has come.”You would expect these days as a Welsh speaker that if you wanted to conduct a conversation or a discussion with almost any official body in Welsh that you would be able to do it, and I think that is a huge change,” he said.
Elliw Iwan, who is part of the Welsh-medium Development team at Cardiff University, agreed. “Welsh was previously a language that had to defend itself, but now it is not like that.”
Angharad Thomas, a Youth Officer from Menter Caerdydd, said. “Welsh is everywhere. People just don’t notice. When tourists visit one of the first things they say is ‘the signs are in Welsh and English! Wow!’ We just take them for granted. Welsh is everywhere, on road signs, on menus. You hear it on the street more and more.”
Menter Caerdydd is a not-for-profit organisation funded by the Welsh Language Board and local councils, which promotes the Welsh language through activities for people of all ages. Ms Thomas, who works at the Cardiff branch, said:
“I feel a real bond, a real affiliation with the language. Language is a culture, a long-standing identity. It is about more than communicating – it’s who you are.”
Ms Iwan agreed. “Language is so emotional. That’s why they call it your ‘mother tongue’, she passes it on.”
Ms Thomas argued that Welsh speakers are largely misunderstood. “If I request something in Welsh, people ask ‘why do you want a copy in Welsh when you can speak English?’, but it’s about more than communication,” she said. “There are many pre-conceptions of Welsh speakers. People don’t understand bilingualism.”
Prof Drakeford agreed with this, and helped to dispel some of those myths:
Turning to S4C, which is based in Llanishen, Cardiff, Ms Thomas said: “I wouldn’t want English programmes on S4C. There are so many English shows on TV already, if we start hosting English programmes it may as well not be there.”
Prof Drakeford agreed: “I don’t think you can be serious about the future of a language if it doesn’t have its own broadcaster in the modern world.”
Ms Iwan added: “It’s more than a channel, it’s a way of safeguarding out language.”
In contrast, Welsh speaker Dafydd Pritchard said he would be happy to see the broadcaster host English programmes:
The Welsh language is also under scrutiny after calls for it to be given official status. In October the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) made amendments to a proposed law on the Welsh language, which they claimed would give it equal status with English in Wales, requiring companies and public bodies to use more of it.
But both Ms Thomas and Prof Drakeford doubt the significance of the move: “Making Welsh official wouldn’t make a difference to communities,” said Ms Thomas. “English isn’t an official language, but of course it is in a way.”
Prof Drakeford echoed this:
Ms Iwan said: “We cannot make everyone learn it. We have to be realistic. We need to create a healthy attitude towards Welsh, and develop an understanding of the culture.”
Welsh-medium education is also a particularly interesting issue in Cardiff, because around 85% of Welsh speakers come from English speaking homes. Increasingly parents are sending their children to one of the two Welsh-medium secondary schools in Cardiff, even though they themselves cannot understand the language.
A sign of this trend, a third Welsh-medium secondary school is due to be built in Cardiff by 2012.
Prof Drakeford spoke passionately about Welsh-medium education, describing it as a “unifying language” in multi-cultural schools in Cardiff:
He also spoke of the issue of resources in education:
Ms Iwan, who works to promote the Welsh language at Cardiff University, said there exists a strong community of Welsh speaking students in Cardiff. “There is a growing demand – students have a voice. It is gradually becoming more common to teach university courses in Welsh.”
It is clear that the Welsh language is a vital component of Cardiff life, and one which is set to grow over coming years – just this week the WAG unveiled A Living Language: A Language for Living – a new strategy to ensure the Welsh language is used in all areas of daily life.
Ms Iwan expressed her desire to help create “a bilingual Wales”, and spoke passionately about the future of the language:
“We’ve got everything in place to safeguard Welsh, but now we need to get people to use it. We need to normalise the language, instead of having Welsh speakers in one box and non-Welsh speakers in another.”
For more information…..
“Video Flashcards: Level 1 – Saesneg for Welsh Speakers”:
The Corridors of Power 
11 comments
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December 16, 2010 at 7:40 pm
MH @ Syniadau
I’ve just stumbled upon this blog by accident, Emma. It looks very interesting.
But I’m glad Mark Drakeford isn’t a professor of mathematics. If 33,000 is 11% of Welsh speakers in Wales, it would mean there were only 300,000. There were in fact 582,383 in the 2001 census.
But other than that, it’s an excellent article.
December 17, 2010 at 1:10 am
emcfarnon
Oh I think another organisation gave me those figures, not Mark Drakeford. Thanks for pointing out that mistake, I’m not too hot on the mathematics side of things so I overlooked that 🙂
December 16, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Dafydd Tomos
Interesting article but you have a curious use of the word ‘historical’. Does history only start in the 20th century? ‘Historically’ Welsh was spoken the by the majority of people in Wales and in Cardiff. However Cardiff was a very small village until the turn of the 19th century.
The historical difference between so-called ‘Welsh-speaking’ areas and ‘anglicised’ areas is that the Welsh-speaking areas were largely monoglot. The south-eastern areas of Wales were more bilingual or trilingual in nature.
The population of Cardiff exploded in the 19th century, swamping the Welsh speaking population by 1850 as shown by the reduction in Welsh-speaking churches.
Perhaps ‘growing community’ should be called ‘regrowing’.
December 17, 2010 at 1:13 am
emcfarnon
Really interesting stuff there, thanks Dafydd. I hope you did history at university given your passion for the subject 🙂
December 17, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Rhys
Historically, Cardiff was not a Welsh-speaking city
I’d contest this statement as well. While there has been a very large increase in speakers in the city over the past 20 years or so (driven by migration from rural Wales and growth of welsh medium education – 15 WM primary schools and 2 secondary?), you only have to look at all the Welsh medium places of worship in the city to see that there has always been a significant welsh speaking population here for them to serve. There’s 3 or 4 in the city centre, 1 in Roath, Cathays, Canton and Rhiwbeina + I’m sure many were knocked down in the docks.
I read somewhere (but no link sorry) that in the 1891 or 1901 census, certain parts of Cardiff had 30% welsh speakers, and this rose to 70% in Pentrych.
I you’re interested, the following might be of interest:
Language and Community in the Nineteenth Century edited by Geraint H. Jenkins
(particularly Chapter 6: The Welsh Language in Cardiff c.1800-1914 by Owen John Thomas)
and
‘Tiger Bay a’r Diwylliant Cymraeg’ (Tigeg bay and Welsh Culture), Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion 2008 by Dr Simon Brooks of Cardiff University
December 19, 2010 at 10:26 am
John
There is no denying that there has been a huge inward migration of Welsh speakers from the NW and West of Wales to Cardiff but the proportion of Welsh speakers in Cardiff has in fact fallen by the measure of the Annual Population survey.
The APS is not as definitive as the census but nevertheless shows trends; they have 65,800 Welsh speakers in 2001 and 49,500 in 2009 (22.4% to 15.9%)
I would also argue that some of the other statements in the piece are demonstrably untrue. Welsh as the unifying language in a multi-cultural Cardiff?
Look at the statistics for ethnic minority pupils in Welsh Medium Cardiff schools
Ysgol Glantaf…..6%
Ysgol Plasmawr……6.8%
These are the lowest and second lowest in Cardiff.
Average of English Medium schools 22%
The same pattern is there to the same extent in primary schools. Welsh Medium education is divisive not unifying.
As to 85% of pupils coming from English speaking homes;
“The economic, social and linguistic background of the pupils is very varied. This year, 6.3% of pupils are registered as being entitled to free school meals and this is significantly lower than county and national averages. All the pupils are able to speak Welsh and, usually, they have received Welsh medium education at the primary school. Sixty eight per cent of pupils come from homes where Welsh is not the first language. Around 97% of pupils and students belong to the white ethnic group. This means that the percentage of pupils and students from different ethnic backgrounds at this school is much lower than the percentage for the City of Cardiff. There are no pupils in the care of the local authority.”
That is the estyn profile of Ysgol Glantaf.
“About 22% of the pupils come from homes where the predominant language spoken is Welsh. Seventy-five per cent of pupils come from homes where English is the predominant language.”
And that is the profile of Ysgol Plasmawr; nothing gets near the 85% claim.
And don’t forget that there is no figure for the homes that have just one fluent Welsh speaking parent.
It’s fine to be a cheer leader for all things Welsh speaking but a little honest research wouldn’t go amiss.
December 19, 2010 at 10:58 am
emcfarnon
Thanks for your comments John.
I would like to point out:
a) I have conducted “honest research”. I got all my figures from people who work in this area on a daily basis, and from the Cardiff Council website (http://bit.ly/fZTD3k)
b) You contested the idea that Welsh is a unifying language in multi-cultural schools, and appear to suggest I should not have included this in the piece. Firstly, I was quoting the opinion of somebody I had interviewed, not making a “statement” of fact as you imply. Secondly, Mark Drakeford was the School governor in Riverside, Fairwater, Canton and Radyr, including many years as governor of Severn Road schools and Fitzalan High School. He was also the first ever chair of governors at new Welsh medium schools at Ysgol Treganna and Ysgol Pencae. He is therefore a more than credible person to quote when discussing Welsh-medium education.
December 19, 2010 at 5:46 pm
John
People who work in this area on a daily basis are not necessarily credible when it comes to statistics.
As for Mark Drakeford; as chair of Governors at Treganna he would have been responsible for the policy of not allowing the Treganna children to share playtimes with the Radnor children on the same school site. The reason for this was the Welsh speaking “Ethos”. Children in Treganna cannot be allowed to mix with the English speaking and culturally diverse children in Radnor.
Radnor…..34% Ethnic Minorities
Treganna…..13% Ethnic Minorities.
Think about it; two schools on the same site with the same catchment. Are you going to let it pass without question that The Welsh Language is a unifying force in multi cultural schools in Cardiff when the reverse is so obviously true?
I’ll give you a hand, the most “Multi-cultural” Welsh Medium school in Cardiff is Ysgol Cymraeg Pwll Coch with just 17% from ethnic minoroty backgrounds.
The average of all Welsh Medium primary schools is 6.7%. In line with the two secondary schools.
WM schools just are not multi-cultural.
But even looked at rationally, without the DCELLS statistics, What is the most unifying language in the WORLD (not just Cardiff) is it a minority language spoken fluently by 12% of the population of Wales or is it English?
You seem to question my stats. you can check the two Quotes from Estyn here;
http://www.estyn.gov.uk/inspection_reports_index/secondary_schools.asp
Welsh speakers in Cardiff 2001-2009 APS
http://www.statswales.wales.gov.uk/ReportFolders/reportFolders.aspx
Ethnic Minorities in schools you have to use Information request to statswales.
Don’t believe everything you are told without checking.
PS I notice that Rhys, above has recommended;
‘Tiger Bay a’r Diwylliant Cymraeg’ (Tigeg bay and Welsh Culture), Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion 2008 by Dr Simon Brooks of Cardiff University.
Dr. Simon Brooks was one of the founder members of an anti-English movement, “Cymuned” in North West and Mid Wales in the early years of the decade. They became famous for the “Colonists out” and “English out” slogans painted on walls around the country at that time. He now teaches at Cardiff University and sends his daughter to Treganna.
December 21, 2010 at 10:48 am
Jim
Of course, what John doesn’t explain to us is how the English people who move to west/north wales and don’t bother to learn the language are exactly “pro-welsh”.
Thus betraying his basic anglocentric viewpoint…
December 22, 2010 at 8:51 pm
D Evans
Good article and it is very heartening to see the growth of the Welsh language in place like Cardiff and south east of Wales.
Demand for Welsh medium education is outstripping supply and we need far more WMD school to meet this evergrowing demand.
February 17, 2011 at 6:22 pm
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