Lliw Valley The Number Of Welsh Speakers example essay topic

Sociolinguistics LING 2150 Assessment 1 Use the census data available on Welsh to build up a picture of what happened to a chosen small area of Wales over a period for which data is available in the census. The focus of your discussion should be on the rise / fall /stability of the minority language. Try to use data about the age of speakers, and degree of literacy. For this essay, I plan to look at what has happened to the number of speakers of Welsh in both Swansea and the Lliw Valley over time by using census data, comparing the two areas which both lie in South Wales in the county of West Glamorgan. These areas are of a similar size, with Swansea recorded in the 1991 census as being 24,590 hectares, and the Lliw Valley as 21,754 hectares. These measurements do not differ more than 500 hectares from year to year in the data I will use, however, I will have to take into account the fact that the boundaries for Welsh counties sometimes change between censuses.

For this reason, I will have to be very careful when choosing my data. The population of my chosen areas differs dramatically though. In the 1991 census it was recorded that the population of Swansea was 181,906 and the Lliw Valley was 63,099. This means that in Swansea there are 7.4 persons per hectare contrasted with 2.9 in the Lliw Valley. Due to this, I thought it would be interesting to compare such an urban area as Swansea with a rather more rural area as the Lliw Valley to see if there are any differences that can be found regarding the number of Welsh speakers.

We can see these two areas on the following map. Note the dense network of major roads around the Swansea area contrasted with the small amount in the Lliw Valley. Also, we can see that the counties of Dyfed and Powys are large rural areas, with sparse scatterings of major roads: (The public's library and digital archive, 1993) "Of the languages spoken at the present time in mainland Britain, Welsh has been here by far the longest", (Price, 1984: 94), so why, may we ask, has it come to be that it is only spoken by a minority of the Welsh population? This is due to a lack of education in Welsh, and the introduction of big companies in major cities such as the DVLA in Swansea, which not only entices English speakers from England to move, but also means that due to the fact that business is generally made in English, this is the language that will most often be used in these urban areas. In 1901, 50% of the Welsh population could speak Welsh, however, in 1981 this is down to only 19%. To study this decrease in Welsh speakers, I will look more closely at the areas of Swansea and the Lliw Valley, relating the numbers of Welsh speakers to their age, migration of speakers, degree of literacy (regarding whether or not they can read or write Welsh), and finally economic activity.

Looking at the number of Welsh speakers aged 3 and over in each area, I have used data in censuses from 1961 to 2001, however, due to boundary changes it is not possible to provide an accurate number of Welsh speakers for the Lliw Valley in either 1971 or 2001. This table shows the number of speakers of Welsh in my two chosen areas: Area 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 Lliw Valley 53,504 - 24,788 22,369 -Swansea 171,399 21,430 18,465 17,500 5,973 We can see that the number of speakers has greatly decreased in both areas, however it should be noted that recently there are more speakers of Welsh in the more rural area of the Lliw Valley. The number of Welsh speakers in Swansea in 1961 seems to be rather large, and I feel that it should be discounted as a misprint. This is due to that fact that it does not seem feasible to state that around 150,000 Welsh speakers were lost from Swansea in the decade between the 1961 and 1971 censuses. If we look at the data from the years 1981 and 1991, we can see that in the Lliw Valley the number of Welsh speakers decreases by 2,419, whereas the number of speakers decreases in Swansea by 965.

This could be due to migration of Welsh speakers from rural areas to urban due to the increase of industry and jobs in the city. We can test this theory by looking at the 1991 census data. The largest numbers of Welsh speaking people that have moved from Dyfed, a rural area in Wales, are those that have moved to West Glamorgan, 257 (where Swansea lies), followed by South Glamorgan, 171 (where Cardiff lies). These two areas include large cities, so they follow my idea that many Welsh speakers have moved from rural to urban areas. Even though there are currently more speakers of Welsh in rural areas, this number could eventually start to settle due to this migration, however without the continuation of teaching Welsh in schools and support from the government, the numbers of speakers would still continue to deteriorate. We can look at recent census data from 1991 to divide up the numbers from Table A and look at the degree of literacy - whether these people are able to speak, read or write Welsh, or do a combination of the three: Area TOTAL PERSONS Speaks Welsh Reads Welsh Writes Welsh Speaks and reads Welsh Speaks, reads and writes Welsh Either speaks, reads or writes WelshLliw Valley 60,588 22,369 17,179 13,736 16,067 13,262 23,522 Swansea 174,962 17,500 14,715 10,937 12,180 9,894 20,183 From this data we can see that the fewest amounts of people write Welsh in both areas.

Also, the number for each column is less for Swansea, showing that Swansea has fewer speakers / readers /writers of Welsh than the Lliw Valley. 69.6% of people that live in Swansea who can speak Welsh can also read it compared to 71.8% in the Lliw Valley. 81.2% of those who can speak and read Welsh can also write it in Swansea, compared to 82.5% in the Lliw Valley. As these numbers are so similar, we cannot make conclusions about which area is more literate.

However, if we look at the percentage of the population who can speak, read and write Welsh, we get 5.7% in Swansea and 21.9% in the Lliw Valley. This is a noticeable difference, so we can conclude that generally, more persons are fully literate in the rural area. When we look at the total numbers of persons however, we can see that Swansea has a far larger population. This means that only around 10% of the population of Swansea speak Welsh, compared to around 37% in the Lliw Valley. So even though the Lliw Valley has a much smaller population than Swansea, there are more speakers of Welsh in the rural area.

The following graph, showing the age of speakers in the two areas supports this: Graph to show number of speakers of Welsh in the Lliw Valley and Swansea in 1991 regarding their age: The 5-15 years bracket shows a large number of speakers in each area - around 2,500, which then die off until the 25-44 years bracket where it starts to rise again. There is a steeper gradient to the line representing the speakers in the Lliw Valley between the 16-24 and 25-44 year brackets, showing that in this area, this is the period in which most speakers learn their native language. This data is from the 1991 census, and if we look at data from the 1981 census, we can see that this occurs here as well as the peak in the 5-15 year bracket. Also in the 1981 data, we can see that there is apeak in the number of speakers of Welsh in the 45-64 years age bracket for the Lliw Valley, which does not occur in the other data: Graph to show numbers of Speakers of Welsh in West Glamorgan in 1981 regarding their age: The decline in numbers of people able to speak Welsh occurs around university age. This could be due to the fact that many students from England who do not speak Welsh choose universities in Wales, and so the numbers in speakers would be pulled down. When we look at data in the 1991 census, we can see that there are 7.2% students in the Swansea area and 6.05% in the Lliw Valley.

So we would expect the lines on both previous graphs to have roughly the same gradient, as these numbers are fairly similar. The Council for Wales and Monmouthshire (1963: 99-100) mention "pamphlets issued by the Ministry of Education" which state that children should be taught in their mother tongue at primary school and that "the second language, English or Welsh, should be gradually introduced during those early years". By secondary school, children should be competent in both languages "such as to enable him to profit from any type of secondary education", however, it states that at secondary school, only an "opportunity should be provided for the study of Welsh". Due to this, many children find themselves in a position where the study of Welsh is not made compulsory.

It is always helpful to look at percentages, especially in this case where the populations of my two areas are so different, in order to view the data in another light. The following table shows the percentage of persons speaking Welsh in different age groups. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find such data which used the same groupings that I have previously used in my graphs, however we can still make some sense of it. Area Total Persons Percentage born in Wales Percentage of persons ages 3 and over speaking Welsh Persons aged: 3-15 16-44 45-64 65 and over Total = 100 per cent Percentage speaking Welsh Total = 100 per cent Percentage speaking Welsh Total = 100 per cent Percentage speaking Welsh Total = 100 per cent Percentage speaking WelshLliw Valley 63,099 87.2 36.9 10,648 29.6 25,020 26.2 13,790 42.9 11,130 60.5 Swansea 181,906 83.3 10.0 29,380 11.3 71,039 6.0 41,845 10.1 32,698 17.3 The first thing to notice is the reasonably similar percentage of the population that were born in Wales - 87.2% in the Lliw Valley and 83.3% in Swansea.

We would probably expect there to be a slightly smaller percentage in Swansea as, due to it being an urban area it is far more likely to have migrants from another country, for example England, moving there for job opportunities in large industries rather than the rural Lliw Valley. However, when we look at the next column, labelled 'percentage of persons aged 3 and over speaking Welsh,' we can still see the huge difference we have now come to expect. A much higher percentage of people speak Welsh who live in the rural area of the Lliw Valley rather than Swansea. This could be due to there being few migrants moving to the area in favour of a more built-up region. Very similar amounts of people are shown to be economically active in both areas, with 71.55% in the Lliw Valley and 62.45% in Swansea in the 1991 census, however there is no data available to me regarding the scale of the numbers of workers in Swansea, or the number of jobs that have been created by the large businesses there. We can still see the dip in the number of speakers occurring here in the 16-44 year bracket for both areas.

The number of speakers then continues to rise with the highest percentage of speakers assembling in the final bracket of 65 and over. This agrees with the data I have used in the graphs with the exception of the Lliw Valley data in the 1981 census. From the information I have gathered in this essay, I realise that the number of speakers of the minority language Welsh has been, and still is decreasing throughout Wales. There are fewer speakers of Welsh in urban areas, due to a greater need for English in the large industries, and more speakers in rural areas.

However, the numbers could soon almost stabilise as more and more people from rural areas migrate to urban areas. It seems that young children are taught Welsh, however, it is not made a compulsory subject in most secondary schools, and so numbers of speakers for young adults are not high, although it seems many Welsh people pick up their native language later on it life. I have also noted that more people are fully literate in Welsh in the rural area of the Lliw Valley than Swansea. Due to the nature of the census data, the research for this essay proved very challenging. I had great difficulty in choosing areas for which there was satisfactory data available, however there are still many problems with the data I had to make use of. The fact that the boundaries changed in successive censuses meant that some of that data I used was not perfect, however, in cases where this would lead to major difficulties, or differences in information, I ignored figures.

Different questions were used in different censuses as well, meaning that some held numbers on topics where others had nothing. I had to be very wary when using data from the censuses about language. The question that needs to be asked is at what point do speakers of Welsh deem themselves fluent enough to mark themselves as Welsh speakers? It was often the case that the specific material I searched for from the library was not included in the collection of data, and so I often had to rely on a subsequent census to find the information that I required. A way in which I could have found the necessary data is that if I had more time to conduct my research I could have looked into the reasons as to why this information was not available to me and tried to right it. However, even when looking on the National Statistics website, I found that in order to view a lot of the information I desired, I would have to pay.

In order to obtain more conclusive data, it would have been necessary for me to extend my research into looking at a number of rural and urban areas in Wales, as the comparison of just two areas does not present me with adequate information. I feel that I have done my best at handling this great mass of statistics, and only wish I could have found more conclusive and complete information from which to study. Aitchison and Carter (1991 in 1994: 111) believe that "numbers of Welsh-speakers will continue to decline until the year 2001", however after this date, numbers will sharply increase. It is not possible to investigate this statement yet, but due to the fact that many action groups along with the government have a major aim to save Welsh from dying out, it could be possible that in the near future we will see an influx of Welsh speakers, proud of their history and heritage, with "a confidence in their language, identity and culture that many minority groups lack", (Hunter, 2003: approx.

1 screen) who continue to speak their native language, and see that it stays alive.

Bibliography

Aitchison, J.W. & H. Carter, (1991).
Rural Wales and The Welsh Language' in Rural History, 2, 59-76. Aitchison, J.W. & H. Carter, (1994).
A Geography of the Welsh Language 1961-1991.
University of Wales Press: Cardiff. Council for Wales and Monmouthshire, (1963).
Report on the Welsh Language Today. Her Majesty's Stationary Office: London. Hunter, J. (2003).
Welsh. Accessed 13th March, 2005.
From web yw cym uned (s). htm Price, G, (1984).
The Languages of Britain. Edward Arnold: London. Map from: - The public's library and digital archive (1993).
Wales. web Accessed 12th March 2005.
I have also used information from censuses taken in 1961-2001, including Welsh Language editions and also some on the county of West Glamorgan.