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When discussing the region of Wales, the presence of English is taken for granted.

“[N]early three quarters of the population in Wales” has no Welsh language skills (Office for National Statistics 2013a, 8) and communicates, for the most part, in English. But in Wales English is not the uncontested language of power the way it is in England. This is the case in part due to the fact that Welsh has a great deal of state support as well as committed activism in its favor.⁴ While the relationship between English and Welsh monopolizes the conversation in terms of languages in Wales, this chapter helps to highlight that there are also a number of new minority languages spoken by immigrants to be taken into account.

3.1. Welsh

Welsh is a Celtic language that predates English in Wales. The development of the linguistic context in Wales is closely shaped by the relationship between Wales and England. Wales was incorporated into England early on. Some estimate that English was rolling back Welsh as early as the 11th century⁵ (May 2008, 256). As part of this process, the passage of the Laws of Wales Act 1535 and 1542, commonly known as Acts of Union, “made English the only language of the courts in Wales, and banned all use of Welsh from public office” (Grin & Vaillancourt 1999, 15). Under such circumstances, local elites gradually moved from Welsh to English (ibid.). The

Industrial Revolution brought English migrants into Wales and the Great Depression

4 In the case of Wales, there is a relationship between state policies of support for the Welsh language and activism in favor of said language at the grassroots level. This chapter does not attempt to theorize, or even describe, that relationship.

5 Perhaps not coincidentally, Welsh identity began to be linked to the Welsh language as early as the beginning of the 12^th century (Phillips J. 2012, 87-88).

took Welsh migrants out of Wales (ibid.). This continued to weaken the position of Welsh.

By the mid-19th century there were debates as to whether Welsh speakers should continue to use their language or fully embrace English (Williams R. 2000, 318-319). These debates were spurred, in part, “by an 1847 government-sponsored study that held the language accountable for moral degeneration and cultural backwardness” (ibid., 319). The study came at a time of efforts at Anglicization and of “clear hostility to the Celtic languages, which were perceived to be backward, barbaric, inferior, and generally opposed to the spirit of ‘progress’ of the day”

(Dunbar 2003a, 140). Not surprisingly in this context, when the 1870s saw the

beginning of an educational system, it was in English (Morgan 2007, 44). The trend of hostile policy toward Welsh continued through further legislative enactments such as the Local Government Act 1888, which made English the sole language of the local governments in Wales and England (Dunbar 2004, 99).

It should be noted that the weakening of Welsh came through a number of non-linguistic factors, prominent among which were acts of parliament (Roddick 2007, 270). Parliament’s actions resulted in a decline in the percentage of Welsh-speakers, as evidenced from the 1891 census onwards (Dunbar 2003a, 141-142). This decline continued rapidly throughout the twentieth century (Morgan 2007, 44). Other factors to take into account for the decline of Welsh include an influx of English and Irish workers, the emigration of Welsh speakers with the increased mobility

provided by railroads, and a decrease in religious observance (Spolsky 2004, 82).

Policy toward Welsh began changing around the middle of the twentieth century (Grin & Vaillancourt 1999, 16). Acts of parliament started reversing the trend. The first step in the direction of reversal was the Welsh Courts Act 1942, which reaffirmed English as the language of record for the courts in Wales but allowed parties or witnesses who would be disadvantaged by the use of English in court to use Welsh (Roddick 2007, 271). Other steps followed. These included the Welsh Language Act 1967, the Broadcasting Acts 1980 and 1981, and the Education Reform Act 1988 (Dunbar 2003a, 147). Improvements for Welsh under the Welsh Language Act 1967 “were still rather modest, being essentially confined to making the use of Welsh

in the courts a legal right” (Grin & Vaillancourt 1999, 16). However, wider changes in favor of Welsh came about with the Welsh Language Act 1993, which turned the newly created Welsh Language Board into a statutory body and placed “a duty on the public sector to treat Welsh and English on an ‘equal basis’, when providing services to the public in Wales” (Örücü 2006, 4). As a result of the Welsh Language Act 1993, the language became more visible in public buildings and institutions (Huws 2006, 150). A very important step in the push in favor of Welsh was the Government of Wales Act 1998 (Kaufmann 2012:328). The Act created a limited form of devolution which gave a degree of freedom to the devolved government so it could act in any appropriate way to support the Welsh language (Dunbar 2003b, 26). Indeed, the most recent legislative enactment in favor of Welsh comes from the Welsh Assembly. The Welsh Language Measure 2011 updated the legal framework for the promotion of Welsh, including the granting of official language status to Welsh. That status is to be given legal effect through enactments regarding duties on public bodies to provide services in Welsh, the no-less-favorable treatment of Welsh in comparison to English, the promotion of Welsh, etc. What some of these legislative actions mean in terms of translation will be discussed below.

All in all, “[o]f all the UK’s autochthonous [minority] languages, Welsh has benefited most from supportive State policies” (Dunbar 2003b, 21). Supportive policies include not only those from Westminster, but also those advanced by the Welsh Assembly, including several policy documents which aim at creating a fully bilingual (meaning, English-Welsh) Wales (ibid., 26-28). Because in Wales as a whole English has become the dominant language, a fully bilingual Wales cannot be

achieved without strengthening the position of the Welsh language. Not

coincidentally, then, the strongest minority language regime in the UK is found in Wales with respect to Welsh (Dunbar 2007, 119). The Welsh language is supported also by a strong grass-roots network of campaigners.⁶

6 This is evidenced by the flurry of activity on the ground level that followed the release of the 2011 Census, which showed roughly a 2% decline in speakers of Welsh in Wales over the last ten years. For example, the organization Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (Welsh Language Society) met with

representatives from Carmarthenshire Council to propose a plan to promote the language, organized

Results of this policy in favor of Welsh seemed encouraging. A decade ago it seemed that Welsh no longer was a language in contraction before English (Dunbar 2003a, 142). However, census figures released in December 2012 give reason to doubt previous appearances. The number of individuals who reported they could speak Welsh was reduced from 21% in 2001 to 19% in 2011 (Statistics for Wales 2012, 1).

According to the census (StatsWales 2013), the unitary authority with the highest percentage of speakers is Gwynedd, where 65% of the population report they can speak Welsh, and the unitary authority with the highest number of reported speakers is Carmarthenshire, with 78,048 Welsh speakers. Conversely the authority with the lowest percentage of Welsh speakers is Blaenau Gwent at 8%, and Merthyr Tydfil is, with 5,028 speakers, the unitary authority with the least number of speakers. One should bear in mind, when considering these statistics, that they represent bilingual speakers, as there seem to be no monolingual speakers of Welsh, at least over the age of three⁷ (Dunbar 2007, 106-107). It is currently not possible to know what percentage of those speakers use Welsh as their main language.⁸

3.2. New minority languages

rallies attended by hundreds in favor of the language, and gathered around 1,500 signatures in

support of the language (Misstear 2013). Cymdeithas yr Iaith has been active in campaigning for the Welsh language since 1962, when it garnered national attention by organizing a sit-in at Trefechan Bridge in the town of Aberystwyth. Other organizations that are active in promoting the language in different ways are Mentrau Iaith Cymru (Language Initiative Wales) and Dyfodol I’r Iaith (Future of the Language).

7 Besides some young children, there may also be some old individuals who speak only Welsh.

According to a spokesperson for Plaid Cymru, a political party committed to eventually obtaining the independence of Wales as a member of the European Union, some “elderly people suffering from memory loss” may only be able to communicate in Welsh (Shipton 2012). There may also be bilingual speakers in the rural areas of western and northern Wales who speak better Welsh than English (Kaufmann 2012, 331).

8 The 2011 Census asked respondents in Wales to identify whether their main language was English or Welsh but did not allow them to indicate which of the two was their main language. It also asked about Welsh language skills but not in relation to English. Consequently, the census can tell us how many people speak Welsh but now how many speak it as their main language.

As stated above, the linguistic landscape of Wales is not limited to the English-Welsh dichotomy, even when discourse on language in the region is largely dominated by it. Throughout the UK, two major trends have been identified regarding languages not autochthonous to the British Isles.

The first is that many languages are in use (Edwards V. 2008, 265). This is also true in Wales, where an influx of non-UK immigrants into Wales has added diversity to the linguistic landscape. For example, according to estimates by CILT, the National Center for Languages, the Wrexham unitary authority had only a few speakers of new minority languages in 2005, but by 2008 there were “at least 25 languages spoken in schools” (CILT 2008, 3). This is especially the case in large urban centers, such as Cardiff. This is not surprising, as Cardiff was one of the first cities to receive Indian and African immigrants as early as the 1800s (Phillips D. 1998, 1681).

Immigration into the city has continued. In this regard, Cardiff “has long received migrant workers from various destinations, and differs little from other large UK cities in its multi-ethnic population” (Tunger et al. 2010, 194).

The second overall trend indicates that multilingualism is no longer only an urban phenomenon (Edwards V. 2008, 265). Even if places other than Cardiff have lower percentages of speakers of new minority languages, there are very few places with no speakers of new minority languages.

The exact number of speakers of new minority languages in Wales had been difficult to ascertain before the 2011 census, but even then, there was no doubt that there were many languages in Wales which were not autochthonous to the British Isles (ibid.). In the 2011 census, 3% of the households in Wales reported their main language to be one other than English or Welsh (Office for National Statistics 2013a, 4). The area of Wales with the least percentage of speakers of new minority

languages was Caerphilly, a little less than 1% of the population reporting that their main language was a non-UK language (Office for National Statistics 2013b). The place where less speakers reported their main language to be a non-UK language is Isle of Anglesey, with 690 such speakers (ibid.). The area with the highest percentage and number was Cardiff, where 8% of respondents, that is, 17,392 individuals,

indicated that their main language was a non-UK language (ibid.). All in all, these

speakers of languages other than Welsh or English are largely overlooked when it comes to language policy in Wales (May 2008, 269).