Welsh Language
Prior to 2001, there had been a decline in Welsh speakers in Gwynedd. According to the 2001 census the number of Welsh speakers in Wales increased for the first time in over 100 years, with 20.5% in a population of over 2.9 million claiming fluency in Welsh, or one in five. Additionally, 28% of the population of Wales claimed to understand Welsh. However, the number of Welsh speakers declined in Gwynedd from 72.1% in 1991 to 68.7% in 2001. By 2003 however, a survey of schools showed that just over 94% of children between 3 and 15 were able to speak Welsh, though there have been concerns that the influx of English speakers is damaging the standing of Welsh.
Read more about this topic: Gwynedd
Famous quotes containing the words welsh and/or language:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.”
—Martin Heidegger (1889–1976)