: Language

The many voices of Wales

The Wall of Languages in Oriel 1, St Fagans National Museum of History

Wales has always had many voices. Welsh and English are Wales' official languages, but people here speak many other languages. Like two-thirds of the world's population, many people in Wales are bilingual or multilingual.

It is not easy to find reliable statistics about languages other than Welsh or English, because there isn't a question about them in the census. A survey by CILT Cymru revealed that at least 98 languages are spoken by school pupils in this country. In 2006, Amgueddfa Cymru collected the names of 78 languages from people who spoke those languages and lived in Wales, and displayed them in an exhibition.

Hear some of these languages

Here on the People's Collection, you can listen to some of these languages and the experiences and opinions of the people who speak or spoke them. You can help us also to find out more about Wales' languages. If you live in Wales and your language community isn't included here, why not tell your own story on the People's Collection?

Japanese

Japanese is spoken by about 125 million people, 99% of them still in Japan. However the number of Japanese speakers living abroad has increased with the expansion of Japan's economy, working for Japanese companies or the government.

There are about 50,000 Japanese speakers in the UK, with about 2000 of them living in Wales. Wales is the largest centre in Europe for Japanese electronics firms. The first Japanese manufacturing company came to Wales in 1973. Over the last 30 years, that number has expanded to about 60 firms, employing thousands of Welsh people. Japanese-speaking pupils have been reported in schools in Cardiff, Carmarthenshire, Flintshire, Merthyr Tydfil, Swansea/Neath/Port Talbot, the Vale of Glamorgan and Wrexham.

Midori Matsui: Japanese

"I came from Japan, and in Japan I was a schoolteacher of English. And I wanted to see England, Great Britain first, before Wales. So I came to England in 1972. Having spent one year there, I was asked to come down to Wales to work for a Japanese company. So the next year, '73, I came to Wales and ever since I've lived here.

A lot of people have already made a comment, I have got a Welsh accent. I can't tell though. About Welsh accent, I've got a funny story. One day I was at Heathrow airport, looking for a whisky, a particular brand of whisky. And the manager came up to me, started to explain about the whisky. He was thinking I was a tourist, and Japanese people are well known as a lover of whisky. And then all I said was, 'Thank you very much but no, I know what I'm looking for. So I'm all right.' But when I said that, he said, 'Where on earth did you get that Welsh accent?' And then he realised that I was living in this country, not a tourist, not just a tourist."

Somali

There have been Somalis in Cardiff since the 1870s. The city has one of the oldest Somali communities in the UK. The first settlers were sailors who came here shortly after opening the Suez Canal in 1869, when Cardiff was developing as a major international seaport. During the 1980s, another wave of Somali immigrants arrived, fleeing from the civil war in the Horn of Africa. It is estimated that currently over 8000 Somalis live in the Cardiff, Newport and Swansea areas, making them the largest ethnic minority community in Wales.

There are about 10-15 million Somali speakers worldwide. It is a language which has a long, rich tradition of poetry and literature. However it was only in 1972 that the Somali language became the official language of Somalia, replacing the colonial languages of English and Italian in government and education.

Faisal Mohamed Hashi: Somali

"I was born in Newport, in the Pill part, the new Pilgwenlly part of Newport, which is the docks area. The reason I was there was that my father was a merchant seaman who came to the UK with the Merchant Navy, British Merchant Navy. He settled here with his family and I was his first product that he had here in this country. But it was quite strange being born in Wales — though I was Welsh in that respect, being born here, but the first language I learnt was Somali because within the home it was like being in Somalia but obviously transported to Wales. So in that respect, I was Somali first. But then obviously when I came onto the street, I realised my Welshness and my Welsh roots have grown since then.

Language is very very important within my culture. And obviously the first language that you learn is the language that your parents speak to you. My mother's first tongue was Somali, so she made sure that when she spoke to us, she spoke to us in Somali. What it meant for me was that I learnt Somali first, then I learnt English. There was obviously a step back from living in this country. So in that respect, there's great pride in the knowledge of the language and there's great pride in being able to speak in one's tongue and to have an understanding of your own culture.

I do have a Welsh accent — an English-Welsh accent — when I speak Somali. If I was to stand behind that wall and have a conversation with a Somali person, they could definitely tell that I wasn't born and brought up in Somalia. But I have a broad vocabulary which would make them think twice about exactly what my origins were. But in terms of accent, definitely, I've got an English-Welsh accent when I speak Somali.

Essentially, yeh, I'm Welsh. Somali Welsh. In that respect, the Welsh accent comes through in both my English and in my Somali."

French

There are about 128 million people around the world who speak French. It is not only an official language in France, but also in 24 other countries, for example Switzerland and Canada and some African countries. It is spoken in the Channel Islands, and there are sizeable French communities in London. It is by far the most commonly taught language in UK secondary schools. In Wales, first language French speakers have been reported in schools in Cardiff, Carmarthenshire, Conwy/Denbighshire, Flintshire, Newport, Swansea/Neath Port Talbot, and Wrexham.

Sylvie Hoffman: French

French I've learnt — it's my mother tongue. I was born in France and French was spoken at home. Although my grandparents spoke Plattdeutsch, because we are on the border between Germany and France, and we were invaded so many times that my parents were forbidden to speak French in school, so were my grandparents. And my great-grandparents were French-speaking, but I didn't know them...

Being in Wales — I have been on the receiving end of arrogance of, when I am in France, people who don't bother to speak the language. Not even greet in the language. From Germans, and I have met some English people. So I thought, no, this is not going to happen. My children will have an awareness, will know that we are in Wales, that Welsh is spoken, and everything. So I sent them to the Welsh school and my daughter then, she just lapped it all up...

Wales against England with the rugby, you shout for Wales of course, you know. But Wales against France? I was shouting for France! And in front of me, that ten-year-old was shouting for Wales. In front of me! I thought that was of the highest, the highest treason. I grabbed her like that and said to her, 'Qu'est-ce-que tu fait? What do you think you are doing?' And she said, 'Mam, I'm Welsh. I've decided to be Welsh.' And I said, 'Mais, pourquoi? Why?' And she said, 'When I speak French with you, I feel disloyal to Dad, because he doesn't understand French, and — well he understands but he doesn't speak French. And when I speak English with my dad — he doesn't speak Welsh — I feel disloyal to you, so, I've decided to be Welsh. So I don't have to owe anybody anything.' So she decided to be Welsh, and from then on she was Welsh. And that's it. And her sister followed suit.

Malayan

The Malay (Bahasa Melayu) is a language spoken by people living in the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, central eastern Sumatra and parts of the Borneo coast. It is an official language of Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore. About 18 million people speak Standard Malay, while there are also about 170 million people who speak Indonesian, which is a form of Malay. Malayan speakers have been reported in schools in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.

Juliet Revell: Malayan

I'm very fond of learning new languages. Welsh is very interesting, and different to my mother tongue. And also it's a great challenge for me to learn it. I believe it's important for me to be able to speak Welsh so I can socialise with people locally. Because I live in Wales now. Wales is my home.

I speak Welsh with neighbours, friends, or my Welsh tutor. Sometimes I'll go to a CYD (Friends of Welsh Learners) meeting to practice my Welsh. I have one very interesting story. One of my neighbours, the farmer, said it was difficult to talk Welsh to me, because my Welsh is as good as a minister's. Oh, how I loved hearing that!

Swahili

Swahili is a language that has spread beyond its place of origin on the East African coast due to trade networks. It is a Bantu language, but through contact with Arab traders it has adopted many Arabic words. During the 18th and 19th centuries, it was used as a language of administration by the British who colonised that part of Africa. Swahili became the national language of Tanzania and Kenya when those countries achieved independence in the 1960s, but it is also spoken in parts of Somalia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. It has about 5 million first-language speakers, but there are 50 million or so second-language speakers who use it as a lingua franca.

A survey of local education authorities in Wales indicated that there were Swahili speakers in schools in Conwy/Denbighshire and Swansea/Neath Port Talbot. It is only one of many African languages spoken by people living in Wales.

Aime Kongolo: Swahili

Aime Kongolo is from Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an area that was at one timed ruled by Belgium. He comes from a society where speaking many languages is the norm.

"Swahili's like my mother language, my mother tongue. I can say that, 'cause in my city in Katanga, everyone speaks Swahili. We have other dialects spoken there, but we speak, all of them, we understand Swahili. So Swahili, I grew up with that language. And then the same time, from — because my father was a teacher — in my house I was speaking two languages: my father French, my mother Swahili so I grew up with those two languages. And from — from just primary school, from nursery to primary school, you go to secondary school and then go high school — there it's only French.

Lingala, I came to learn Lingala when I moved to Kinshasa, the capital city. In the capital city there's all those people. They speak different, all those Congolese languages. But Lingala, it's like the main language they speak, all of them. They understand each other. And French as well. But Lingala, it's more when you go out, socialising life, when you speak Lingala. If you go like in professional way, it's only French. Or maybe if you just want to be posh, you speak in French all the time. So it's up to you.

When I came to England, I started learning English, and then I moved to English — to England, to Wales, where I learnt more English. Now maybe I speak a little bit more with Welsh accent for people to understand me. Probably in future I was thinking to start learning Welsh."

A success story?

Like many minority languages, Welsh has had to struggle for survival. It was one of the first languages to be threatened by the spread of English across the globe. Only a fifth of the population of Wales is able to speak the language. Apart from some very young children, everyone who speaks Welsh in Wales can also speak English.

However, in terms of endangered languages Welsh is very much a success story. The 2001 census showed that, for the first time in over a century, the number and the percentage of Welsh speakers are actually increasing. In 1991 there were 508,000 speakers or 18.7% of the population. In 2001 that number had increased to 582,000 speakers, representing 20.8% of the total population.

Paradoxes

Map showing distribution of Welsh speakers, 2001 census.

There are some interesting paradoxes: the regions where there are high percentages of Welsh speakers aren’t necessarily the places where the greatest number of Welsh speakers live. For example, you’re more likely to hear Welsh spoken in the west of the country than in the east. In Gwynedd, 69% of the population are Welsh-speaking, while in Cardiff only 11% can speak the language. However, more Welsh speakers live in the cities and towns than in the countryside and there are more Welsh speakers in the south than in the north. The number of Welsh speakers in Gwynedd, for example, is around 78,000. This is actually less than Carmarthenshire, where only half of the population is Welsh-speaking, but the total number is 84,000. While there has been an increase in the percentage of Welsh speakers in anglicised areas such as Cardiff, there has been a decrease in the number of electoral divisions where over 80% of the inhabitants can speak Welsh.

The two main factors that have led to the encouraging upturn in the number of Welsh speakers have been the success of Welsh-medium schools and the growth in the number of adults who are learning the language. For the third time in succession, census results have shown an increase in the number of young people speaking Welsh. 26% of people under 35 can speak Welsh — an increase of 9% since 1991.

There are also Welsh speakers living outside Wales. Surveys commissioned by S4C, the Welsh television channel, estimate that there are more than 200,000 Welsh speakers living in England. There is a Welsh colony in the Chubut province of Argentina where some of the descendants of the original 19th-century settlers are bilingual in Welsh and Spanish.

Example: a Welsh speaker from Caernarfon

This is a video clip of Gwil Pritchard, a young Welsh speaker from Caernarfon, Gwynedd in north-west Wales speaking in his local dialect. Although he is bilingual in English and Welsh, Welsh is still very much the majority language of the community in which he lives.

In the next chapter you can hear him talk about his linguistic background and dialect differences between Caernarfon and nearby Bangor, with a translation provided in English. Known as ‘Cofi’ Welsh, the speech of Caernarfon town is a rare example of a Welsh-language urban dialect.

Caernarfon Welsh — an urban dialect

I grew up in Caernarfon. The language of the home was Welsh. That was true of the area around Caernarfon too. The people we knew in that area, friends and family, they all spoke Welsh. The same thing was true in the schools too — primary schools, secondary school, everything was in Welsh. Living in Caernarfon, you get the feeling that in a way it’s a language of its own. Just the accent and the little words you use are different to other places. Other people notice that too, when you talk to them.

The difference between Bangor and Caernarfon to start with. They’re only nine miles apart, but in Bangor they’re famous for their 'ayes', because they say 'aye' after everything. In Caernarfon it’s 'ia' after everything. And when I say after everything, I mean everything. This is the kind of thing people say — “You going out tonight?” – instead of replying 'ia', they’d have to say “'Ia, ia?'”

A world language

English

English is now the most widely used language in the world. An estimated 760 million people use English worldwide — more speakers than any other language apart from Mandarin Chinese.

However, only 400 years ago it had only 7 million speakers and was mostly unknown outside the British Isles. It was used in most of England and south and east Scotland, but Welsh was still spoken through most of Wales, Cornish was still heard in Cornwall, and Gaelic was the language of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Western Islands and Highlands of Scotland.

Between the reign of Elizabeth I (1603) and Elizabeth II (1952), the number of English speakers increased fiftyfold to about 250 million. The speed of its expansion since the 1950s has been even more staggering.

Why has this happened? During the 17th and 18th centuries, English was the language of the leading colonial nation — Britain. Then in the 19th century it became the language of the leaders of the industrial revolution. By the 20th century, it was the language of the USA, the most dominant economic power in the world. And of course now it is the language of the Internet — or is it? Contrary to expectations, English has not totally dominated the World Wide Web. There are over 1000 languages on the Internet. In fact, it is estimated that by now less than 50% of the Internet is in English.

Welsh English

Map showing distribution of Welsh speakers, 2001 census.

For the majority of people living in Wales, English is their first and only language. This was not always so. Only a couple of centuries ago, Welsh was the language of most of Wales, apart from a few Englishries such as South Pembrokeshire and the Gower peninsula. Welsh was even spoken in some parts of Herefordshire at one time.

Different parts of Wales have a very different history in relation to the English language, and this is reflected in the local English accent or dialect. Some regions became English-speaking many centuries ago, while in others (such as the South Wales Valleys) English has taken over comparatively recently. There are still areas where English is very much a second language with Welsh being the everyday means of communication. In some Welsh accents of English, you can hear the influence of neighbouring English counties, such as Cornwall or Herefordshire. In others, the vocabulary and patterns of the Welsh language can still be heard in today’s English.

An example from the border country

This is Ray Smith, who now lives in Cardiff but was born in the village of Llangynllo on the border between Radnorshire and England. He still retains his Radnorshire accent, which is not your stereotypical Welsh accent due to the influences of nearby English counties. However, as Ray points out, there has never been a clearly defined border between the Welsh and English in this area. Turn to the next chapter to hear more.

Radnorian English

I was born in a little village called Llangynllo, which is on the border country actually. It borders Shropshire in particular and fairly close to Herefordshire as well. And we spoke English in the home, as a child, and my mother could speak a smattering of Welsh, but Father didn’t and then, of course, we didn't as well, you see. And there wasn’t any Welsh in the schools anyway, so it’s sort of Radnorian English, if there’s such a thing.

Generally people struggle to recognise where I’m from, and even if I tell them where I'm from, they don't know where it is. Radnorshire is one of those little lost counties, I'm afraid, tucked away in a corner of Wales, right on the English border. And so that's really where I get my accent from, you see. People living and working both sides of the border, and intermarrying of course over the border. There was a time when — sometime over a hundred years ago or more when there was more Welsh spoken on both sides of the border, in Hereford and Radnor. In fact, some of the placenames still exist today, Welsh placenames in Herefordshire. Llandinabo is right, well and truly inside Herefordshire, and people still refer to them as being Welsh.