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?'”

1: Incised earthenware harvest jug, made in Gestingthorpe, Suffolk, in 1680. Purchased 1904.

Amgueddfa Cymru boasts a magnificent collection of English pottery, the beginnings of which go back to the founding of the Museum. Generations of benefactors have ensured that the collection continues to thrive.

The former Cardiff Municipal Museum began collecting ceramics in 1882, aiming to develop the best collection of Welsh pottery and porcelain that it could. By 1895 the Museum believed "that these collections are now the best and most representative in existence", and began to shift its attention to other areas of interest, such as English and continental ceramics.

In 1896, Robert Drane became honorary curator. He was a passionate collector of Worcester porcelain, and had also selected the Museum's first acquisitions of Welsh porcelain.

2: Creamware teapot with printed and enamelled decoration on the theme of astrology, made by William Greatbatch, Staffordshire, about 1778. Purchased 1902.

3: Slipware dish with double-headed eagle, made by Ralph Toft, Staffordshire, about 1663-88. Purchased 1903.

4: Silver-mounted stoneware mug, enamelled with the arms of Farmer, Fulham, 1706. Purchased 1903.

9: Enamelled pearlware jug, made at the Ferrybridge Pottery, Yorkshire, about 1800. Bequeathed by Ernest Morton Nance, 1953.

10: Basalt stoneware vase with encaustic painting, made by Wedgwood and Bentley, about 1775-85. Given by Mr & Mrs F E Andrews, 1934

11: Earthenware figure of Alexandra, Princess of Wales (1844-1925), made in Staffordshire, about 1862. Bequeathed by Mrs H de C Hastings, 1995

12: Creamware teapot painted under the glaze in blue and manganese, made by Enoch Booth, Staffordshire, about 1743. Given by W J Grant-Davidson, 1994

The establishment of the National Museum of Wales

At this time, Cardiff Municipal Museum was also pushing the case for a national museum for Wales, and its own ambition to evolve into that new institution. In 1902 it talked of "the growing national character of its collections" and so began building its collection of English pottery.

Medieval to industrial

Taking charge of this new collecting priority, Drane quickly assembled much of the English pottery now at the National Museum. The full breadth of the English pottery tradition was represented, from late medieval wares to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century stoneware, slipware and delftware and industrially produced wares pioneered in Staffordshire from the middle of the eighteenth century. [Illustration 1-2]

Some outstanding objects included:

• a rare and magnificent seventeenth-century slipware dish by Ralph Toft of Staffordshire [Illustration 3]
• an important stoneware mug enamelled with the arms of Farmer and dated 1706 [Illustration 4]
• a remarkable Brislington delftware dish dated 1680, which exposes two Somerset squires who kidnapped a pair of conjoined twins to exhibit them as a money-raising venture. [Illustration 5]

The Museum's pride in its achievement was obvious. A report on the Brislington delftware dish in 1905 states 'Very few of these dishes are known to exist, and the Cardiff example is perhaps the best of them.'

Wilfred de Winton

The banker Wilfred de Winton was a supporter of the national museum campaign, and later donated his huge collection of porcelain.

His gifts of English pottery included an amusing pearlware beer jug moulded with faces showing the progressive stages of drunkenness, its handle in the form of a merman peering into the jug. [Illustration 6-7] At the time this jug was thought to have been made at the local Cambrian Pottery, but is in fact one of many supposedly Welsh pieces in the collection that have proved to be English. [Illustration 8]

Ernest Morton Nance

In 1953 Ernest Morton Nance bequeathed his collection of Welsh ceramics. Nance was particularly proud of his 'Cambrian Pottery' jug. He believed that its painted views of a pottery were in Swansea. In fact, this jug was also most likely made at Ralph Wedgwood's Ferrybridge pottery in about 1800. [Illustration 9]

The collection continues to grow

Generations of benefactors have ensured that the collection of English pottery continues to thrive. [Illustration 10] Bequests have brought in extensive collections of lustre pottery (Lord Boston, 1942), mid-nineteenth-century pot lids (Miss E. A. Nicholl, 1981) and Victorian Staffordshire figures (Mrs H. Hastings, 1995). [Illustration 11] In 1994 the gift of W. J. Grant-Davidson, a scholar of Welsh pottery, included interesting Staffordshire pottery, the highlight being an important early creamware teapot of about 1743 by Enoch Booth. [Illustration 12-14]

Amgueddfa Cymru also collects modern pottery, and has acquired such examples as a William de Morgan lustre dish and a Royal Doulton vase designed by Frank Brangwyn. [Illustration 15-16] Other modern pieces have come from the Museum's Outreach Collection, for example designs of the 1930s by architect Keith Murray for Wedgwood, and, in particular, from a generous gift from Mick Richards of an excellent collection of Susie Cooper's ceramics. [Illustration 17]

The collection is still growing, including acquisitions such as a creamware teapot of about 1765, which commemorates the radical politician John Wilkes. [Illustration 18]

17: Thrown and incised earthenware vase, made by Susie Cooper Pottery, about 1932. Given by Mick Richards, 2003.

18: Creamware teapot celebrating John Wilkes, probably made and enamelled in Staffordshire, about 1763-68. Purchased 2009

Author: Andrew Renton, Head of Applied Art