Welsh revealed to be in the top 7% of the languages of the world
It’s been revealed that Welsh is in the top 7% of languages spoken globally.
The stunning statistic came to light during an airing of an episode of new four-part series Stori’r Iaith (Story of the language) broadcast on St David’s Day.
In the episode comedian and broadcaster Elis James travelled to Holyhead to meet world renowned linguist and author David Crystal to discuss the place of the Welsh language in the order of minority languages.
It was there that the linguist revealed that Welsh is one of the success stories of the 20th century in terms of the revitalisation of the language.
When asked by Elis how Welsh is ranked alongside other minority languages, David answered: “Well, we’ve done wonderfully well. Remember 6000 languages, right. So most of those languages have how many speakers? One, two, 10, 50, 100, 1000 speakers. These are seriously endangered languages.
“Welsh is one of the success stories of the 20th century in terms of the revitalization process. Welsh is in the top 7% of the languages of the world as far as number of speakers is concerned.”
Elis quipped in response: “So Premier League then!”
Welsh is in the top 7% most spoken languages on earth.
That puts a different perspective on things! 🤯pic.twitter.com/KACy2nba5w
— Ifan Morgan Jones (@ifanmj) March 1, 2023
In the four-part series famous faces go on a personal journey to explore the history of the Welsh language.
In the his episode Elis James learns about the campaign for Welsh language rights in the 1900s. He also visits the Basque Country to find out how the Basque language has already a million speakers, this being the goal for the Welsh language by 2050.
Other episodes feature Alex Jones, Sean Fletcher and Lisa Jen.
Watch Stori’r Iaith HERE
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We should not be complacent that the battle to save the language is over. Rather than listen to positive spin we need to look at the facts produced in the last two censuses which show the language is declining. Wales is a national Capel Celyn slowly drowning in the waters of the English tongue. Wales has to become a bilingual nation for the language survival and that needs to be enforced in schools. Anyone who objects to enforcing bilingualism in schools is on the side of the Unionists who want only one language on this island. They have more in… Read more »
I find it strange that only one of these four talented people lives in Wales.
You sound happy about that? Weird
Where is the proof of the 7% figures or the list? Where is the link for the data?
I think that David Crystal means that, of the 6000 or so languages in the world, Welsh ranks in the top of 7% (i.e. top 420) so far as number of speakers is concerned…
Million British speakers won’t happen due to the fact that the British government in Cardiff constantly fail to implement safeguards to ensure such a number. It’s becoming clearly every day that it’s nothing short of a PR stunt. And it’s a shame, because if the language goes, the country may aswell go with it. We have already surrendered what it means to be British to the English, wouldn’t be surprised if we give the language and then our country to them aswell.
What’s a “monitory” language?
1.4 million registered for Welsh language lessons on Duolingo
Of which I, a second-generation Brit, was one. If I recall aright, the first lesson or two were about greeting a dragon; so useful – though a start has to be made somewhere, I suppose. But, I gave up pretty soon. Welsh is just not my cup of tea for various reasons. Okay, here’s a few then: preponderance of w’s and y’s, making reading slow; invariable placement of adjectives after nouns even the Romance languages don’t do it to that extent; redundancy in pronunciation of the letters i, u and some y’s. And I would have trouble remembering the vocabulary… Read more »
I am learning Welsh and would like to read articles from this site in Welsh. Is that possible?
I agree, it would be great to have articles in Welsh on Nation Cymru too
They used to write Welsh some articles on Nation. Don’t know what’s happened to them.
Hey Paul.
If you go to gwales.com you can buy Welsh written books for learners. Type in Mynediad and learners books are there 😊
Brythonic was the original language of Britain before the invasion which pushed the original people to the west. I feel cheated 😕 We are not speaking our own language 😩