Why invest in the Welsh Language?

There is currently a major consultation underway in Wales on the future strategy for Welsh-medium education. The consultation document outlines a number of proposals to increase Welsh-medium education for pre-and post-compulsory schooling, and for the workforce in Wales. These developments will cost money - some might argue that it will be wasted money given that English is the main language for commerce, medicine, the media etc in the UK if not the world, and that virtually everyone in Wales is able to communciate in English.

There are many reasons why the investment should be made. For a start, if your first language is Welsh, you should have the right to conduct your daily life in Welsh, the language of your country. You should not have to see your children have their schooling in a different language (as happened in the first half of the twentieth century), and you should not have to speak a different language to officials or tourists, just as in any other country, say France or Germany. But there is another, deeper reason: the Welsh language is inextricably tied up with its culture and history. Lose the language, and you will also lose the words, songs, customs of centuries. A example of this was suggested in a recent Radio 4 programme (Open Country) about land in the north-east of England that was lost after a rise in sea-level after the last Ice Age. One of the historians on the programme mentioned that there is little folklore in that part of the UK referring to innundations, wheras in Wales there are many such tales ( eg. the story of 'Cantre'r Gwaelod'). One reason for this could be that there was far more continuity of peoples and language in the west than in the much-invaded east.

Without a concerted effort, the Welsh language will disappear, along with many other minor languages. Just as in the realms of biology, each linguistic extinction will make our world a little poorer.