The languages of Wales include the

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). Historically, it h ...

, which is an official language of

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

and English, which is also considered an official language in Wales. The official languages of the

Senedd The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh Gov ...

(Welsh Parliament) are also Welsh and English. According to the 2021 census, the

Welsh-speaking population Welsh, a Brythonic Celtic language, was historically spoken by the majority of Wales' population, with current estimates suggesting a third of the current population of Wales speak the language. Graphical summary 1750-1900 File:Map o ieith ...

of Wales aged three or older was 17.8% (538,300 people) and nearly three quarters of the population in Wales said they had no Welsh language skills.

Official languages

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

is an official language of Wales, and is treated "no less favourably than the English language" which is also considered an official language, as legislated in the

Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 Welsh language 2011 in Wales Measures of the National Assembly for Wales The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 made Welsh an official language of Wales and treated no less favourably than English. The Act allowed people to live their lives thro ...

. The official languages of the Senedd are Welsh and English. The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 recognises that Welsh and English are official languages and established a legal framework for a statutory duty on public bodies in Wales to comply with Welsh standards. The legislation allows people to live through the medium of Welsh if they so wish. The legislation states “the Welsh language must not be treated less favourably than the English language”. The 2011 measure also created the

Welsh Language Commissioner The Welsh Language Commissioner () is a Welsh Government officer, overseeing an independent advisory body of the same name. The position was created following the passing of the ''Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011'', effective on 1 April 2012 ...

post.

Main language

In Wales, 96.7% of usual residents (2.9 million) aged three and above spoke Welsh or English as their main language. This was compared to 97.1% in 2011. Of the 101,000 people in Wales who did not speak Welsh or English as a main language in 2021, 78.0% said they could speak English well or very well, similar to 77.1% in 2011. 22.0% of people who did not speak English or Welsh as a main language could not speak English very well or at all. In both 2011 and 2021, Polish was the most spoken main language after Welsh and English, accounting for 0.7% of the population (21,000), up from 0.6% in 2011. Arabic was the next most common main language in Wales at 0.3%, up from 0.2% in 2011. British Sign Language (BSL) was the preferred language of 900 (0.03%), up from 800 in 2011. An additional 300 usual residents used another form of sign language or communication system other than BSL.

Welsh

Welsh is a

Celtic language The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward ...

primarily spoken in Wales. It is the traditional language of Wales but was supplanted in large part by English, becoming a minority language in the early 20th century. For the year ending 30 June 2022, the Welsh Annual Population Survey showed that 29.7%, 899,500 people aged three or older were able to speak Welsh. According to the 2011 census,

is spoken by 19% of the population.QS206WA - Welsh language skills
ONS 2011 census. Out of the 2,955,841 residents of Wales over the age of three, 562,016 (19%) can speak Welsh. Retrieved 20 July 2015. In October 2022, Efa Gruffudd Jones was appointed as

, to take up the position in January 2023.

English

Welsh English

Welsh English or Anglo-Welsh is the distinct form of English used in Wales. Aside from lexical borrowings from

like ''bach'' (little, wee), ''

eisteddfod In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, ac ...

'', ''nain'' and ''taid'' (''grandmother'' and ''grandfather'' respectively), there exist distinctive grammatical conventions in vernacular Welsh English. Examples of this include the use by some speakers of the tag question ''isn't it?'' regardless of the form of the preceding statement and the placement of the subject and the verb after the

predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...

for emphasis, e.g. ''Fed up, I am'' or ''Running on Friday, he is.''Crystal, David (2003). ''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language Second Edition'', Cambridge University Press, pp. 335 In South Wales, the word "where" may often be expanded to "where to", as in the question, "Where to is your Mam?". The word "butty" is used to mean "friend" or "mate". There is no standard variety of English that is specific to Wales, but such features are readily recognised by Anglophones from the rest of the UK as being from Wales, including the (actually rarely used) phrase ''look you'' which is a translation of a

tag.

Welsh Romani

Welsh Romani (or Welsh Romany; sometimes also known as ''Kååle'') is a variety of the

Romani language Romani (; also Romany, Romanes , Roma; rom, rromani ćhib, links=no) is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to '' Ethnologue'', seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their ...

which was spoken fluently in

until at least 1950.Price, Glanville (2000) ''Languages in Britain and Ireland'', Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. It was spoken by the

Kale Kale (), or leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars grown for their edible leaves, although some are used as ornamentals. Kale plants have green or purple leaves, and the central leaves do not form a hea ...

group of the

Romani people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic Itinerant groups in Europe, itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have Ro ...

who arrived in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

during the 15th century. The first record of Roma in Wales comes from the 16th century. Welsh Romani is one of the many

Northern Romani dialects Northern Romani is group of dialects of the Romani language spoken in various Northern European, Central European and Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of g ...

Sign languages

In 2017, the British Deaf Association claimed there were about 6,000

British Sign Language British Sign Language (BSL) is a sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK), and is the first or preferred language among the Deaf community in the UK. Based on the percentage of people who reported 'using British Sign Language at home' o ...

(BSL) users in Wales. Ongoing training and courses in BSL are offered in Wales by the Wales Council for Deaf People (WCDP), a voluntary umbrella organisation. Makaton has limited use in Wales. It is not a sign language but a system using signs and symbols to help people who find speaking difficult, such as people with Down's Syndrome.

Norman French and Latin

Latin is also used to a limited degree in certain official mottos, legal terminology (''

habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, ...

''), and various ceremonial contexts. Latin abbreviations can also be seen on British coins. The use of Latin has declined greatly in recent years. At one time, Latin and Greek were commonly taught in British schools.Bryn Mawr Classical Review 98.6.16
Ccat.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved on 2011-03-17.

References

{{Languages of the United Kingdom