The census hides the true decline of the Welsh language - it needs to be changed Abraham Somers At every decade since 1891 the inhabitants of Wales have been asked if they can speak Welsh.  Ever since, the question has been used to judge the health of the Welsh Language. During th...

nation.cymru/opinion/the-...

It's times like this that have me yearning for a question like the one described so passionately by this nation.cymru article. The speaker frequency statistics are good but they don't have the concreteness or focus on intergenerational transmission that this does.

My great grandfather's household, on the other hand, has less insight. Everyone put down "English & Irish" - were they all bilingual native English speakers or did they, like so many others, simply not pay attention to the minutiae of the instructions?

Nonetheless, with the individual returns now published it is finally possible to get some small-scale insight on the topic. My grandfather's household has a mix of "Irish & English" (from his native speaker grandparents) and "English & Irish" (from school aged siblings) responses

The 1926 census was the first and only one where people indicated whether or not they were native Irish speakers. Unfortunately, there were so many obviously incorrect answers that it was decided not to publish any statistics on the topic.

#Census1926