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beccatoriaOkay, so, I promise, normally, I speak of geek things; vids and morally ambiguous women and comic books and telly, but I'm feeling grotty as hell today (just a cold), so with apologies to the few new people I've met during my move to dreamwidth, now you get to see the other thing I occasionally post about: local politics. :D?
So yeah, seriously, this will interest about 2% of you, so, seriously do not feel obliged to read this! But if my body has to feel like snot personified, I can at least unload my mind, so you get this first, instead of recent thoughts about OUAT -
So, yeah, the first thing to note is that in 1991, 18.7% of the population could speak Welsh. In 2001, that rose to 20.8% and there was much rejoicing. In 2011 it sank back to 19% and now there is a combination of wailing and gnashing of teeth and finger pointing and confusion and people asking if we can now, finally, stop spending money on this clearly useless language that obviously no one wants, not even the increasing amount of parents demanding the ability to send their kids to school in Welsh.
Now, part of the answer to this question is immigration. The entire population of Wales rose and the majority of that was due to immigration, and the vast, vast majority of those people are not going to speak Welsh, and are not going to have learned fluent Welsh since arriving. Some will, and not all of the population increase was due to immigration, but as a VERY rough illustration of the difference this makes, taking out the population increase means that the number of Welsh speakers fell by 1% not 2%. So about half the issue here is just down to dilution within a wider population anyway, and yes, that does have a negative impact in certain circumstances - the loss of Welsh as a majority language in Ceredigion and Carmarthen, for instance, seems largely down to immigration rather than numerical losses. This can have all sorts of impacts on the use of Welsh as a community language, the way the economic situation forces young people out of the area to find work while local housing is bought out by rich retirees from other areas - these are real, impactful issues that need discussion, particularly given an estimated 25% of the Welsh population are first-generation immigrants (technically, this includes me! Wheee!), but the concept of immigration in general isn't anything to be afraid of.
If the issue was just down to immigration, then I'd be more interested in positive ways of marketing Welsh fluency and education to people moving into the area and not particularly worried about the indepedent viability of the language on its own terms.
But obviously, even if it's a smaller reduction, there has also been a reduction in the number of Welsh speakers in straight numbers.
I understand that; it breaks my heart, but it seems to be true.
I am, however, reluctant to leave my discussion of the issue at this point, because there's an emerging narrative in the news coverage of the issue with which I disagree. Or at least, I think they're raising a very important point in direct relation to something it's...not so directly related to.
The problem is, that we have two reliable sources of information giving us two conflicting pieces of information.
Welsh-medium education is increasingly popular. The majority of children in Welsh-medium education do not, themselves, have Welsh-speaking parents. They learn as 3 - 5 year olds in nursery and reception classes through immersion. The numbers drop a bit when you reach high school, as some parents pull their kids out to send them to private schools (and there aren't any Welsh-medium private high schools) or simply because they want their kids' more advanced education to be in English due to a flawed assumption that they will otherwise be disadvantaged - but the difference isn't enormous. Welsh-medium education currently runs at about 23% - 24% for primary schools and closer to 20 - 21% for secondary schools.
But one thing that is very clear, is that the popularity of these schools is increasing, very slowly - often by fractions of a percentage point at a time, but it has increased every year for like, more than the last twenty. Based on what kids are registered in what schools, the number of Welsh-speaking children in Wales is increasing.
So of course, the question raised by the Census is, fine, older people are dying and young graduates are moving away to get work, but why isn't our expectation that these numbers be offset by the increased number of fluent children a reality? The percentage of fluent speakers among school-age kids actually went down this year?
The main thing I've heard discussed is the idea that part of the problem is the community language problem, that these kids are learning the language, but not using it on the playground or outside of school, that the issue is getting them to choose to use it and providing them with opportunities to do so.
Now, this IS an issue. I know I used to sneakily speak English every chance I got on the playground; no matter how fluent you are, your first language is more familiar, you're a kid, and English has the allure of being illicit, so of course that's what you speak! And outside of school, well, most places aren't set up to deal with bilingualism where I live, so that was out too.
But framing the discussion this way makes it sound like there's a problem with the schools, like they're turning out little imposters who can ask where the train station is but wouldn't be able to read a novel, which is total bullshit. If that were the case, Welsh-medium education (and as I said, the majority of kids going to such schools are first-language English) wouldn't have an earned reputation for academic excellence, considering we sit every exam, take every lesson and do all coursework in Welsh (well, except for English Lang/Lit stuff, where we do the same course as English-medium schools).
When kids march out of those schools for the last time, they are fluent. Now, that doesn't mean shit if they walk out of those schools and never use the language again, if they don't care, or they're too nervous to speak to people they perceive will judge their language skills (oh the complicated, heartbreaking politics of speaking Welsh), or if they never make an effort to speak to their kids in Welsh, even if they send them to a Welsh school too. The loss of Welsh-speaking communities is very real and very worrying and I've fucked up on that count too, because I might make more of an effort than some - I put on awful Welsh radio; I switch the language of my internal monologue; when I can't remember vocab, I damn well look it up, but it's hard and humiliating sometimes and I panic like a deer in the headlights when an old lady from North Wales asks me if I speak Welsh on the phone at work and I fumble through the conversation so nervous I forget words I know I know, without ever struggling to understand her, but worry for the rest of the day that I sounded like a linguistic embarrassment and quietly feel shit about myself. And I know for a lot of my peers, it's not worth that struggle; even for some of them who're really proud they speak Welsh and will probably always understand it, it's just too politically loaded or difficult to actively seek out ways to maintain or continue their fluency.
That's a real issue, and a tough one, and one I can't spin nicely with numbers I only half understand.
But when those kids walk out of those schools, they are fluent. So this does not explain, specifically, the fact that the number of children 5 - 15 in Welsh-medium education went up in the last 10 years, while the number reported fluent went down.
Because based on personal experience and continued objective academic success, I do not believe that the schools are failing in their mandate to ensure the bilingualism of their students, so we're left with only one unpleasant conclusion. The results for this age-group in 2001 was a statistical anomaly, caused in part by parents overreporting their children's fluency. I hate to say that, because, again, people tend to immediately assume we're talking about non-fluent parents assuming that the child they have in Welsh education is automatically fluent and as I said above, that's actually a pretty safe assumption.
But looking at the actual numbers I've seen reported on BBC News and other reliable places, the 2001 census reported some absurdly high statistics. Children 5 - 15 came out with around 40% speaking Welsh, even though only approximately half that number would have been in Welsh-medium education at that time. A slightly higher figure could be justified through the occasional kid who learned Welsh at home but isn't in WM education, or who'd left it, or who learned through some other route, but double? Something is clearly wrong here. And given this is based on parental perception and understanding of what's being asked, if I had to pick between this result and the conflicting but very objective information about how many children attend what types of schools, I'd pick this to question.
I haven't seen this theory widely reported at all - I've just seen some waffle about optimistic parents hoping their kids will be bilingual or some bullshit - but if I had to guess why there was such a huge instance of overreporting here, I'd guess that it was because between the 1991 census and the 2001 census, two new laws were introduced - one in 1993 making Welsh a compulsory subject until Key Stage 3 level and then in 1999, until Key Stage 4 (GCSE level). I'm guessing a lot of parents misunderstood the nature of the question, or, okay, in this instance, really were overly optimistic about their child's fluency, seeing as it might well have been greater than their fluency in, say, French or other languages they don't bother to start teaching until we're 11 in this country. But by now the new legislation and new teaching practices are all familiar and better understood by parents and we're getting a more reasonable assessment of these kids' language skills.
I'm not great with numbers, so I have no idea how much this could impact the overall perceived drop, and as I said, I'm resigned to the fact there has been a drop. But I think if we look skeptically at the school-age kids' age bracket then there's reason to...at least not panic horribly. The 3 - 4 year old age group had an increase of 4.5%. The 20 - 44 age group had a tiny increase of 0.1%, better than a kick in the teeth, right? And I think also relevant to the above discussion. The upper end of that age group would have started school right around the time when the Welsh language finally stabilised (1971 census) and WM education began to take off. Welsh is at least stable amongst adults born since we made a concerted effort to save it, even taking immigration into account. The age groups above that? Well, that's the start of the generation that lost out, big time. The largest drops in fluency and transmission of Welsh within families occurred during my father's generation. From 1940 - 1960. That's the era that Welsh just takes a dive off a cliff. And the generation beyond that are now passing on.
Soooo, like I said, I support looking this as an impetus to increase support of Welsh as a community language. The devastation of the heartlands is real and important and in need of urgent action. But the language isn't dying. It's hovered either side of the 20% mark for about 40 years now and it's still doing that. Due to the above, I'm not sure what the actual real decrease looks like, but I do know that we don't have an aging population, in fact, it's disproportionately young - I think 30% of all fluent speakers are kids. We just have to make sure they keep speaking and they have places to speak and times when they want to.
We've got problems, and a generation of fluent speakers who can't be bothered isn't ideal, but it's a helluva lot better than extinction, you know?
Yeah. Well. Anyway, as you were.
So yeah, seriously, this will interest about 2% of you, so, seriously do not feel obliged to read this! But if my body has to feel like snot personified, I can at least unload my mind, so you get this first, instead of recent thoughts about OUAT -
So, yeah, the first thing to note is that in 1991, 18.7% of the population could speak Welsh. In 2001, that rose to 20.8% and there was much rejoicing. In 2011 it sank back to 19% and now there is a combination of wailing and gnashing of teeth and finger pointing and confusion and people asking if we can now, finally, stop spending money on this clearly useless language that obviously no one wants, not even the increasing amount of parents demanding the ability to send their kids to school in Welsh.
Now, part of the answer to this question is immigration. The entire population of Wales rose and the majority of that was due to immigration, and the vast, vast majority of those people are not going to speak Welsh, and are not going to have learned fluent Welsh since arriving. Some will, and not all of the population increase was due to immigration, but as a VERY rough illustration of the difference this makes, taking out the population increase means that the number of Welsh speakers fell by 1% not 2%. So about half the issue here is just down to dilution within a wider population anyway, and yes, that does have a negative impact in certain circumstances - the loss of Welsh as a majority language in Ceredigion and Carmarthen, for instance, seems largely down to immigration rather than numerical losses. This can have all sorts of impacts on the use of Welsh as a community language, the way the economic situation forces young people out of the area to find work while local housing is bought out by rich retirees from other areas - these are real, impactful issues that need discussion, particularly given an estimated 25% of the Welsh population are first-generation immigrants (technically, this includes me! Wheee!), but the concept of immigration in general isn't anything to be afraid of.
If the issue was just down to immigration, then I'd be more interested in positive ways of marketing Welsh fluency and education to people moving into the area and not particularly worried about the indepedent viability of the language on its own terms.
But obviously, even if it's a smaller reduction, there has also been a reduction in the number of Welsh speakers in straight numbers.
I understand that; it breaks my heart, but it seems to be true.
I am, however, reluctant to leave my discussion of the issue at this point, because there's an emerging narrative in the news coverage of the issue with which I disagree. Or at least, I think they're raising a very important point in direct relation to something it's...not so directly related to.
The problem is, that we have two reliable sources of information giving us two conflicting pieces of information.
Welsh-medium education is increasingly popular. The majority of children in Welsh-medium education do not, themselves, have Welsh-speaking parents. They learn as 3 - 5 year olds in nursery and reception classes through immersion. The numbers drop a bit when you reach high school, as some parents pull their kids out to send them to private schools (and there aren't any Welsh-medium private high schools) or simply because they want their kids' more advanced education to be in English due to a flawed assumption that they will otherwise be disadvantaged - but the difference isn't enormous. Welsh-medium education currently runs at about 23% - 24% for primary schools and closer to 20 - 21% for secondary schools.
But one thing that is very clear, is that the popularity of these schools is increasing, very slowly - often by fractions of a percentage point at a time, but it has increased every year for like, more than the last twenty. Based on what kids are registered in what schools, the number of Welsh-speaking children in Wales is increasing.
So of course, the question raised by the Census is, fine, older people are dying and young graduates are moving away to get work, but why isn't our expectation that these numbers be offset by the increased number of fluent children a reality? The percentage of fluent speakers among school-age kids actually went down this year?
The main thing I've heard discussed is the idea that part of the problem is the community language problem, that these kids are learning the language, but not using it on the playground or outside of school, that the issue is getting them to choose to use it and providing them with opportunities to do so.
Now, this IS an issue. I know I used to sneakily speak English every chance I got on the playground; no matter how fluent you are, your first language is more familiar, you're a kid, and English has the allure of being illicit, so of course that's what you speak! And outside of school, well, most places aren't set up to deal with bilingualism where I live, so that was out too.
But framing the discussion this way makes it sound like there's a problem with the schools, like they're turning out little imposters who can ask where the train station is but wouldn't be able to read a novel, which is total bullshit. If that were the case, Welsh-medium education (and as I said, the majority of kids going to such schools are first-language English) wouldn't have an earned reputation for academic excellence, considering we sit every exam, take every lesson and do all coursework in Welsh (well, except for English Lang/Lit stuff, where we do the same course as English-medium schools).
When kids march out of those schools for the last time, they are fluent. Now, that doesn't mean shit if they walk out of those schools and never use the language again, if they don't care, or they're too nervous to speak to people they perceive will judge their language skills (oh the complicated, heartbreaking politics of speaking Welsh), or if they never make an effort to speak to their kids in Welsh, even if they send them to a Welsh school too. The loss of Welsh-speaking communities is very real and very worrying and I've fucked up on that count too, because I might make more of an effort than some - I put on awful Welsh radio; I switch the language of my internal monologue; when I can't remember vocab, I damn well look it up, but it's hard and humiliating sometimes and I panic like a deer in the headlights when an old lady from North Wales asks me if I speak Welsh on the phone at work and I fumble through the conversation so nervous I forget words I know I know, without ever struggling to understand her, but worry for the rest of the day that I sounded like a linguistic embarrassment and quietly feel shit about myself. And I know for a lot of my peers, it's not worth that struggle; even for some of them who're really proud they speak Welsh and will probably always understand it, it's just too politically loaded or difficult to actively seek out ways to maintain or continue their fluency.
That's a real issue, and a tough one, and one I can't spin nicely with numbers I only half understand.
But when those kids walk out of those schools, they are fluent. So this does not explain, specifically, the fact that the number of children 5 - 15 in Welsh-medium education went up in the last 10 years, while the number reported fluent went down.
Because based on personal experience and continued objective academic success, I do not believe that the schools are failing in their mandate to ensure the bilingualism of their students, so we're left with only one unpleasant conclusion. The results for this age-group in 2001 was a statistical anomaly, caused in part by parents overreporting their children's fluency. I hate to say that, because, again, people tend to immediately assume we're talking about non-fluent parents assuming that the child they have in Welsh education is automatically fluent and as I said above, that's actually a pretty safe assumption.
But looking at the actual numbers I've seen reported on BBC News and other reliable places, the 2001 census reported some absurdly high statistics. Children 5 - 15 came out with around 40% speaking Welsh, even though only approximately half that number would have been in Welsh-medium education at that time. A slightly higher figure could be justified through the occasional kid who learned Welsh at home but isn't in WM education, or who'd left it, or who learned through some other route, but double? Something is clearly wrong here. And given this is based on parental perception and understanding of what's being asked, if I had to pick between this result and the conflicting but very objective information about how many children attend what types of schools, I'd pick this to question.
I haven't seen this theory widely reported at all - I've just seen some waffle about optimistic parents hoping their kids will be bilingual or some bullshit - but if I had to guess why there was such a huge instance of overreporting here, I'd guess that it was because between the 1991 census and the 2001 census, two new laws were introduced - one in 1993 making Welsh a compulsory subject until Key Stage 3 level and then in 1999, until Key Stage 4 (GCSE level). I'm guessing a lot of parents misunderstood the nature of the question, or, okay, in this instance, really were overly optimistic about their child's fluency, seeing as it might well have been greater than their fluency in, say, French or other languages they don't bother to start teaching until we're 11 in this country. But by now the new legislation and new teaching practices are all familiar and better understood by parents and we're getting a more reasonable assessment of these kids' language skills.
I'm not great with numbers, so I have no idea how much this could impact the overall perceived drop, and as I said, I'm resigned to the fact there has been a drop. But I think if we look skeptically at the school-age kids' age bracket then there's reason to...at least not panic horribly. The 3 - 4 year old age group had an increase of 4.5%. The 20 - 44 age group had a tiny increase of 0.1%, better than a kick in the teeth, right? And I think also relevant to the above discussion. The upper end of that age group would have started school right around the time when the Welsh language finally stabilised (1971 census) and WM education began to take off. Welsh is at least stable amongst adults born since we made a concerted effort to save it, even taking immigration into account. The age groups above that? Well, that's the start of the generation that lost out, big time. The largest drops in fluency and transmission of Welsh within families occurred during my father's generation. From 1940 - 1960. That's the era that Welsh just takes a dive off a cliff. And the generation beyond that are now passing on.
Soooo, like I said, I support looking this as an impetus to increase support of Welsh as a community language. The devastation of the heartlands is real and important and in need of urgent action. But the language isn't dying. It's hovered either side of the 20% mark for about 40 years now and it's still doing that. Due to the above, I'm not sure what the actual real decrease looks like, but I do know that we don't have an aging population, in fact, it's disproportionately young - I think 30% of all fluent speakers are kids. We just have to make sure they keep speaking and they have places to speak and times when they want to.
We've got problems, and a generation of fluent speakers who can't be bothered isn't ideal, but it's a helluva lot better than extinction, you know?
Yeah. Well. Anyway, as you were.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-15 11:11 pm (UTC)I have to say, I'm as guilty as the next person of just not trying hard enough. Although I'm bilingual and was educated in Welsh for primary school, I've always been more comfortable in English and it's even harder to find the motivation to keep using my Welsh when I've lived in England for basically my entire adult life. (I realise that for the purpose of counting Welsh speakers on the census I'm now not even relevant, but still.) And my cousins (who are first-language Welsh) speak it so easily that I feel like a foreigner for speaking English around them, but using my rusty Welsh makes me feel out of place too. Hmm.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-16 09:02 pm (UTC)Also, it occurs to me, I was pretty my-experience-centric in terms of describing the schools. I can't remember which part of North Wales you're from, but I'm pretty sure I remember, now, someone explaining to me that in Gwynedd, all the primary schools are Welsh-medium, but none of the high schools are exclusively Welsh? So if that's true that's gonna affect what I'm talking about, or at least, it's worth noting that the experiences I'm drawing from are obviously not universal in the country. Still, it's nice to know that you think what I'm saying makes at least broad sense.
And S4C still haven't released Arachnid on DVD. I know, cus I looked after you told me about it at the last Vidukon. It sounded
awfulAMAZING.no subject
Date: 2012-12-18 09:35 am (UTC)This! Exactly this.
Yeah, in my village it was Welsh-only until Year 5 (although I know there were English-medium primaries in other places nearby), after which I think there were two streams, one English and one Welsh?
Then there were three comprehensives in reach, two English-medium, including mine where Welsh-speaking students had the option to do an accelerated Welsh program and do the AS Level early (which I did), and one Welsh-medium (Ysgol Tryfan, where the kids mostly spoke Welsh amongst themselves as well as in class, from what I saw.)
But yeah, it's a while since I was in school, not sure what the situation is now!
I know, it's gutting, you can't even get a trailer for it or anything.