Welsh Journals

3. ETHNICITY AND WELSH BILINGUAL EDUCATION Wynford Bellin INTRODUCTION Actual events during the 1980s have led to major changes in the framework for discussing the cultural situation in Wales. The decennial Census includes a self-report question about ability to speak, read and write the Welsh language. For the first time in history, the percentage of younger speakers went up. At the same time a set of political events suggested Wales was very much a part of the United Kingdom. After the rejection of proposals for devolution of government to Wales in 1979, there was a much greater similarity in Welsh voting patterns to English ones in the subsequent General Election and also in those of 1983 and 1987. The Census result, combined with political events, has changed the terms of debate and discussion at a popular level, as well as in academic discussions. The Census in 1981 declared the percentage of Welsh speakers in Wales to be little below the 1971 figure around 20 per cent. This was in spite of an inexorable decline in the percentage through the century which, if followed, would have resulted in at most about 16 per cent (cf. Bellin, 1984). This result inspired songs in Welsh like that of the singer and politician Dafydd Iwan entitled Yma o hyd (literally 'still here'). Yet again the language was not to be written off. In contrast to such indications of linguistic and cultural resurgence, however, the political scene was much harder to interpret. After 1966, there had been a continued rise in the vote for Plaid Cymru, the 'Party of Wales'. The strongest Plaid Cymru base was the Welsh-speaking 'heartland' in north-west Wales, where over two-thirds were to declare themselves as Welsh speaking, even in the 1981 Census. But when a referendum was held in 1979, to establish whether some form of Welsh