Defiance within the decline? Revisiting new Welsh speakers’ language journeys

The Welsh Government’s Welsh language strategy, Cymraeg: A million Welsh speakers [Welsh Government. 2017a. Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers. Cardiff: Welsh Government], aims to increase the numbers of Welsh speakers to one million by 2050. The creation of new Welsh speakers and immersion education form an integral part of the Welsh Government’s language revitalisation strategy and this study revisits new Welsh speakers from the Rhymney Valley, South Wales in 2016/2017 a decade on from the 2006 research study [Hodges, R. 2009. “Welsh Language Use Among Young People in the Rhymney Valley.” Contemporary Wales 22: 16–35. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/uwp/cowa/2009/00000022/00000001/art00004]. This longitudinal research provides further insights into their continuing language journeys, and indicates there has been a sustained reduction in this group’s use of Welsh by 2016/2017 due to factors relating to fluency, confidence and a lack of opportunities to use Welsh. However, the results indicate that new speakers play an important role in influencing family language transmission and in increasing language awareness within the workplace. This paper calls for further longitudinal research on new Welsh speakers’ language journeys so that this group may be appropriately supported as they make a crucial contribution to language revitalisation in Wales.