Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?: Language and Dialect in a Welsh Community¹

Abstract

Each decade in Wales, the published census statistics are scrutinized for clues as to the pattern of language change in various parts of the country. Those published since the Second World War paint a depressing picture, underlining the effects on the Welsh language of the socio-economic changes which have affected Wales and other peripheral regions of Europe over the last forty years. There is, however, a need to interpret official statistics in the light of qualitative research at the community level. This paper is an account of language shift in a small industrial community in south-east Wales,and is an attempt to show how changing social and historical conditions can affect local social networks, and in turn, patterns of language use.