Welsh (
Cymraeg or
y Gymraeg, pronounced
[k?m'r???g, ? g?m'r???g]) is a member of the
Brythonic branch of
Celtic spoken natively in
Wales, in
England by some along the
Welsh border and in the
Welsh immigrant colony in the
Chubut Valley in
Argentine Patagonia.
There are speakers of Welsh throughout the world, most notably in the rest of Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The most recent census figures (2001) presented in "Main Statistics about Welsh"[4] by the Welsh Language Board, indicate 582,400 (20.8% of the population of Wales in households or communal establishments) were able to speak Welsh and 457,946 (16.3%) can speak, read and write it. This compares with 508,100 (18.7%) for 1991. Increasing use of the English language had led to a decline in the numbers of Welsh speakers. Since the introduction of the Welsh Language Act 1993, giving Welsh equal status with English in the public sector in Wales, this has been slowed.
The results of the "2004 Welsh Language Use Survey" indicate that there are 611,000 Welsh speakers in Wales (21.7% of the population living in households, a lower figure of 19.7% is given in the same paper), 62% claim to speak Welsh daily, and 88% of those fluent in the language speak it daily.[4]
