The period 1890 to 1914 is significant for historians
investigating the nature of linguistic change in Wales because from 1891, each
decennial census included a question relating to language ability in Wales. The results of the 1911 census suggest that there was a significant decrease in
the number of people who spoke the Welsh language compared to 1891 as the
percentage dropped from 54% to 43%. The data from the censuses show that
despite the number of the population able to speak Welsh decreased in this
period, in 1911 there was actually an increase in the number of people who
could speak Welsh, meaning there were more Welsh speakers than at any other
point in history. However, in contrast to the increase of Welsh speakers in
1911, the first decade of the twentieth century has been identified as the
period in which the majority of people living in Wales did not speak Welsh for
the first time. There was a vital shift in linguistics in roughly one
generation between the years 1890 to 1914. Therefore, this suggests that the
nature of linguistic change in Wales during these years was rapid. Some historians have explained this
linguistic change as being the result of an increase in English-speaking
migrants into Wales, especially with the expansion of the coalfields in south
Wales between 1901 and 1914, which ‘brought a record flow of migrants, most of
them English.’ As
a result, there was an increase in bilingualism in Wales during this period,
but the Welsh population’s knowledge of English differed greatly due to
regional differences. Owen John Thomas suggests that the English-speaking
people who moved to Cardiff did not feel the need to learn Welsh because they
did not encounter enough Welsh speakers and ‘not enough Welsh was spoken in
offices, shops and other workplaces’. It can be argued that the nature of linguistic change in Wales from 1890 to
1914 was rapid in some areas and influenced to a large degree by the influx of
English-speaking migrants in certain areas as well as the increasingly
bilingual Welsh population.
The impact the industrial revolution had on linguistic
change in Wales in 1890-1914 has been debated by many historians after Brinley
Thomas claimed that ‘from the point of view of the Welsh language,
industrialization in the nineteenth century was the hero, not the villain’. However, Thomas later stated that this was only the case up until 1900 before
mass migration into Wales changed the language balance. Philip N. Jones has
identified that the years 1881 to 1914 were the ‘most crucial period of
linguistic change’ within the south Wales coalfield, with 1891 being a
critically important date because of the linguistic data that was collected
from that year onwards. Jones also asserts that the coalfield in south Wales ‘was the most critical
theatre of the linguistic battle fought in nineteenth-century Wales’ due to the
continued use of Welsh, but also the rise in monoglot English speakers working
in the coalfield and living in the communities. John Davies has claimed that ‘until the last decade of the nineteenth century,
many coal valleys succeeded in assimilating the non-Welsh-speaking elements’. However,
Philip N. Jones disagrees with Davies arguing that in the Ogmore and Garw
valleys, the English-speaking population for the most part were able to ‘carry
on their daily lives using English as the normal medium of communication, and
without experiencing any great pressures to learn Welsh’. It can thus be explained that the linguistic change in the coal valleys in
south Wales occurred at different rates in different areas and was dependent on
both the willingness of the Welsh-speakers to use English and the number of
English-speakers who moved into certain areas.
In 1901 in Cardiff, Penarth and Oystermouth over 90% of the population
were already monoglot English speakers, but in the administrative districts
within the coalfield in south Wales in 1901, the proportion of the population
that spoke Welsh, or both English and Welsh, was almost 60% and just over 40%
was monoglot English. Therefore suggesting that the nature of linguistic change in Wales between 1890
and 1914 fluctuated between different districts depending on the rate of
migration and the tradition of Welsh being used in the community. Places such
as Cardiff were more susceptible to linguistic change because they lacked the
traditions of dominantly Welsh speaking areas.
Dot Jones suggest that one of the causes of linguistic
change in nineteenth-century Wales was the development and completion of the
railways. During the 1890s any men working on the railways who could not speak English
were denied positions of responsibility in north Wales. This was a significant development in the nature of linguistic change in Wales
because in order to work on the railways, employees had to have knowledge of
English, even in areas that were predominantly monoglot Welsh. However, in a
broader sense during this period and especially into the twentieth century,
more areas of Welsh life were influenced by the English language and
subsequently, Welsh was being replaced by English. Philip N. Jones suggests
that areas of modern economic life such as industry, business, commerce and
technology were ‘handed over to the English language’. However, for some English migrants having knowledge of the Welsh language was
essential for their jobs like in collieries and was used in a strictly
functional way, thus shedding some light on why their English-speaking families did not see it as necessary to learn
Welsh themselves. Crucially, the increasing use of English in areas of economic life demonstrates
that the nature of linguistic change in Wales in 1890-1914 was not just the
result of education. Furthermore, it can be argued that while the increasing
use of English contributed to the lack of reasons for English-speaking migrants
to feel the need to learn Welsh, it also subjected the Welsh-speaking
population to ‘increasing external economic and cultural pressures both to
learn and speak English’.
It has been emphasised by other historians that the
linguistic change that can be seen in Wales between 1890 and 1914 was the
result of a change in attitudes to the Welsh language due to increasingly
Anglicised education and the dominating role English was playing in areas of
economic life. Prior to the 1889 Welsh Intermediate Education Act, most of the
Welsh population gained an education from Sunday schools and through religion
through the medium of Welsh. However, from 1870, state education was conducted
through the medium of English. By 1900 there had been some advances in
education in Wales, although where the Welsh language is concerned, these
advances could be considered small. Out of the 95 schools that had been
established by 1900 as a result of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889,
less than half offered Welsh lessons. Although the Welsh Intermediate Education Act was a significant accomplishment,
no school was obliged to use Welsh. Janet Davies has noted that ‘it was very
rare for schools to make the step from lessons on the mother tongue to lessons
in the mother tongue’. Russell Davies argues that Welsh was used in schools chiefly ‘as a means of
extending the children’s understanding of English’. However, Janet Davies goes on to argue that ‘all the advances made by Welsh in
schools in the twentieth century had their origins in the victory of 1890’ when
Welsh ‘won a toehold in the education system’. According to Russell Davies the Welsh language faced its biggest threat in the
field of education due to the dominant use of English in schools. However, where higher education is concerned, Russell Davies states that
‘effects of English-medium education have often been exaggerated’. Despite the establishment of the Federal University Wales in 1893, Russell
Davies maintains that the Welsh language not having a formal place in higher
education until after the First World War did not have a big impact on Welsh
society because ‘very few Welsh people attended institutions of higher
education’. In 1895 the Central Welsh Board was created as an examining body and prepared
examination papers in Welsh at higher levels. From 1907 and the establishment
of the Welsh Department of Education, there was a more positive attitude
towards the Welsh language. According to Janet Davies, the Welsh language and
its literature gradually became recognised at secondary level, but despite this
growing recognition, ‘the atmosphere of the secondary schools, even in the most
intensely Welsh-speaking areas, remained almost wholly English’. Russell Davies believes that historians investigating linguistic change in
Wales between 1890 and 1914 have placed too much emphasis on the negative
linguistic effects of the Intermediate Education Act of 1889.
In the period 1890 to 1914 there was a dramatic decrease in
Welsh language publications. As the population was becoming increasingly
bilingual, a plethora of material published in English became available to the
wider population in Wales. As a result however, there was a reduction in the
number of subjects dealt with in Welsh due to the broad coverage of English
publications. Some historians have interpreted the decline in Welsh-language publishing
during the early twentieth century to primarily be the result of the Anglicised
state educational system, explaining that as ‘monoglot Welsh readers died out,
their bilingual successors turned to English’. However, Philip H. Jones argues that this interpretation does not explain why
bilingual readers would prefer publications in English, but suggests that it
might indicate the possible weakness of Welsh publishing. In south Wales, the newspaper press was dominantly English in its publications.
The switch to English-language publications can to a large extent be explained to
be a result of an increase in knowledge of English, a lack of a general
catalogue of Welsh publications and a wider range of subjects covered by
English publications.
To conclude, a number of historians have identified
migration as the fundamental cause of linguistic change in Wales between 1890
and 1914 because of its impact on Welsh industries and communities. In contrast
to this interpretation, other historians have argued that education and a
change in attitude towards the Welsh language during this period was the reason
for linguistic change in Wales. Despite historians affording one cause to be
the reason behind linguistic change in Wales during this period, it is more
likely that it was a combination of all of these issues that secured this
change. With the continual and increasing influx of English-speaking migrants
into Wales during these years there was inevitably going to be an impact,
especially when there was already a steady decline in the use of the Welsh
language prior to this period. Alongside the increasing English-speaking population,
there was more pressure on the Welsh to learn English than there was for
English-speaking migrants to learn Welsh, especially from the start of the
twentieth century which contributed
significantly to the linguistic change in Wales. The use of English in
education is also noteworthy because the younger generations were more likely
to speak English than Welsh. Also, in areas where there was already
bilingualism, those who could speak Welsh tended to accommodate those that
could not by speaking to them in English, thus creating the sense that learning
Welsh was not a necessary part of living in Wales unless it was a requirement
for a job. Therefore, the linguistic change in Wales can be explained by a
number of different factors, but it was the combination of these factors that
led to change in Wales between 1890 and 1914.
Sources:
1.
Davies, Janet. The Welsh Language A History.
Cardiff, 2014.
2.
Jenkins Geraint H. ‘The Historical Background to
the 1891 Census’. In Jenkins, Geraint H. ed., The Welsh Language and the
1891 Census. Cardiff, 1999. Pp. 1-30.
3.
Jenkins, Geraint H. ed., Language and
Community in the Nineteenth Century. Cardiff, 1998.
4.
Jenkins Geraint H. ed., The Welsh
Language and its Social Domains 1891-1911. Cardiff, 2000.
5.
Thomas, B. ‘A Cauldron of Rebirth: Population
and the Welsh Language in the Nineteenth Century’. Welsh History Review.
(1987): 418-437.
6.
Williams, Tim. ‘Language, Religion, Culture’. In
Herbert, Trevor., and Jones, Gareth Elwyn., eds., Wales 1880-1914.
Cardiff, 1988.
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