Welsh language

Welsh is a Celtic language spoken in Wales by about 740,000 people, and in the Welsh colony in Patagonia, Argentina by several hundred people. There are also Welsh speakers in England, Scotland, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. At the beginning of the 20th century about half of the population of Wales spoke Welsh as an everyday language. Towards the end of the century, the proportion of Welsh speakers had fallen to about 20%. According to the 2001 census 582,368 people can speak Welsh, 659,301 people can either speak, read or write Welsh, and 797,717 people, 28% of the population, claimed to have some knowledge of the language. According to a survey carried out by S4C, the Welsh language TV channel, the number of Welsh speakers in Wales is around 750,000, and about 1.5 million people can 'understand' Welsh. In addition, there are an estimated 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London area.