Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg - Welsh Langauge Society

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Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, or the Welsh Language Society, was founded on the principle that the Welsh language deserved to survive the oppression and dominance of English. Gerald Morgan points out moments in history the Welsh language and culture was at its highest points. During the mid-19th century, churches were the centres of culture and language worship (Morgan 2001:109). He argues that even though there are a lot of Welsh speakers, they are mainly bilingual, causing the language to be not as healthy as others with the same or less numbers. Bilingualism has often been an issue with endangered languages; while it can be helpful to speak both Welsh and English (in this case), it sometimes dilutes the strength of Welsh. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg fought back (and continues to do so) against the threat of English monolingualism on their culture. Merriman and Jones argue in their article "'Symbols of Justice': the Welsh Language Society's campaign for bilingual road signs in Wales, 1967-1980" Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg began to protest in the 1960s and 70s: "On 14 July 1966 the Welsh National Party Plaid Cymru had had their first member of Parliament,  Gwynfor Evans, elected to Westminster, while during the year Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) had been engaging in increasigly militant acts of non-violent protest as part of their campaign to force the British state to give offocial (bilingual) status to the Welsh language" (2008:351)*. Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg brought bilingual status to the Welsh language, elevating it to the same prestige in the community as English. Welsh began to appear again on road signs and other public domains. The campaign has been a successful way of helping to revitalize the Welsh language.

*Due to spacing allotments on the blog, block quotes could not be indented as per AAA style.

Merriman, Peter and Rhys Jones.

2008 “Symbols of Justice”: the Welsh Language Society’s campaign for bilingual road signs in Wales, 1967-1980. Journal of Historical Geography 35:350-375.

Morgan, Gerald.

2001 Welsh: A European Case of Language Maintenance. In The Green Book of Language Revitalization in Practice. Leanne Hinton and Ken Hale, eds. Pp. 107-116. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.