What Happens to ‘Potential’ New Welsh Speakers?

 

I want you to imagine something. You're sixteen years old and you've just finished your compulsory education having spent all of your school life learning Welsh. You have practised the past participle, sung songs, prayed in Welsh, and even sat your Welsh exams. And now, you've left school with, let's say, an intermediate level of proficiency in the language. So is the experience of many school leavers in Wales.

But slowly, you find that your opportunities to use Welsh have shrunk markedly. You've gone from using the language – even in little ways – on a daily basis to not at all. You forget which words to use and when, so your confidence drops. And you're now even less likely to use Welsh when the opportunity arises. Then, you leave Wales to attend university or look for work. People point out how 'Welsh' you sound and ask you if you can speak the language, but of course – like many young people – you just want to fit in.

Over the years, your relationship with Welsh – created almost entirely through Wales' school system – has now faded. You, once perhaps considered a 'new' or arguably more precisely a 'potential' new Welsh speaker, have become another statistic in a pattern that repeats itself across Wales.

This isn't just one person's story. It's a collective experience that shows up starkly in the data. Census figures reveal a troubling pattern: the number of Welsh speakers rises throughout childhood, peaks around age 16, and then drops sharply in the late teenage years and early adulthood. In both the 2001 and 2011 censuses, about 40% of 5-15 year-olds were reported as able to speak Welsh (40.8% in 2001 and 40.3% in 2011). But this figure plummets to around 27% among 16-19 year-olds – a decline of over 13 percentage points. At first glance, this suggests a sharp shift in Welsh immediately after the end of compulsory education.

But we must be careful here. As I’m sure you’ve picked up here, the story is far more complex than simple abandonment. 

Beyond the Surface: What's Really Happening?

Before we assume this drop represents an abandonment of Welsh – conscious or unconscious – we need to consider what else might be going on. The reality is more nuanced than the stark statistics suggest.

We're comparing different generations. The 5-15 year-olds and 16-19 year-olds in each census aren't the same people at different ages – they're entirely different cohorts who experienced different educational policies. The younger group in 2001, for instance, benefited from Welsh language initiatives introduced in the 1990s that the older group had missed. This means some of the apparent 'drop' might actually reflect improvements in Welsh education over time, rather than people losing their Welsh.

Young people are on the move. The 16-19 age group is precisely when people leave home for university, work, or training. Here's the crucial point: Welsh speakers are more likely to leave Wales or Welsh-speaking areas, while those moving in (particularly from England) are statistically less likely to speak Welsh. Since the census counts people where they live at the time, this movement alone could explain some of the decline in Welsh-speaking rates among older teenagers.

Who's doing the reporting matters. For children aged 5-15, parents usually fill out the census form. But 16-19 year-olds report for themselves. This shift is significant because teenagers might be less likely to tick the 'Welsh speaker' box unless they feel genuinely confident or connected to the language. Peer pressure, embarrassment, or simply not feeling 'Welsh enough' might lead them to underreport their ability – even when they still have basic skills.

The 'school Welsh' effect. Many parents report their children as Welsh speakers simply because they attend Welsh-medium schools, regardless of whether the child actually uses Welsh outside the classroom or feels comfortable with the language. This could inflate the numbers for younger age groups, making the later drop appear more dramatic than it really is.

What Really Happens When New Welsh Speakers Leave School?

Research reveals that when new Welsh speakers leave compulsory education, there's often a reduction or even cessation in their use of Welsh. The work of Dr Rhian Hodges at Bangor University illuminates this transition through longitudinal research that followed the same young people across more than a decade – offering us a rare window into how Welsh-language journeys actually unfold.

Hodges' initial research (2009) found that even those from Welsh-speaking backgrounds increasingly opted to use English with peers after leaving compulsory education. Remarkably, the workplace emerged as the primary domain where Welsh continued to be used regularly. This suggests that Welsh-speakers often lack intrinsic motivation to use Welsh outside institutional settings – being motivated post-education primarily by extrinsic factors like workplace incentives or requirements. Their Welsh becomes confined to professional contexts, mirroring how it was previously confined to the classroom.

Crucially, Hodges found that while opportunities existed for young people to use Welsh after compulsory education, many simply chose not to participate in available Welsh-language activities. When Hodges revisited many of the same individuals more than ten years later (2024), she revealed how their Welsh-language trajectories had evolved. While some had re-engaged with Welsh – particularly after becoming parents or settling in Welsh-speaking communities – the majority continued to use English as their main language of daily life. Many described their Welsh as "rusty" or "distant," more like a school subject than a living language. Most poignantly, some expressed regret or frustration at their own lack of use, but didn't feel they had the spaces, confidence, or social circles to reconnect with the language.

What this research reveals is that the decline isn't simply a result of skill loss, but of disrupted language journeys. The scaffolding provided by compulsory education disappears, and without meaningful, socially embedded opportunities to speak Welsh – and without a strong sense of ownership over the language – many new and potential speakers quietly drift away.

So, what happens to 'potential' new Welsh speakers?

These 'potential' speakers become suspended between learning and living the language, existing in an in-between space where their Welsh remains accessible but unused, familiar but distant. They are speakers who don't speak, learners who have stopped learning, potential that remains unrealized not through personal failure, but through systemic gaps in how we support language maintenance beyond the classroom.

Yet we know remarkably little about what actually happens in this critical transition period. How do young people navigate their relationship with Welsh after leaving compulsory education? What factors influence whether they maintain, develop, or drift away from the language? How do attitudes, proficiency, identity, opportunity, and social context interact during these formative post-school years?

My research aims to fill this gap by understanding what happens in this in-between space – between the classroom and adult life, between potential and practice. I want to explore how policy, identity, and social practice interact in the post-school years, and whether we can reimagine a model of language revitalisation that moves beyond institutional settings and into authentic, meaningful contexts.

Because perhaps the question isn't just "What happens to potential new Welsh speakers?" – but "How can we better support them to transform potential into practice?"

Daniel Strogen

Prifysgol Abertawe / Swansea University