*Consider the following statistics which I heard during the recent coverage *of this years National Eisteddfod. Apparently 25% of the adult population of *Wales (Oes rhywun yn gwybod beth yw poblogaeth Cymru ?) speak Welsh as their *native language. However, 35% of children speak Welsh at Home. Is this really true ? Having been born and brought up in the second largest city in Wales (Swansea) during the 70's and 80's I have to say that I hear Welsh spoken so rarely that I would be inclined to say that maybe 5% of people in Swansea (population about 180,000 I think) speak Welsh. At the age of 16 my family moved to Newport, where Welsh seems even thinner on the ground. If Welsh is so rarely spoken in two of the largest cities in Wales, there must be areas (presumably mid and North) where very high percentages of people speak Welsh to give a 25 % average. Does anyone have any more statistics on the percentages of the population who speak Welsh ? I had Welsh lessons (compulsory) for 2 years at school in Swansea, but unfortunately never realised their importance until I left Wales at age 18. My parents, both Welsh, are mono-lingual English speakers, showed little interest in what they termed a 'dead' language. I am now starting to learn again. Justin. ================================================================== Justin Fackrell jwaf@ee.ed.ac.uk Signals and Systems Group Dept of Electrical Engineering University of Edinburgh King's Buildings Edinburgh EH9 3JL tel: +44 [0]31 650 5655 ==================================================================