Track 28

Track 28

Joe: Morning, everyone! How are you?

Susan: Fine thanks, Joe.

Julia: Yeah, fine, Joe. Have you managed to do much research on our minority languages project?

Joe: Well, Julia. I’ve been having some trouble finding information about the number of Cornish speakers in the UK. The records at the Office of National Statistics and the Cornish Language Council say different things, so I’m not sure who to believe.

Julia: Hm. Susan, have you got any information about this?

Susan: I was looking on the government’s minority languages website. and it says that nearly half the minority language speakers in the UK are speakers of Welsh.

Julia: Are you sure it’s nearly half? I thought the number of Gaelic and Welsh speakers was more or less the same.

Susan: It used to be when Gaelic was a compulsory subject in schools. But nowadays there are fewer speakers of Gaelic compared to Welsh. And apparently, with Cornish it’s difficult to know the exact percentage of the population who speak it because most people only speak it to intermediate level; very few people are fluent speakers.

Joe: I suppose that’s why the statistics are different. Well, I think we should go with the more conservative estimate based on the number of fluent speakers.

Julia: I think you’re right, which means that Cornish isn’t spoken by nearly as many people as the other languages.

Susan: Yes. I think that’s right too. Based on fluent speakers, that means that Welsh is the most widely spoken and the numbers of Irish and Gaelic speakers are more or less the same.