18 December 2020 - Welsh is the fastest growing language being learned in the UK, says Duolingo
Welsh is fastest growing language in UK, says Duolingo
(BBC News, 17/12/2020)
The Welsh language is now the fastest growing language in the UK, according to Duolingo.
The smartphone app firm said the number of new Welsh learners using its services has risen by 44% in 2020.
It is ranked as the fastest growing UK language and outflanks the likes of Hindi, Japanese, Turkish and French.
Action needed to mitigate long term Covid impact on Welsh language groups, report finds
(Nation Cymru, 17/12/2020)
The Covid-19 pandemic could have a long-term adverse impact on groups that promote the use of the Welsh language unless action is taken.
That’s the finding of a group set up to investigate the impact of Covid-19 on organisations including the Urdd, Young Farmers and Mercher yr Wawr.
Only 62% of the community groups surveyed thought that they would continue to exist in a year’s time if the social distancing rules still applied.
Anglesey teenagers put £80 into T-shirt business with Welsh language at core - and business is booming
Owen Hughes (Business Live, 17/12/2020)
A successful Anglesey clothing brand with the Welsh language at its core has experienced continued growth and success despite the global pandemic.
Dillad Arfordir, co-founded three years ago by students Sion Emlyn Davies and Sion Owen as a Welsh BAC project at Ysgol David Hughes, is now a fully fledged business that has achieved record levels of orders in 2020 despite the effects the Covid crisis has had on businesses.
Linguistics professor takes aim at ‘horribly ignorant’ comments about the Welsh language
(Nation Cymru, 10/12/2020)
A linguistics professor has taken aim at what he has described as “horribly ignorant” comments about the Welsh language.
Professor Emeritus Peter Trudgill described the ignorance about language in Britain as “embarrassing” in a column for the pro-EU newspaper, the New European.
He criticised Daily Mail columnist Roger Lewis for calling Welsh a “moribund monkey language”, Times columnist Rod Liddle for claiming it was “indecipherable, with no real vowels”, and a Sky News presenter for describing it as “useless” during a live interview with a polyglot on UNESCO International Mother Tongue Day.