the census, question 17

[mollykins]

Dad worked out why it is blank but me and mum couldn't until he told us.

Any guesses or has anyone else worked out why question 17 is blank? If you don't get it on the first page of replies, i'll give you a clue.

[ChuckFickens]

Ask here

http://www.theanswerb...k/Question995727.html

[New Judge]

The last survey I read about (which was about 2 years ago) it was about 300k, AB. It will be interesting to see this year's result, but I still don't know of what use this information will be (unless the government is considering saving the rridiculous sums spent on providing bi-lingual signage and documentation, which is very unlikely).

[NazNomad]

"Lol @ Dim un o'r uchod if that is true naz. "

I hope it is, it's copied from the census in front of me.

[boxtops]

I haven't had mine yet - perhaps they've forgotten us.

[ABerrant]

New Judge - the last survey I read put the figure around 620,000 (with a further 150,000 speakers in England). For the government to save the "ridiculous sums" they would have to repeal the Welsh Language Act 1993 and is complicated by the fact that on 9th Feb 2011 The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure, which confirms Welsh as an official language of Wales, received Royal Approval.

[mollykins]

Naz do you live in Wales, i thought i heard someone say they had the welsh one but they weren't in wales . . .

[New Judge]

Yes I know that those laws would have to be repealed AB. That's why I said "highly unlikely" (but not impossible - laws can be repealed).

Whether the number of people using the Welsh language is 300k or 600k is really immaterial. I would imagine (though do not know for sure) that a vast majority of them speak English as well. The question that really needs to be asked is whether the cost of such bilingual measures can continue to be justified in these allegedly hard times to cater to the whims of less than 0.5% of the population..

[DaisyNonna]

Why not just ask what languages re spoken? Or would that be discriminatory?

[NazNomad]

"Naz do you live in Wales ..."

Yes. I received two versions of the census, one in Welsh and one in English.

[NazNomad]

"The Welsh language is officially protected by the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998, and since 1998 it has been common, for example, for almost all British Government Departments to provide both printed documentation and official websites in both English and Welsh."

Which is possibly why we're not seeing Cornish, Manx, Gaelic etc. etc. options.

[ABerrant]

"cater to the whims of less than 0.5% of the population"

600k relates to 20% of the population of Wales.

With all this conjecture over 300k or 600k speakers perhaps it is time we had a census to ascertain the figure?