Welsh language should die

Welsh children's prospects are being blighted by misguided attempts to preserve the Welsh language, says a paper published today by the Social Affairs Unit. Welsh, it argues, should be allowed to die. Then it might survive as many dead languages have - as a language of poetry and myth.

Children are taught in Welsh in most schools in the counties of Gwynedd and Dyfed, and Welsh is a compulsory subject in most schools in the rest of Wales. Yet four-fifths of people in the principality do not speak Welsh. So four-fifths of children are spending time learning a language that will be no use to them, since all Welsh speakers also speak English.

Professor Christie Davies, a sociologist from Reading University says that if the language were allowed to die: "Dead Welsh could then be the Latin of the peoples of Britain."

Loyalty Misplaced, pounds 12.95 plus pounds 1.50 postage, the Social Affairs Unit, 314-322 Regent Street, London W1 5AB. Judith Judd