Gibson Ferguson Language Planning and Education Edinburgh ...

98 Language Planning and Education
1925, is the 1962 public lecture delivered on BBC Radio Cymru by Saunders Lewis,
former president of Plaid Cymru (1926–39), entitled ‘Tynged yr Iaith’ (the Fate of the
Language), which called for constitutional and unconstitutional direct action on
behalf of the threatened Welsh language (see Williams 1994, 2000a). An almost
immediate response was the formation – some six months later – of the Welsh
Language Society (Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg), a pressure group whose non-violent
(or mainly non-violent) direct action campaigns were instrumental in forcing the
pace of Welsh language promotion, leading, for example, to the introduction of
bilingual road signs (1969), the issuing of bilingual road-fund licences (1970) and
an enlargement in the range of bilingual services offered by local authorities.
Around this time, meanwhile, in response to earlier nationalist campaigns –
but reflecting also a more sympathetic stance to the Welsh language, the British
government in 1963 set up a committee to enquire into the legal status of the Welsh
language. This duly delivered a sympathetic report in 1965, paving the way for the
passage of the Welsh Language Act 1967, which established the principle of ‘equal
validity’ for documents in either Welsh or English in public administration, and
removed restrictions on the use of Welsh in the court system (Price 1984). Deeply
disappointing though these limited measures were to the nationalist lobby, they
nonetheless can be seen as a significant early step in the legitimation of Welsh in the
civic realm, and a herald of further hard-won promotion successes.
Among the most significant of these, given its role in enhancing the visibility of
the language, and in expanding the range of topics publicly discussed in Welsh (e.g.
sport), was the establishment in 1982 of the Welsh-medium television channel
Sianel Pedwar Cymru, otherwise known as S4C. 9 A commissioning rather than a
production organisation, this has over the years considerably boosted the status of
the language – not least economically, as it has contributed to the emergence of
Cardiff as a significant media production centre and to a growth in Welsh media
employment opportunities (Williams 2000a, 2001).
Continuing pressure from dissatisfied language activists, and a more amenable
approach to national minority issues by the British government, eventually produced
a further enhancement of the status of Welsh in the Welsh Language Act 1993,
which sets out a statutory framework for treating Welsh and English on the basis
of equality. Probably the most significant provision of the Act, however, was the
statutory recognition awarded to the Welsh Language Board (Bwrdd yr Iaith
Gymraeg), which has become, as Baker (2003b: 98) points out, the principal agency
of formal Welsh language planning.
One of its main tasks is overseeing the implementation of Welsh Language
Schemes, a scheme being the plan that every public sector organisation is required to
produce, detailing how language equality and the right of members of the public to
services in their preferred language will be implemented. By 1998 some 67 schemes,
including those of local authorities, had been approved, and a further 58 public
bodies had been instructed to prepare schemes. Additional activities of the Board
include the distribution of grants to Welsh organisations, the development of Welsh
electronic resources (e.g. spell-checkers and grammar-checkers) and promotional