"Caouissin ... would like to think the language will follow a similar path to Welsh, which has enjoyed a revival over the past half-century and is spoken by 538,000 people"
People keep getting this wrong about Welsh! There has not been a "revival". Let me explain. 1/
If you track the percentage of Welsh speakers from 1881 to 2021, it's a *downward slope*. Welsh did not die or come close to death and then get "revived". What happened is that the decline slowed significantly and we reached something like a plateau in the 1970s. 2/
And that's a really good thing! It's why Welsh is comparatively healthy. But it's not a "revival" in the sense that so many people always seem to imagine. We could maybe say there was a *revival of support*, both at the state level and the popular level. A reinvigoration perhaps... 3/
In the early to mid twentieth century families had started to see English as the route to a better future for their children. (My father, born in 1946, remembers his parents talking in Welsh when they didn't want him to understand.) By the end of the century such attitudes had shifted a lot. 4/
Parents had started to see Welsh as a useful skill to have. Where there had been a sense that English was the way forward, now there was a sense that Welsh people really should speak Welsh (even if most already didn't) and that we should pass it on to our children. 5/
But this happened at a time when a lot of people still spoke Welsh as an everyday community language! They still do. This was not a "revival" of the language. This was an intervention so that a revival wouldn't be needed.
The wording matters. 6/
Feb 1, 2026 16:42It matters because the word revival leads people to think that Welsh, like Cornish or Manx, pretty much died and was brought back by enthusiasts.
That's completely false.
To reiterate: Welsh never stopped being the everyday community language for significant numbers of Welsh people. 7/
But it also matters because there is still a significant danger. Some of those communities are severely threatened. They're being hollowed out as locals get priced out and the houses become holiday homes. The twentieth-century revival narrative diverts us from what work is needed now. 8/
And it matters because it's too late for Breton to follow a similar path to Welsh. Welsh never got to the point Breton is at now. It didn't need revival! Breton does. And while some of what helped stop Welsh declining may help revive Breton, the differences do matter. 9/
TL;DR: Stop saying that Welsh experienced a revival! If didn't. It was better than that. 10/10
Coda: To be clear about what I'm saying here: I don't think it's too late to try to stop Breton from dying. I'm saying it's too late to follow the path that Welsh did. Breton is already too far down a different path.
bsky.app/profile/gari...And it matters because it's too late for Breton to follow a similar path to Welsh. Welsh never got to the point Breton is at now. It didn't need revival! Breton does. And while some of what helped stop Welsh declining may help revive Breton, the differences do matter. 9/
