In this second of two pieces about attitudes to the Welsh language, I will, as promised, look at attitudes across different levels of Welsh-language competence, and among supporters of the different political parties.

Our Welsh Election Study surveys asked respondents about their level of competence in the Welsh language. We used quite a simple question on this, from which we can generate three categories of respondents: fluent Welsh-speakers, those with some competence in the language but short of fluency, and those who indicated that they did not speak Welsh. I will use these three categories in analysing responses to our questions that probed attitudes to Cymraeg.

On our first question, this was the pattern of responses:

‘The Welsh language is a nuisance; Wales would be better off without it’

Response Fluent Non-Fluent Non-speakers Strongly agree 2% 2% 10% Agree 2% 5% 9% Neither agree nor disagree 5% 11% 18% Disagree 8% 22% 22% Strongly disagree 81% 59% 40% Don’t Know 3% 1% 4%

This is surely very much the expected pattern. Even among non-speakers of Welsh there is clear majority opposition to the statement that Cymraeg is a ‘nuisance’: indeed, not far short of two-thirds of non-speakers of the language oppose the statement. There is no sign in our data here that non-speakers are some sort of ‘silent majority’ who generally harbour hostility towards Cymraeg. Some do, to be sure, but far more do not. But opposition to the statement in the question is notably stronger among non-fluent speakers, and substantially stronger again among fluent speakers, which is what we would expect.

Somewhat similar differences can be seen in response to our second statement, which offered a moderately pro-Cymraeg position:

‘More should be done to preserve Welsh as a living language’

Response Fluent Non-Fluent Non-speakers Strongly agree 60% 36% 14% Agree 24% 35% 28% Neither agree nor disagree 8% 16% 29% Disagree 4% 8% 13% Strongly disagree 2% 3% 12% Don’t Know 3% 2% 5%

Here we can see clear majorities of both non-fluent and fluent speakers of the language supporting the idea that more should be done to support it. Among fluent speakers, fully three-fifths of our sample actually endorse the ‘strongly agree’ option in relation to this statement. Among non-speakers, who do constitute the largest group, there is no majority position on this statement. But the balance of opinion clearly leans towards the positive side – a quarter of respondents indicate opposition to the statement, but more than two-fifths endorse it.

Our third statement, to remind you, offered a more hard line pro-Cymraeg position. Here we again see some differences between the three language groups. But it is again notable that the differences are ones of degree – we do not see starkly opposing positions. Thus, a narrow majority of fluent speakers endorse the idea of ‘extreme measures’ to support the language. But so also do a plurality of non-fluent speakers. And even among non-speakers we see opinion split. The balance of attitudes is towards the negative, but even so only just under two out of five indicate opposition to the idea of ‘extreme measures’, and nearly a quarter actually support this notion.

‘The Welsh language is in crisis and extreme measures are justified in order to preserve it’

Response Fluent Non-Fluent Non-speakers Strongly agree 24% 14% 7% Agree 31% 30% 17% Neither agree nor disagree 25% 28% 29% Disagree 11% 17% 22% Strongly disagree 6% 8% 17% Don’t Know 5% 3% 8%

What about supporters of the different political parties? I broke the data down among those intending to vote for each of the five main parties on the constituency vote at the time when this survey was conducted. The three tables below show differences between supporters of the different parties. While these mainly again show expected differences – with Plaid Cymru supporters consistently being the most pro-Cymraeg, once more we do not see stark, ‘night-and-day’ chasms dividing the supporters of the different parties.

‘The Welsh language is a nuisance; Wales would be better off without it’

Response Con Lab Plaid UKIP Lib-Dem Strongly agree 11% 5% 4% 14% 6% Agree 11% 11% 5% 14% 9% Neither agree nor disagree 23% 17% 8% 18% 15% Disagree 25% 24% 14% 19% 29% Strongly disagree 28% 42% 69% 32% 40% Don’t Know 2% 2% 1% 2% 1%

Thus, for instance, we find majorities of supporters of all the parties opposing the statement that the Welsh language is a ‘nuisance’. That majority is particularly large among Plaid voters, but exists even among UKIP supporters – although UKIP’s support-base also featured the greatest proportion of supporters of this statement.

For our moderately pro-Cymraeg statement, the balance of opinion is clearly towards the positive end among supporters of all of the parties. It is, unsurprisingly, most strongly so with Plaid Cymru voters, but even clear pluralities of UKIP and Conservative supporters endorse this statement, while narrow majorities of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters do so.

‘More should be done to preserve Welsh as a living language’

Response Con Lab Plaid UKIP Lib-Dem Strongly agree 14% 22% 46% 21% 13% Agree 24% 31% 31% 22% 40% Neither agree nor disagree 30% 25% 13% 23% 29% Disagree 17% 11% 6% 15% 11% Strongly disagree 13% 8% 4% 18% 6% Don’t Know 2% 3% 1% 2% 1%

When it comes to our statement suggesting the possibility of ‘extreme measures’ in support of Cymraeg, we find only Plaid Cymru supporters inclined to agree. Interestingly, by a very narrow margin UKIP supporters are the second most supportive of this statement – perhaps indicating how many of their supporters are dissatisfied with conventional politics, and willing to contemplate other approaches to achieving political change.

‘The Welsh language is in crisis and extreme measures are justified in order to preserve it’

Response Con Lab Plaid UKIP Lib-Dem Strongly agree 7% 9% 19% 11% 5% Agree 15% 21% 31% 20% 21% Neither agree nor disagree 29% 29% 25% 22% 25% Disagree 25% 22% 17% 20% 29% Strongly disagree 20% 15% 7% 23% 17% Don’t Know 5% 5% 1% 5% 3%

It is one of the clichés of Welsh life that the Welsh language is something that divides people. In many respects that may still be true. But not in all. The evidence presented in these two blog posts is that a clear majority of people in Wales endorse the support of Cymraeg, and reject the idea that the language is a ‘nuisance’ that we would all be better off without. And such attitudes are held not only by speakers of Welsh, or supporters of Plaid Cymru – while present particularly heavily among those groups, they appear to be distributed much more broadly across the population of Wales.

Source for all figures in this post: 2016 Welsh Election Study, pre-election wave (administered 7-18 March 2016). Number of respondents = 3,272. Data gathered by YouGov via the internet, and weighted for representativeness of the adult population in Wales. The 2016 Welsh Election Study was funded by a research grant from the Economic and Social Research Council: grant ES/M011127/1.