Here I am in the wilds (almost literally) of Scotland, about to give an opinion, but I do think, based on what I’ve read on the Forum and elsewhere, that there seems to be a lot more Welsh spoken in Cardiff than in ‘my day’, which was basically pre-Assembly (Senedd). I also get the impression that our ancient language is less universally spoken in Caernarfon and other parts of the north and a lot less spoken in Llanelli and district. I do hope I’m wrong about the drop in usage in some areas!
My experience of Caernarfon is that I could use my Welsh in all the shops I went into. That’s very circumstantial evidence. I’ve only been to Llanelli once to run the half marathon, so can’t comment there.
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Oh no! Better count up your censuses, decline your omnibuses, and conjugate your imperfect subjunctives!
Because…
…it’s the final countdown!
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Teeny disappointment, I wanted it to give a gentle pop at the end and disappear!
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I keep meeting people from towns with 20 - 30% of people who speak Welsh telling me brazenly and stubbornly…“no one speaks Welsh here”…yet the zero sum game nature of minority languages in a dominant language means that many Welsh speakers dont get to use their Welsh in public…because most shops don;t speak it.
Also the naysayers are very sheltered from those that do - people living in isolated cliques sometimes
Once the number of Welsh speakers falls below a certain level (your instinct tells you 50% but it could be higher) the chances of that socially awkward moment when the person you’re speaking too has to say “I’m sorry but I…” or worse “EH?” become so high that we just don’t want to take the risk. So all public discourse becomes English unless you know for certain that everyone present speaks Welsh. Once that happens, anyone listening in casually to public conversations is almost guaranteed to get the impression that “no one speaks Welsh here”.
This is exactly the reason behind the “Dechreuwch bob sgwrs…” campaigns.
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Joshua Fishman suggested that 70% (or a little over) was the tipping point. It seems a bit counter-intuitive (or just depressing) but the maths is clear - when you have 3 monoglot people in a group of 10 bilinguals, more than 50% (24/45) of the possible pairings in that group will need to be in the monoglot language.
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There was some evidence of whole villages being forced into English by incomers who complained, “We have the right to use the Queen’s English in Britain!” So Community Councils, Women’s Institutes (not, I presume, Merched Y Wawr ) have been obliged to switch so that the incomers knew what everyone was saying! ie one couple changes a whole community!
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I’ve been reading this week about the Basque street surveys, where researchers go onto the street and record the number of conversations they hear around them in Euskara (as opposed to Spanish or French). It looks like a really interesting approach - I’m quite surprised it hasn’t been done in Wales. (Well, actually I’m not - it’s quite a time-consuming and expensive way to go about things… But it does collect data you can’t really get any other way.)
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If they did this study this week in Aberystwyth they’d have me walking around with headphones on talking to myself in Welsh while doing the old course!
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Do you have any links to this? Sounds really interesting.
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diolch 
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I was pleasantly surprised, on a recent visit to a well-known Chicken-based fast food outlet in Llandudno Junction, to hear the family in front of me talking amongst themselves in Welsh. The staff behind the counter, however, seemed to be using English exclusively.
I had hoped this was evidence of the presence of Y Gymraeg in the Llandudno area - and I am sure there must be some there. But the family could also have been on a day out (there is a cinema opposite) and live, in fact, in Y Fro Gymraeg, where cinemas and other “big city” entertainment facilities are a little thinner on the ground than they are in Llandudno.
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There is a lot of welsh there and in colwyn bay if you listen out for it.
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Well, now I guess I will be listening out for it, bob tro. But maybe best I don’t have too much fast food. Though, researching Welsh usage is a nice novel excuse for indulging the stomach
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I seem to be hearing a lot more Welsh around the Llandudno/NW coast area lately. I think that a lot of people come from the surrounding strong Welsh areas further inland to do their shopping there
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I think the tipping point has other factors…such as community structure/hierarchy etc…how different groups and trades interact…a very mixed community may be an issue as everyone just reverts to English…and I am someone who loves the idea of very mixed social communities 
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There are more Welsh speakers on the North Wales coast than inland…yet everyone thinks the Welsh speakers all live inland
Yes, I think that kind of stuff is relevant - but Fishman studied these patterns all around the world, and drilled down on 70% as a consistent tipping point - which is useful in language planning because the figures are often available, where the less measurable stuff can be impossible to get a clear take on.
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