I laughed when I read this and wondered what word Castelled was - the welsh language part of my brain read it as Castell - ed 
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Just wanted to say to @aliC, what a brilliant idea and one that I will definitely try next time I visit Wales — assuming I’ve got past Level 1 Challenge 1 by then… 
Many thanks to you and everyone else in this conversation — very encouraging.
I should add I so wish we could do the same in Cornwall — speak Cornish everywhere on the assumption that other people will speak it. (I’m not fully fluent, but still learning, and happen to be heading to Cornwall myself in a few days’ time.) But we just don’t have enough speakers (yet?) for that to work. What’s more, not everyone is so receptive to the idea of using the language (even though it’s well over 100 years since the revival of it began) and it might bring hostile reactions in some quarters. But it is growing, however gradually, so I’ll live in hope that our day will come… 
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Ooer… in another online forum (non-Welsh-related) I’m involved in, there’s a member — very nice lady as far as I can tell — whose profile gives her location as “Pembrokeshire ‘Little England Beyond Wales’” (she is English and moved there from Sussex a couple of years ago). Since there’s no polite way I could possibly raise the point “Er, excuse me, how many genuinely Welsh people would call it that?!”, I don’t. Now I’m even more shocked to see there are actually people in Pembrokeshire who believe that. How did it get that nickname in the first place, out of curiosity?
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Me: 
So rude!
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It is historic in many ways and also exaggerated through the influence of Victorian Travel writers like George Borrow and his very well read “Wild Wales”.
There is an imaginary line called the Landsker line and the story goes that those below were mainly Non-welsh speakers, (not necessarily English speakers, but more recently certainly) often claimed to be of Flemish decent (not sure there’s much evidence, but hey ho). The line has moved up and down over time as Welsh speaking areas grew or receded.
I have always known it as Little England beyond Wales and it’s just a bit of fun really - I think people from that area were always considered Welsh, but very English in their ways and their language. An English person who has moved there and maybe thinking its part of England, probably doesn’t quite get the history of it.
P. S. I did say to someone from somewhere South of the Line once, that he was from Little England beyond Wales and he was very offended, because he regarded himself as very Welsh and I had to very quickly take it back.
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I know, sorry, I couldn’t help it. 
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Before I moved to Wales, I actually did think that every Welsh person spoke Welsh. It was only after moving to Cardiff that I realised that wasn’t the case.
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That just reminded me of a story that was doing the rounds (originally on Facebook, I think) a couple of years ago — not sure who the author is, but for what it’s worth…
The most perfect thing I have ever seen just happened on the replacement train bus service between Newport and Cwmbran:
White man sat in front of a mother and her son. Mother was wearing a niqab. After about 5 minutes of the mother talking to her son in another language the man, for whatever reason, feels the need to tell the woman “When you’re in the UK you should really be speaking English.”
At which point, an old woman in front of him turns around and says, “She’s in Wales. And she’s speaking Welsh.”
Perfect.
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Ha ha! Whatever you said, I think it was remarkably restrained.
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While I fully appreciate the reasons for posting such stories, my own preference is to avoid them because they have a good chance of being “fake news”. This particular one has been aired on this forum along with a pub horror story earlier in the year during which someone posted the New Statesman article on this exact story.
I am quite depressed about the amount of bigotry on language and other cultural issues flying about but I have personally found some useful tips on how or when to react in this thread. I keep having to remind myself that not everyone is a bigot. 
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Thanks, Huw. I hadn’t thought to do any further research on that story before sharing it, which I should have done. I definitely appreciate the “bias confirmation” point and don’t want to be spreading unsubstantiated and garbled-up stories, no matter how satisfying they seem, so I won’t share that one again. Diolch, cyfaill
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Rather than assume, it would be better to know. This may not be possible in random meetings but could be possible in outlets that are sympathetic to Welsh. I created the website www.breatheyourwelsh.cymru to show where Welsh is spoken and for this to be verified by people leaving comments. Leaving aside the fact that it is not a very successful website (putting it mildly), I actually started with the idea that, if there was a Welsh language voluntary quality mark for an outlet like a shop, there would be certainty on any response. For instance, if the quality mark required a shop to publicise on the door the likelihood of getting a Welsh response then that would give confidence. Pragmatically this could even work if the Welsh speaker was not available providing that there was an encouraging response to Welsh even if it meant most of the conversation was in English eg a smile and a learnt ‘mae’n ddrwg da fi, alla i ddim siarad Cymraeg, how can I help you’?
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This sounds like a perfectly reasonable suggestion. We have 0 - 5 scales for food hygiene, so why not one for either the quality of the spoken Welsh at an establishment or the likelihood of an assistant speaking Welsh?
I think yes or no would suffice, I don’t think ranking the quality of Welsh spoken is very kind and would only knock confidence, but I like the idea. The orange badges or wall stickers should be promoted more maybe.
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Yea I’d be pretty knocked back if my language level was rated and displayed on my place of work.
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Perhaps ‘Quality Mark’ was the wrong term though that could be debated. It is not about the quality of Welsh it is about the Welsh language ‘offer’ provided. On my website I tried to rate the likeliness of being able to speak Welsh in an outlet which could be 100% if everyone spoke Welsh. I also rate the website for Welsh content and Welsh labelling in the outlet - much is subjective. Any ‘quality mark’ (okay, the more I use that term the less I like it), could potentially measure other things such as whether the outlet promotes Welsh (different from speaking it); has English speakers able to say a simple sentence apologising for not speaking Welsh so it is comfortable to continue in English; promoting SSiW!.. Okay, could go on. My basic fear about Welsh is that it isn’t the language of the street as much as it once was and, for any language to survive, it has to be heard.
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I think some kind of Welsh-friendly certification would be great, and personally I’d be happy for it to be set quite low, eg all staff have had an awareness session and can say “Dwi’n sorri, dwi ddim yn siarad Cymraeg” before switching.
That would be enough for me to feel happy to have a go. I think those of you who do this already are great, but if I’m honest that’s not going to be me any time soon, or at least not in Cardiff. But then again I’m not the sort of person who goes around looking for opportunities to chat to strangers/people in shops, etc as I go about my day. Maybe this is something I need to work on alongside the Welsh, as it would certainly limit my opportunities for interaction, should I be somewhere where I’m more l likely to bump into Welsh speakers than London! I do have a red dragon and one of those Cymraeg pins on my handbag so maybe one day someone will notice and strike up a conversation in Welsh.
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Yes, average across the nation, and across age groups. For the age group 10-14, the index is 0.5, reflecting I think, the influence of Welsh language education.
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I admit I had to Google to see where Pembrokeshire is. But now I see it’s not near the border (quite the opposite)…what does this mean? 