The Welsh Language is still in peril.

At 2021 census, the lowest proportion of Welsh speakers in history was recorded in Wales, 17.8 per cent.

This is despite massive efforts to encourage Welsh language usage across Wales, and a stabilisation in the national decline since the 1980s.

Despite the slowing of the decline on the national scale, the picture is much worse than what these figures would have you believe.

Nationally, the proportion of Welsh speakers fell very slightly from 19.0 per cent in 1981 to 17.8 per cent in 2021, with an increase noted during the 1990s. If it wasn’t for increases in south Wales, this number would be much, much lower.

Locally, Ceredigion has declined from 65.1 per cent Welsh-speaking in 1981 to 45.3 per cent in 2021. Carmarthenshire fell from 59.2 per cent to just 39.9 per cent and Gwynedd from 76.2 per cent to 64.4% per cent over the same period. Powys fell from 21.0 per cent to 16.4 per cent, though parts of Montgomeryshire have been among the fastest-declining Welsh-speaking communities in Wales.

So what’s going wrong?

The reasons behind the decline can be summarised very easily. Outward migration of young adults who are educated and raised in Welsh-speaking environments, and their replacement by inward migrants with no knowledge of Welsh. More people leave then come in, hence depopulation. The situation isn’t helped by the dominance of English-language TV and mass media.

Devolution provided us with an opportunity to protect and promote the language, and to give it a sustainable future. In the first 20 years, this didn’t happen.

The number of majority Welsh-speaking counties has halved, and the national proportion of speakers fell by 3 percentage points between 2001 and 2021.

Those who think devolved language policy has been a success point to modest increases in Cardiff and surrounding counties as a positive sign.

I would argue that increases in Cardiff represent a failure of policy if not accompanied by increases elsewhere.

Prosperity and opportunity have not been spread more fairly across the country. Centralisation to Cardiff has been no less harmful than centralisation to London to Welsh-speaking communities.

The target for one million Welsh speakers by 2050 is ill-considered and unrealistic. There is no sign that we’ve made any progress towards it since it was announced in 2017, and it may not be effective in preserving Welsh as a community language with everyday speakers.

The language is surely in a more favourable position if spoken by 20 per cent of the population nationally with strongly Welsh-speaking areas than if spoken by 30% of the population who are spread out evenly.

“Able to speak a language” and “speak the language regularly” mean two very different things, as anyone who reads up on the Irish language statistics will tell you.

The new Welsh Government must be realistic about its targets and understand the situation the language really faces. It’s not safe. The number of speakers is not growing at any meaningful pace, and the viability of Welsh as a community language is weaker than it was when devolution began.

Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong in 30 years when the 2051 census results come out. I hope so, but I won’t hold my breath.

As the saying goes: “cenedl heb iaith yw cenedl heb galon” – a nation without a language is a nation without a heart.

The Welsh Government needs to get real and pull its finger out. The future of a whole language depends on it.