Duolingo is ‘pausing’ its Welsh course despite high demand – we need robust forms of learning that aren’t driven by profit
Every 14 days, a language dies. Within the next century, about half of the 7,000 languages spoken on Earth today will have disappeared, taking with them a unique lexicon, culture and way of seeing the world.
I’m lucky enough to be one of just 0.01% of the world’s population who speaks Welsh as their mother tongue. Its survival over 1,500 years is remarkable, living cheek by jowl with English, the most dominant language on Earth. The Welsh language faces a genuine threat; it is classed as “vulnerable” by the Endangered Languages Project and “potentially vulnerable” by Unesco. The latest census showed that despite huge expense and effort, in 2021 there were 24,000 fewer Welsh speakers in Wales than a decade earlier, with the proportion dropping to a record low of 17.8%.
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