Flintshire County Council

Welsh language

The county of Flintshire is situated in north-east Wales. Wales is a bilingual country where the indigenous language, Welsh, is spoken by around one fifth of the population. The distribution of Welsh speakers varies greatly throughout Wales in terms of numbers and density. According to the 2001 Census, 14.1% of the population of Flintshire were recorded as Welsh-speaking.

Welsh is one of the oldest living languages in Europe, pre-dating Anglo-Saxon or Old English on the British mainland. It belongs to the Celtic branch of Indo-European languages which also includes Irish, Scots Gaelic, Manx, Breton and Cornish. The survival of Welsh as a living, community language is a remarkable feature of Welsh life and is a source of great pride to the people of Wales. Following suppression of the Welsh language for centuries and subsequent serious decline in its use by the first half of the 20th century, there is evidence now that the Welsh language has been in a period of revival since the 1960s. The emergence of the Welsh Language Act in 1993 has ensured that Welsh has become an increasingly prominent feature of public life throughout today’s Wales.

Further information is available on the Welsh language in general, the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the work of the Welsh Language Board on the Welsh Language Board's website (new window).

Information in this area

Flintshire County Council and the Welsh Language

The Welsh Language Act 1993 established the principle that, “in the conduct of public business and the administration of justice in Wales the Welsh and English languages should be treated on a basis of equality”.