I'm writing a paper on the influence of Celtic languages on the English language for my Introduction to Language course. I need to find out statistics on about how many people # and % wise who speak Irish/Welsh/Scottish/Manx, etc...today and some information as to whether or not the Celtic languages are on the decline or increasing in popularity/use.

If anyone has helpful links or information, it would be greatly appreciated!

Wikipedia is your friend. For instance, the article on Welsh contains the following paragraph:

The 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey shows 21.7% of the population of Wales are Welsh speakers. This is an increase from 20.5% in the 2001 census, and from 18.5% in 1991. The 2001 census also shows that about 25% of Welsh residents were born outside Wales. The number of Welsh speakers in the rest of Britain is unknown. In 1993, S4C, the Welsh-language TV channel published the results of a survey into the numbers of people who speak or understand Welsh, and this estimated that there were some 133,000 Welsh-speakers living in England, about 50,000 of them in the Greater London area and border towns and villages in the Welsh Marches such as Oswestry.

The total number of Welsh speakers in Wales is given as 611,000. (I know a lot of people distrust Wikipedia because "anyone can edit it", but the better articles--including most of the linguistic ones--always include footnotes to vetted sources.)

Wikipedia is hardly worthy as an academic reference. I would suggest holding off until some of the more versed members respond. Lughaidh, Dennis, BRN and a handful of others should be able to provide National references for each...not trying to put them on the spot but they tend to be more academically driven (and accurate).

Like I said...there are others who regularly post here...those three came to mind as some of the more academically driven.

James, did you actually read my entire response--or the article I quoted--before responding? I actually anticipated this very objection when I said:

I know a lot of people distrust Wikipedia because "anyone can edit it", but the better articles--including most of the linguistic ones--always include footnotes to vetted sources.

As the quote from the "Welsh Language" article makes clear, the statistics it gives are drawn from the 2004 Welsh Language Use Survey. This is available on the Welsh Language Board website (<http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk/>), which the footnote in the Wikipedia article links to. Sieirál doesn't need to quote Wikipedia for her paper, she just needs to use it as a pointer to primary sources.

For most topics, Wikipedia is no better or worse than any other general-use secondary source. You simply have to know how to use it intelligently to assist your research.

I don't trust Wikipedia nor even the official surveys about the number of speakers (at least for Irish). For the Irish survey, it seems that they just asked "can you speak Irish?" or something like that. So all the people who claim to speak Irish will answer they can, even those who just know a couple of words but who are proud to say they know Irish. So, the number of "official" speakers is huge, while fluent speakers are much less numerous. Many (most?) of the people who claim to speak Irish wouldn't understand the same question if it were asked in Irish, you see...

This will be of some use for Irish:
http://www.pobail.ie/en/AnGhaeltacht/LinguisticStudyoftheGaeltacht/

For census data (self reported, so treat with caution) see
www.cso.ie

I understand what you're saying, Lughaidh, but what's the alternative? It's rare to find figures for number of speakers that aren't based on self-reporting for any language. It's not practical to administer proficiency exams to every single person who claims some Gaelic. Even administering them for a statistically-significant sample would be a massive (and expensive) undertaking.

Moreover, it's most likely moot anyway. Sieirál hasn't said explicitly who her paper is for, but unless it's an EU or UNESCO commission, self-reported figures or even estimates are probably more than sufficient.

I know. So Sieirál may use this census and add what I said.

A chairde,

As someone who has worked as a researcher, fact-checker,
and editor for many years,
I would recommend steering clear of Wikipedia.
Find a primary source with some rigorous standards, such as a university, a government department,
or a reliable organization or non-profit group's Web site.

Le meas,

Paul

As someone who has worked as a researcher, fact-checker, and editor for many years, I would recommend steering clear of Wikipedia. Find a primary source with some rigorous standards, such as a university, a government department, or a reliable organization or non-profit group's Web site.

And how does one go about finding these? If you don't know that the Welsh Language Board even exists, let alone that it did a recent survey of the Welsh-speaking population, how would you discover this valuable primary resource?

There are several ways to go about this, and consulting the Wikipedia article on the Welsh language is one of them. If people have other aggregators they prefer for such research, then I invite them to post links rather than simply heaping more scorn onto Wikipedia.