Welsh

About Welsh

Welsh, Cymraeg in Welsh, is a Celtic language spoken in Wales, where about 538,000 people said they could speak it in the 2021 census. It is an official language in Wales together with English, road signs there are bilingual and many children go to Welsh-medium schools. A small community in Patagonia, Argentina, also speaks it.

Welsh spelling is regular once you know the letters. W and y are often vowels, so cwm (valley) sounds like "koom". Dd is the th in "this", f sounds like v and ff like f. Ll is made by placing the tongue for an l and blowing air around its sides, as in Llanelli. Stress usually falls on the second-to-last syllable. Use chi for a polite "you" and ti with friends and children.

FamilyIndo-European, Celtic (Brittonic)
Speakersabout 538,000 able to speak Welsh (2021)
Official inWales (with English)
Statusvulnerable (UNESCO)
ScriptLatin alphabet
Codescy (ISO 639-1), cym (ISO 639-3)

Speaker number: Census of England and Wales (2021), Office for National Statistics. Classification: Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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