pbhj's Journal: Welsh Language Board figures on welsh speakers

==Percentage of Welsh Speakers==
Those figures in the first para seem pretty dubious to me. I've looked at [http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk|Welsh Language Board] website for details from the 2001 census but they don't provide any textual results of overall percentages. They hide the figures in JPEG images and only provide a complete summary as either a MS Word or MS Excel file ... helpful - you can see they're all about diversification and access and not at all [http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk/cynnwys.php?pID=182&langID=2|sold out to Microsoft]!! Anyhow, the figures from [http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk/cynnwys.php?pID=more&langID=2&mID=2&type=Pubs&cpID=90|24 Sep 2003:
2001 Census - Main Statistics about Welsh] on the Welsh Language Board website are as follows:

CENSUS 2001: MAIN STATISTICS ABOUT WELSH
Speakers
Of all aged 3 and over:
        582,400 (20.8%) said they were able to speak Welsh.
        This compares with 508,100 (18.7%) who in 1991 said they spoke Welsh, and 503,500 (19.0%) in 1981 .

So there you go ... how do more than 60% of welsh people use welsh daily when only 20% can speak the language ...that there's called a whitewash. But of course we can't change the figures because that's "criticism". Incidentally if you look at the age distribution then that figure would be more like 5% without the huge financial support given to this anachronistic language.