The Geographies of Language Ability

Abstract

This chapter examines one of the most obvious and explicit ways in which geographers and others have approached the study of the language; namely in relation to attempts to map the language, particularly language ability. We start by charting the conventional ways in which Welsh language ability has been mapped over the course of the twentieth century and argue that these maps have helped to underpin a particular political and popular conception of the location of the Welsh language. Section 4.3 develops these ideas by examining how maps of Welsh-language ability have been recursively linked to academic, policy and public understandings of the geographies of Welsh identity. The final substantive section in the chapter provides a series of alternative representations of Welsh language ability by highlighting, inter alia , the mobile lives lived by Welsh speakers and the prospective geographies of Welsh-language ability. We conclude the chapter by reaffirming the power of maps to enable and justify different geographical interpretations of patterns language ability and call for geographers—and others—to recognise this plural role. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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