Social implications of a bilingual policy, with particular reference to Wales.

The article focuses on social implications of bilingual policy, with particular reference to Wales. The relative prestige of the minority language is obviously under severe pressure when the majority language is a world language such as English or French. Irish, Welsh, Flemish, Afrikaans would be examples of this linguistic situation. Wales, like Canada, Ireland and the USSR appears to be pursuing a policy of permanent bilingualism rather than seeing it as a transitory phenomenon on the way to being a monolingual society. Wales is committed to an education policy such as that outlined in the report, 'The place of Welsh and English in the Schools of Wales.' Briefly, this recommended that the primary school should safeguard the home language of the child and encourage its use as a medium of his education whilst the second language should not be taught formally until the child had left infant school. Emphasis is also placed on the necessity to ensure continuity of policy between primary and secondary schools in the same area with regard to the teaching of the two languages and to use them as a medium of instruction.