Indo-European · ISO 639-3 cym · cy
Welsh Language Cymraeg
Welsh is an Indo-European language spoken by about 850,000 people in 2 countries. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Welsh is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Welsh
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Celtic
- Nuclear Celtic
- Core Celtic
- Insular Celtic
- Brythonic
- Old-Modern Welsh
- Welsh
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Welsh language
Welsh (Cymraeg) is spoken by about 850,000 people, which makes it the 486th most spoken language in the world — just behind South Ndebele (900,000) and ahead of Western Frisian (845,100). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Old-Modern Welsh group within the Celtic branch.
Where is Welsh spoken?
Welsh is used in 2 countries. The largest communities live in United Kingdom (889,968) and Argentina (31,016).
Share of the population that speaks Welsh: United Kingdom 1.3% (889,968) and Argentina <0.1% (31,016).
Welsh is not a national official language anywhere. It also has regional official status in United Kingdom.
Writing system and status
Welsh is written in the Latin script. Glottolog classifies it as threatened, meaning fewer children learn it than in the past.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 cy, ISO 639-3 cym.
Frequently asked questions about Welsh
How many people speak Welsh?
Where is Welsh spoken?
What language family does Welsh belong to?
What is Welsh called in Welsh?
Is Welsh an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.