Thursday, April 10, 2014
Counting the words
The Welsh Language Socety have been busy They have published a word count for all Assembly Members' contributions in Plenary sessions for the first three months of this year.
The intention is to measure the use of Welsh by AMs and the former Presiding Officer, Dafydd Elis Thomas leads the field with 96% of his contributions yn Cymraeg, closely followed by Rhodri Glyn Thomas (93%) and Alun Fffed Jones (92%).
As a monoglot English speaker I was a bit surprised to see that I used 61 Welsh words during this period but I am not going to look into it more closely.
What is also interesting about this analysis is that it also covers the number of English words spoken and so offers an indication of the volume (though not necessarily) the quality of the total contributions by AMs in this period.
Naturally, the table is topped by Welsh Cabinet Ministers who tend to speak longer and more often than other AMs as they answer questions and deliver statements as well as making speeches. In terms of the opposition though three members delivered more than 100,000 words.
They are Plaid Cymru AM, Simon Thomas with 126,473 words (of which 65% were in Welsh), Welsh Liberal Democrats Leader, Kirsty Williams with 111,417 words and myself with 108,614 words.
Bottom of the heap is Labour's Gwyn Price with 2,269 words.
The intention is to measure the use of Welsh by AMs and the former Presiding Officer, Dafydd Elis Thomas leads the field with 96% of his contributions yn Cymraeg, closely followed by Rhodri Glyn Thomas (93%) and Alun Fffed Jones (92%).
As a monoglot English speaker I was a bit surprised to see that I used 61 Welsh words during this period but I am not going to look into it more closely.
What is also interesting about this analysis is that it also covers the number of English words spoken and so offers an indication of the volume (though not necessarily) the quality of the total contributions by AMs in this period.
Naturally, the table is topped by Welsh Cabinet Ministers who tend to speak longer and more often than other AMs as they answer questions and deliver statements as well as making speeches. In terms of the opposition though three members delivered more than 100,000 words.
They are Plaid Cymru AM, Simon Thomas with 126,473 words (of which 65% were in Welsh), Welsh Liberal Democrats Leader, Kirsty Williams with 111,417 words and myself with 108,614 words.
Bottom of the heap is Labour's Gwyn Price with 2,269 words.
