Wales divided over 'spread of foreign language'

Meirion Evans, the Archdruid in charge of the Crowning Ceremony of the Eisteddfod, withdrew the Grand Sword from its ceremonial sheath three times, crying on each occasion, "Is there peace?"

The assembly at the bardic poetry contest during the annual celebration of Welsh culture this week replied "peace" in unison. But despite the Archdruid's fine words, there is no peace among those trying to hold on to Welsh language and culture.

Rural Welsh-speaking communities feel their existence is under threat as the property boom encourages wealthy English urbanites to buy up homes in Wales at prices out of the reach of locals. Anger among many Welsh speakers finally boiled over as the Eisteddfod convened in Denbigh, near the north Wales resort of Rhyl.

Mr Evans completed his duties on Monday by comparing the threat to the Welsh language to the destruction of Swansea by Nazi bombers and deriding "foolish false prophets" who believed its survival was assured.

John Elfed Jones, a Welsh language expert who advised on the establishment of the Welsh Assembly, called English a "foreign language" and said the influx of people who speak it as their mother tongue represented a "human foot-and-mouth disease".

Wales is possibly as divided on the issue as at any time since the days of the Meibion Glyndwr (Sons of Glyn Dwr) firebombers and earlier this year Seimon Glyn, a Plaid Cymru councillor, attacked his party leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, for failing to stop "in-migration" into Welsh-speaking communities.

The Welsh First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, attempted to cool things down yesterday when he appeared at the Eisteddfod to launch a Labour consultation document on Welsh culture. He was there to ask Plaid Cymru and other nationalists not to "abandon bilingualism to appease extremists" but was drawn into attacking Mr Jones, calling his view "absolutely absurd".

Mr Morgan's intervention is unlikely to have had the desired calming effect. Today, at the Eisteddfod, the Welsh current affairs magazine Barn, in which Mr Jones made his original attack, launches a new book containing a selection of 300 letters of support sent to Mr Glyn.

Its editor, Simon Brooks, blamed the emotive language being used by all sides on Labour for trying to portray defenders of the Welsh language as right-wing xenophobes. He said: "Welsh speakers are a tiny minority in the UK and we are in a position in which it is impossible to see how we can keep our own culture and language going because we don't have access to the property market."

Mr Brooks said calls for laws to limit the number of English people buying homes represented a left-wing attempt to safeguard the rights of 500,000 Welsh speakers. He said: "It is not dissimilar to the anti-globalisation debate. It is about indigenous groups ... [getting] bulldozed by the free market.

He is a member of Cymuned ("Community"), one of two pressure groups founded to press the case for Welsh cultural preservation, and the growing call for a Property Act to keep out English buyers is embarrassing Plaid, whose move from the old fundamentalist agenda has seen it take on a bilingual name ("Plaid Cymru: the Party of Wales").

Though Plaid increased its vote by 15 per cent in the more anglicised South Wales in the election as voters perceived it to be less extreme, the party's vote in the North suffered, which was attributed to disillusion with the party's perceived lack of rapport with the heartlands.