Translating y Cofnod: Translation policy and the official status of the Welsh language in Wales

Abstract

It might safely be said that no issue is as politically contentious in Wales as that of the status of the Welsh language in society in general and in public life in particular, along with its relationship to the English language. This article draws upon a range of papers from within the National Assembly for Wales (NAfW) and the Welsh Government, some of which have been made available only as a result of a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, in its careful examination of how the translation policy of the Welsh Assembly became the subject of a very excited and divisive public row. Moreover, the article shows how this translation problem evolved into a matter of constitutional difficulty, as yet unresolved, at the highest level of public life in Wales.