Only half of 16 to 24-year-olds consider themselves fluent, compared with two-thirds of over 60s, and only a third of the younger generation use Welsh with their friends

In the language’s stronghold of Carmarthenshire there were five electoral areas where more than 70% of the people spoke Welsh in 2001, now there are none.

The statistics have led to calls to protect the language, and 84 per cent of people indicated that they would welcome the chance to use it more.

The report by the assembly government, the BBC and the Welsh language broadcaster S4C, also claimed that more needs to be done to establish the use of the Celtic language online, as few used it for social media or when they use the internet for research or entertainment.

The findings echo recent census figures, which revealed that the number of people in Wales able to speak their own language fell from 21 per cent in 2001 to 19 per cent in 2011. More.

See: The Telegraph

Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.