To: Multiple recipients of list WELSH-L In-Reply-To: (null) A real and interesting problem. Of course, the two languages have existed on the same island for more than 1500 years. During a lot of that time there was no state and the Welsh retained independence. At the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, the English were probably under native (i.e. Romano-British, whence Welsh) political control. So the whole nature of the longterm bilingual drift is curious. The relatively recent emergence of an Anglophone majority in 2oth-century Wales may or may not reflect a socio-linguistic process of the same sort that preceded it further east.