The Welsh Language Society

The Welsh Language Society (Welsh: Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, often abbreviated to Cymdeithas or Cymdeithas yr Iaith) is a direct action pressure group in Wales campaigning for the right of Welsh people to use the Welsh language in every aspect of their lives. The current Chairperson of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg is Heledd Gwyndaf.

The Society was established in name on 4 August 1962 at Pontarddulais in South Wales, but did not have a constitution until 18 May 1963. The formation was at least partly inspired by the annual BBC Wales Radio Lecture given on 13 February 1962 by Saunders Lewis and entitled Tynged yr iaith (The fate of the language).

The Society's first public protest took place in February 1963 at Pont Trefechan in Aberystwyth, where around seventy members and supporters held a 'sit-in' blocking road traffic for half an hour.

The first campaigns were for official status for the language, with a call for Welsh-language tax returns, schools, electoral forms, post office signs, birth certificates and so on. This was done through the formation of 'cells', the first operating in Bangor in April 1963 by Owain Owain who also founded and edited the Society's only publication, Tafod y Ddraig ('The Dragon's Tongue') and designed the logo.

Cymdeithas yr Iaith believes in direct action and in the course of its campaigns over a thousand people have appeared before the courts for their part in various campaigns, many receiving prison sentences, making it Britain's largest protest group since the suffragettes – in terms of fines and the numbers sent to prison. Typical actions include painting slogans on buildings owned by businesses, and other minor criminal damage. At the beginning of the 1970s Cymdeithas began to campaign for a Welsh-language radio and television service. Radio Cymru was established in 1977, but in 1979 the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher announced that it would not keep its election promise of the establishment of a separate Welsh-language television channel. Some protesters refused to buy television licences and others climbed up television masts and invaded television studios. The TV channel S4C was launched in 1982.

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