By the end of the twentieth century, Wales had become a hotbed of language planning. The sharp decline experienced by the Welsh language in the first half of the century had given way to a state of “level maintenance.” The Welsh Language Act of 1993 has brought about marked improvements in the language's profile and in people's attitudes toward bilingualism. Language planning in Wales has created significant interest in other parts of Europe and around the world in other minority language communities hoping to achieve something of the Welsh successes of recent years. Nevertheless, if there have been important accomplishments, much still remains to be done to turn Wales into a truly bilingual society. The edited collection Language revitalization is an excellent, state-of-the-art volume by top specialists who analyze in detail what has been accomplished and identify remaining challenges.

Colin H. Williams, the volume editor, penned three chapters himself and co-authored three others. In chap. 1, he provides a historical introduction to language issues and problems in Wales, and gives an overview of Welsh language planning. Chap. 2, a collaborative effort between Williams and Hywel Jones, provides various numerical analyses of Welsh language maintenance and transmission, from the basic facts regarding numbers of speakers in various decennial census years to figures regarding schools in which Welsh is taught as a first or second language. One of the most striking trends is that the percentage of primary pupils who can speak Welsh fluently is rising, but the percentage of those who speak Welsh as a home language is decreasing. The reader is thus introduced to one of the constant concerns of Welsh language planners: the breakdown in language transmission in the home versus the comparative success of the Welsh-medium schools. This is a theme that runs throughout the volume. A second interesting finding of the chapter is that long-term exposure to Welsh-medium formal education has promoted positive attitudes toward bilingualism and has reduced the suspicion which characterized previous generations (67).

Chap. 3 was collectively written by the Welsh Language Board, a statutory body established by the Welsh Language Act of 1993. The Board serves as a facilitator and adviser working in conjunction with other organizations involved in any and all issues related to the Welsh language. In the view of the Board, “No minority language in the world will survive unless there is deliberate language planning” (94). The Board sees the two major causes of decline as the cessation of intergenerational transmission in the home, and the failure to educate children through the minority language.

Chaps. 4 and 5 both deal in depth with Welsh-medium education. Chap. 4, penned by Colin Baker and Meirion Prys Jones, explores the “disconcerting discontinuity” (p. 116) between primary and secondary Welsh-medium education (there are 449 bilingual primary schools and only 49 bilingual secondary schools). Baker and Jones argue that ultimately the solution will require greater clarity as to the purposes of bilingual education. Chap. 5, by Glyn E. Jones and Colin H. Williams, traces the history of Welsh-medium education in Cardiff as a case study from which important lessons can be drawn for other school districts.

In his discussion of the use of Welsh by young people, Heini Gruffudd (chap. 6) identifies the need to strengthen social networks and domains in which Welsh is the natural language choice. He acknowledges some of the major accomplishments of language planning in Wales to date, such as the new perception that Welsh is a qualification for getting a good job, but he argues that further success will be achieved only through local and national language planning that takes adequate account of economic and social issues. In his view, the existing Welsh Language Board is not able to meet these challenges and should be replaced by a Welsh Language Authority at the national level with much broader powers.

Steve Morris (chap. 7) addresses the role of adult L2 learners of Welsh in the revitalization of the language. In particular, he examines the pool of adult learners of Welsh at the University of Wales, Swansea, in terms of their demographic profile and their motivations for learning Welsh. Getting adult learners to transmit Welsh to their children is perceived as one of the central problems facing language planners in Wales today.

Colin H. Williams (chap. 8) reports on the results of the Community Research Project carried out in 1996 in four different locations. Williams notes that the use of Welsh has undergone a notable increase in certain domains over the past 30 years, particularly in education, the media, leisure, and selected public services. At the same time, community use of the language in the form of social networks has declined sharply, leaving the task of creating new Welsh speakers to the home and schools. He points to the great need to increase opportunities to use Welsh in public settings, particularly in business; survey results suggest that many people would use the language more if there were greater provision of Welsh-medium services. On the other hand, linguistic insecurity prevents some speakers from using the language more; local vernaculars and idiolects suffer by comparison with the media standard. Increasing speakers' confidence in using the language is thus an important issue for Welsh language planning.

Chap. 9 was penned by Cefin Campbell, the director of the first menter iaith or language enterprise agency, Menter Cwm Gwendraeth, which was founded in 1991. By the year 2000 there were 18 mentrau iaith across Wales. Their purpose is to promote the use of Welsh at the community level, not by doing all of the work themselves but by persuading others to act – that is, to encourage community ownership of the language. Campbell's article is an overview and critique of the different kinds of activities that Menter Cwm Gwendraeth has undertaken. The chapter is thus a comprehensive and authoritative account, and the range of programs and ideas explored by this menter iaith is nothing short of amazing.

Jeremy Evas (chap. 10) addresses one of the major concerns for the future of the Welsh language: the “heartland” areas, which over the past two decades have seen a large influx of non-Welsh-speaking people, as well as the departure of many Welsh-speaking natives. Evas focuses on one of these areas, the Teifi Valley. According to the 1991 census, 43.7% of the population of the county of Dyfed, which includes the Teifi Valley, were Welsh-speaking, a figure which is considerably higher than for Wales as a whole. Evas found that the lack of opportunity to use Welsh produced a lack of confidence in its use even in those situations where Welsh-language provision is actually available. This creates a vicious circle and leads to yet further decrease in its use (Evas 299). Many speakers in the Teifi Valley felt that the lack of provision in Welsh in the area affected their rights as citizens. An area of concern was that Welsh L2 speakers showed significantly less ownership of the language than L1 speakers and were much less eager to see its uses expanded. This suggests that one important consideration for language planners is the need to market the language proactively to L2 speakers.

The central message of chap. 11, co-authored by Nicholas Gardner, Maite Puigdevall i Serralvo, and Colin H. Williams, is that those involved in Welsh language planning should look beyond the other Celtic lands such as Ireland and Brittany (they refer to the “tired cliché of Celtic solidarity,” p. 311) to other, more successful models of language planning, including the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain, and Quebec, New Zealand, and South Africa outside of Europe. The chapter reviews Basque and Catalan language planning and suggests avenues of cooperation among different minority communities.

Finally, in chap. 12, Colin H. Williams discusses how language policy in Wales has failed to take account of regional economic development. Williams argues for increased interaction between language planners and the private sector, thereby reinforcing one of the volume's themes: Language planning should not be carried out in a piecemeal fashion but needs to be part of a larger agenda of economic and social development.

In addition to being an excellent presentation of the current language issues in Wales, this collection of articles is useful reading for anyone interested in language planning issues in general, and it offers abundant fodder for revitalization programs in search of inspiration and practical ideas.