Well, evidently, from that answer, ‘no’ is the answer, in truth, and that is a regret, of course, and a disappointment, because the future is digital, and devices like Apple Siri, which recognise speech and answer questions, are becoming more common in our everyday lives. But, as you can see, there is a risk that that digital future is a future without Welsh if we don’t show leadership and meet this challenge.

This is the essence of my debate, that the Welsh language must be at the vanguard of technology, and this is going to demand vision and it’s going to call for action. It’s not excessive, in my opinion, to compare the current situation today—and I see this as an opportunity as well as a risk—with a historical event that happened more than 400 years ago.

In 1588, a decision was made to translate the bible, for political reasons as much as any others, in order to try and assimilate Wales, which was fairly monolingual at the time, into the new, developing state. But, whatever the incentives were, in ensuring that the bible was available in Welsh, Welsh received a huge boost as a modern language in a rapidly-changing world. There is no need to emphasise how much more quickly the world is turning now, with new media developing and the world of apps and technological developments astonishing and enchanting us on a daily basis.

Therefore, the period before us offers the same challenges in terms of changes, but this time in technology, the internet, and social media. Digital media is becoming a more central part of our lives, and we are starting to see a new generation of voice-controlled equipment. This is a very different challenge, I would argue, to the recent development of e-books, for example, and the internet. That was something written that allowed Welsh to develop naturally, and Welsh, as it has across the ages, has proven to be a remarkably flexible language.

Voice-controlled technology, however, is very, very different. Some people predict that this is the beginning of the end for minority languages like Welsh, which will suffer digital extinction as English crowds them out. It is only English and some other major languages that Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, and Google Home understand. So, if you have one of these devices, you will speak more and more English at home as you use them.

I’m aware of Welsh households now where children now always speak English with these devices at home. There is a risk, of course, that it changes the language of the home, and that’ll be a matter of some concern to some parents, I know. But what kind of message will that send out to those young people in terms of the language of technology and the language of their future, and the perception that they have then of the irrelevance of Welsh in that future?

There is a new opportunity, however, for the Welsh language. There is no need for technology to be the enemy. Technology like the written word, and the printed word back in 1588, can bolster the language, give it new platforms on which to flourish, and can provide useful tools to help people use it. The success of the ‘SaySomethinginWelsh’ online learning course is a cause for celebration.

This challenge is also an opportunity to provide a boost for the IT and creative industries sectors in Wales and to use our bilingual expertise to gain fresh markets and to create new goods and services with innovative software. I know of companies in Wales that have developed software that can operate bilingually that have won contracts across the world because those countries are looking for software that can operate in more than one language.

We’re all now familiar with the use of digital dictionaries and mobile phones, and Geiradur yr Academi and Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru have been digitised, of course. And the Ap Geiraduron dictionaries app from Bangor University has been downloaded more than 90,000 times and is used by Welsh speakers and learners alike. We should take pride in the innovative work that Bangor University is doing in this field. The language technologies unit at Canolfan Bedwyr in Bangor has run with the idea and is challenging the monopoly of the major languages regarding the technology of the future.

It is also a challenge for the notion that tech giants can ignore minor languages and can try to force us to use one of the few major imperial languages that they choose, and, in truth, the minor languages, cumulatively, are much bigger than some of the major languages, and technological collaboration that is innovative and flexible could give us a lead on others, instead of us having to play catch-up all the time.

Text-to-voice technology has already been used in Welsh, with work having been done by the RNIB for people who are visually impaired, for example. In addition, of course, the other side of the technology, namely the ability to speak Welsh to the computer, is already being developed, as we see with the Macsen prototype, a digital personal assistant, similar to Alexa and Siri, in Welsh. Bangor University is behind this as well, of course. If I have one specific plea to the Welsh Government, I’d like to encourage the Government to extend the valuable investment in the vital work on language technology there.

In the past, economic development funds have been used to develop Welsh-language technology, and European funds were used to develop speech and translation technology. At present, there are two significant projects to transfer information to industry happening at Bangor University, where the majority of research and development in this field has happened so far. Small technology in Welsh grants from the Welsh Government have also been of assistance in the field, including the current grant to create Macsen, the first Welsh digital assistant, which I mentioned a moment ago. New opportunities are emerging now to use big data for minority languages such as Welsh. That’s why it’s so important that the Welsh Government and other public bodies in our nation ensure that all their data are open so as to assist research and development in our universities and in the private sector.

It’s time for us now to look at a long-term strategy in this area and to invest properly in the technologies that are going to ensure that Welsh has fair play in the world of digital media. Done properly, research and development in the field of language technology could, yes, promote the Welsh language, but could also regenerate the economy. At present, there are 1.5 million jobs in the digital sector in Britain, and the sector’s going to grow exponentially in the coming years. By 2020, it is estimated that there will be 100,000 new coding jobs in Britain—two and a half years away. The global market is multilingual, of course, and there’s a great demand for software and devices that understand languages other than English. That is something that is growing consistently, and Wales can capitalise on the fact that it is a bilingual nation to create a prosperous digital sector of its own that specialises in language technologies. This would be a win-win situation for us: a win for the Welsh language and a win for the Welsh economy.

As we face the loss of European funding, it is more important still that investment from Westminster and the Welsh Government fills that gap. I welcome, of course, the investment of £1.3 million in coding clubs in Wales that was announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Education recently, particularly given that one of the priorities that was mentioned there was the increase of Welsh language provision. It’s important for us to train the next generation to be ready to capitalise on bilingual and multilingual technological opportunities. But we need sustainable and significant investment from the British Research Council, the Welsh Government, and others, instead of the small, fragmented grants seen at present. This is an opportunity for us to bolster the infrastructure for technology and the Welsh language with a long-term vision for Welsh and the economy in Wales.

The Government’s strategy to create a million Welsh speakers by 2050 is a challenge that we can achieve, but we need to accept that it is not just through Welsh-medium education alone that we will achieve that aim. Technology, and language technology in particular, is vital to realising this ambition. The world of technology by 2050 is almost impossible to envisage here today. My own children will be adults by then, immersed, I’m sure, in the new digital world, and the future generations to come need to know that all the benefits of this brave new world are going to be available to them in Welsh, and that’s the challenge. And, in accepting the challenge and responding to it with enterprise and innovation, we could be a more confident nation in facing the digital future before us and, maybe, in 400 years’ time, historians will look back at our success in responding to this challenge in the same way as was done back then—and that we recognise and appreciate the vision and the political enterprise that were shown today, and not just back in 1588.