Экзаменационный (типовой) материал ЕГЭ / Английский / 11 задание / 54

         Wales is a small country of just over 3 million people, on the north west seaboard of Europe. Despite many historical incursions of other peoples, particularly the English, it has preserved its ancient Celtic language, A___________________________. Welsh is habitually spoken by about 10% of the people, half understood by a further 10%, and not spoken at all by the majority in this ‘bilingual’ society.
         Up to the First World War most people were Welsh speaking, especially in the mountains of North Wales. The English-speaking areas were along the more fertile coastal plains. On the whole there was an easy tolerance of the two languages, B___________________________.
         By 1919 there was a considerable drop in Welsh speakers. This was due to the large flows of capital investment from England into the South Wales coalfield, C___________________________.
         Now, D___________________________, commerce and everyday business were carried out in English.
         In the rural mountain areas 80% to 85% of the population were Welsh speakers, E ___________________________. However, in the coalfield country of Glamorgan 70% spoke English only, and in its neighbour border county the figure was over 90%.
         By 1931 the number of people able to speak Welsh in the whole of Wales had fallen to 37% of the population, F ___________________________. It continued to drop and reached its lowest – 18.6%  — in the 1990s. But by the start of the 21st century, numbers had begun to increase again and reached 21.7% in 2004!

1.  as well as education and the law
2.  the only one of a number of allied languages that remain
3.  with radio and the English press further speeding the decline
4.  many being able to speak Welsh only
5.  where Welsh was studied as language and literature in an academic manner
6.  apart from the fact that Welsh was not permitted to be used at all in the schools
7.  bringing a flood of immigrant labour from all over Britain