Do you live in Wales? It’s just that hasn’t been my experience at all. There isn’t pressure to speak Welsh - though if you move to a Welsh speaking area then the local village school tends to be Welsh speaking. All signs are bilingual, including road markings, all letters are sent with both English and Welsh, all phone calls you can choose Welsh or English. They’ve included it as an option, they’re not ramming it down throats. Equally, everyone I’ve spoken to about it in and outside my village (we are close enough to towns and cities to visit regularly) is positive about the inclusion. However, they aren’t saying everyone must speak it, just that it’s lovely to see it included and have that option. I don’t really see the issue, especially when it’s positive for the brain to learn a second language young. There’s plenty of English schools to choose from if that family wants, but it’s not about oppression, it’s about retaining a language. My point is that particularly in areas that are Welsh speaking, to not support that within business, education, medicine etc. is strange and pointless.
Im pretty sure it was the 19th Century when Welsh in education was discouraged, however, many still spoke Welsh at home. Due to industrialisation, children were seen as having a higher chance of employment when they reached adulthood should they speak English. It carried on falling to the 1960s and then some began to see the sadness in losing the language and trying to promote it through radio in the 1970s and tv in the 1980s, so it’s a much more modern history than all this talk of Romans from pp. Areas like the area I live in have spoken the whole time at home, so reintroducing Welsh schools etc makes perfect sense. There’s no oppression, just access to a language that has existed for centuries and continued to be highly spoken in some areas to this day.