Today the Welsh language is very much alive, but it has been a long hard struggle to be left alone to speak in our own tongue. Many attempts were made in the past to surpress the use of Welsh in schools and communities across it's country. There is written evidence that as early as the time of Henry the 4th, attempts were made to ban the use of Welsh. Even as late as the 19th century renewed attempts were made at dispelling the language, this was done with the arrival of an invention called the "Welsh Not" which was used in schools.
Any child that was heard speaking in Welsh had a block of wood hung around their neck. The wood was carved with the initials WN .... "Welsh Not", the child who had been heard speaking in their own tongue, would be forced to wear this wooden block around their neck, then when they heard another child speak Welsh, they were expected to report this transgression to the teacher, the "Welsh Not " would then be removed and placed around the other child's neck. At the end of the day, the child that still had the wooden block hanging around his or her neck would get a beating from the teacher in front of their classmates. Thus encouraging the use of the English Language and prohibiting the speaking of Welsh ..... maybe this is where the expression "Welching" on someone came from.

It was not until 1967 that the Welsh Language Act made special reference to the use of Welsh in legal proceedings and on official forms. The Gittins Report of 1967 recommended that every child in Wales be given the opportunity to become reasonably bilingual by the end of the primary stage, a recommendation put into effect in the 1990's.