My favourite aunt, a first-language Welsh speaker, told me once about being forced to wear some sort of sign around her neck at school for being caught speaking Welsh in the school yard. She never learned to read or write her own language, which is such a shame.
When I was a child, I learned quickly how to read Welsh (although I didn’t understand most of what I was reading, it’s a lovely phonetic language that’s easy to read once you know how). I can remember walking through a church yard reading inscriptions to her while she translated them back for me.