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The destruction of the World War One accelerated the decline of Welsh. It has been estimated some 20,000 Welsh speakers died in the conflict.

The poet Hedd Wyn (Ellis Humphrey Evans) from Trawsfynydd is a particularly poignant symbol of a lost generation, killed on the fields of France shortly before his poem won the chair at the Birkenhead Eisteddfod in 1917. The 1921 census shows that during this traumatic decade the number of Welsh speakers fell from 43.5% of the population to 37.1%.

The economic turmoil of the 1920s and 30s added further pressure. The rural areas of West Wales, where Welsh speakers were still in the majority, saw severe hardship among farming communities.

Many of the younger people left the land seeking better opportunities elsewhere and left behind an ageing population. In the counties of Cardigan, Meirionnydd, Caernarfon and Anglesey, the death rate frequently outstripped the birth rate.

After the 1926 general strike, the industrial heartlands of Wales plunged into depression. In the face of rapid economic downturn, migration into the coalfield didn't just halt: working people began to move out. Many were from the more Anglicised eastern coalfield, yet that offered scant consolation - the knock-on effects were dire for the whole Welsh economy.

Between 1925 and 1939, 390,000 people left Wales in search of work. It wasn't until World War Two that the Welsh economy began to get back on its feet.

During this time the English language became more a part of day-to-day life in Wales. Daily newspapers increased in popularity, particularly during the War when people wanted the latest information. Radio started broadcasting, and cinemas began to show talkies.

The language used was English. Transport played its part as an extensive network of railways and roads opened up access across Wales. As Janet Davies writes in her book The Welsh Language, remote villages, where no language but Welsh had been heard for 15 centuries, now resounded in summer with English voices.

There was nowhere for the language to hide.