The 'Welsh Not' was a device used by some teachers during the C19th to shame children out of using the Welsh language at schools in Wales.

Any child heard using Welsh in the class was made to wear a board around their neck, which bore the letters 'WN', until another child was caught and the board passed on to the new culprit. The child wearing the board at the end of the day was punished - either by caning or detention.

According to welshnot.com, the practice started at a time when the Welsh language had been designated as a kind of ‘sickness’ harming the nation, a view endorsed by the UK government and the 1847 report into the state of Welsh education – commonly known as the Blue Books. This report claimed that the Welsh language was to blame for many social problems within the country.

The 'cure' was to remove the Welsh language from schooling, even though Welsh was the everyday language of the majority at the time.

Cadarnhaol / Positives

• English was the official language of the law courts and administration, and was seen to represent progress. Parents and teachers wanted their children to not miss out on opportunity, and the Welsh Not ensured they used English.

• In the industrial south communities were becoming more diverse due to migration. English could now be learned not just in the classroom but in the workplace, the pub and the street. Surrounded by an increasing number of workmates and neighbours who could not speak Welsh, the dynamics of language were changing from migrants learning Welsh to the existing population learning English.

Negyddion / Negatives

• Children were punished for using their own language.

• Children were denied access to their culture.

• In Welsh speaking communities, children who were made to speak English in school may not have understood what they were being taught, as English was foreign to them.

• It contributed to the loss of Welsh language across generations.

• According to the Encyclopaedia of Wales, "Welsh patriots view the Welsh Not(e) as an instrument of cultural genocide".

• Professor Martin Johnes writes it is "a powerful symbol of the oppression of Welsh culture."

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