“Welsh Not”

The initials “WN” on this board from 1857 stand for “Welsh Not” — this cruel form of student discipline in Welsh schools in the 19th century goes a long way to illustrating why the language has almost died out.

The Welsh Not (also called Welsh knot, Welsh note, Welsh ticket, among other terms) was usually made of wood and worn around the neck. Typically, it was given by a teacher to the first student who spoke Welsh that day in school. When that student heard another child speaking Welsh, they would pass along the Welsh Not to the perpetrator, who would be incentivized to continue the exchange because the student wearing the Welsh Not at the end of the day would be lashed or beaten.

The practice of giving the Welsh Not was done at a local level, and there were Welsh parents who wanted their children to speak English rather than their birth language because doing so would have granted more economic and social opportunities. Yet the 19th-century British government certainly privileged English language and culture. The parliamentary Blue Book reports on Welsh education disparaged Welsh.

One passage reads “the Welsh language is a cast drawback to Wales, and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people. It is not easy to over-estimate its evil effects . . . It dissevers the people from intercourse which would greatly enhance their civilization, and bars the access of improving knowledge to their minds . . . “.

Later, the Welsh Language Act of 1993 was part of a variety of measures to re-infuse the region with its indigenous language. Today, Welsh is spoken by under a million people.