Welsh Not

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The Welsh Not or Welsh Note was a piece of wood, inscribed with the letters WN, that was hung round the necks of children who spoke Welsh in some schools in the 19th century. The "not" was given to any boy overheard speaking Welsh, and he would pass it to a different boy whom he overheard speaking Welsh. By the end of the week, the wearer of the not would be given a lashing. The idea of the not was to discourage pupils from speaking Welsh, at a time when English was considered the only suitable medium of instruction.

It is widely believed that this not was introduced as a result of the notorious 1847 "Reports of the commissioners of enquiry into the state of education in Wales" but this is an erroneous assumption. Though highly critical of many aspects of Welsh culture some of the inspectors commented on the existence of the practice of using nots as being arbitrary and cruel. The report did not endorse the practice. However education in this period was neither free nor compulsory.

In the later decades of the nineteenth century education was compulsory but local school boards were to some degree representative of local communities and it can be presumed that they endorsed the use of policies hostile to the vernacular culture.

There are few unequivocal historical accounts of the use of the not. The not is perhaps a good example of a potent historical myth. Many modern commentators have sympathy towards Welsh aspirations towards cultural and political distinctiveness and may be more disposed to attribute the decline of the Welsh language to oppressive behaviour by agents of the state than to the idea that parents and members of local elites accepted the low status of Welsh and determined not to pass on the language to the younger generation.