The Welsh Not
142 wordsThe “Welsh Not” was something we were taught about in primary school — a chilling illustration of how the Welsh language was downtrodden by nasty English authorities. My memory of what I was taught (but remember that memories are often wrong) is:
- Some kind of heavy yoke or portable stocks labelled “W.N.”
- Used within living memory
- Child caught speaking Welsh was made to wear it
- Said child encouraged to inform on other Welsh speakers, in order to pass on the Not
- Whoever has the W.N. at the end of the day gets some form of corporal punishment
This article at the BBC puts me right on some of those recollections. Whether the discrepancy is down to my teachers, my fervile imagination aged 6, my memory, memetics, or revisionism from the BBC is up to you. I’m betting on a heady mixture of all but the last one.