Overview

A radical reinterpretation of the effect of excluding Welsh from schools on the fortunes of the language. Most people in Wales know that some children in the nineteenth century were victims of the Welsh Not, a wooden board hung around the necks of children who were heard speaking Welsh. Use of the Welsh Not was often followed by a physical punishment, and it is often named as a key reason for Welsh decline. Despite how well-known the Welsh Not is, this is the first study that interrogates where, when, and why it was used. This book is an account of the different ways children were punished for speaking Welsh in nineteenth-century elementary schools and the consequences of this for children, communities, and the linguistic future of Wales. It shows how the exclusion of Welsh hindered pupils from learning English, the very thing it was meant to achieve. Thus, gradually over the century, Welsh came to be used more and more in schools, making them a more effective mechanism in the Anglicization of Wales.

Full Product Details

9781837721801

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Reviews

""Few objects hold greater emotional sway in Wales than the Welsh Not. But did it actually exist? Martin Johnes shows that it did, but often in different ways to that imagined. This is a fascinating book about why and how a Welsh monoglot population was taught English, a pivotal event in the history of modern Wales.""-- ""Simon Brooks, author of Why Wales never was (2017)""

Author Information

Martin Johnes is professor of modern history at Swansea University in the UK and one of Wales' best-known historians. He is the author of a series of books on Welsh history, including Wales: England's Colony?, which was turned into a television series by the BBC.

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