It isn't my intention to drift this thread, but I'd like to make a small correction to what pavane was saying about Welsh mutations ("These occur when the mutated letter follows particular other letter") That isn't exactly the case. Mutations for the most part depend on the gender of the noun. In Bryn Coch, Bryn is masculine so the C in Coch does not mutate. However, in "Y Ddraig Goch", "Draig" mutates to "DDraig" (remembering that 'dd' is a single and distinct letter in Welsh) because 'dragon' is feminine (and, yes, I've heard most of the jokes) and 'coch' becomes 'goch' because if follows a feminine noun.

Where pavane is correct is that there are 6 consonants which can mutate (p,t,c,b,d,g) in 3 ways (soft, nasal, aspirate). 'll', 'm', and 'rh' can also undergo soft mutation only.

There are other reasons for mutations, e.g. usually adjectives follow nouns in Welsh but a few do precede the noun, like 'hen' (old) and the following noun then undergoes a soft mutation.

It really isn't as difficult as it looks, and I notice that some 'natural' Welsh speakers who have never had Welsh-medium education don't a) stick to the rules or b) even know they exist. And it strikes me that there is a heavy dose of regionalism in its employ as well.

There. Just thought I'd throw in this bit of detail, us being on the down-slope to St David's Day and all.

sian