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19 May 05 - 05:54 PM (#1488514) Subject: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens I need a little help deciphering a fiddle tune title. Is there a Welsh word that is pronounced (approximately) either due or dewy, and if so what does it(they) mean? I would be most grateful for any advice. |
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19 May 05 - 05:56 PM (#1488517) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST,Jon Duw? (God) |
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19 May 05 - 06:04 PM (#1488524) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens God doesnt fit, I dont think. Now, if there was a word something like this that meant saintly or holy it might do. Any other ideas? |
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19 May 05 - 06:06 PM (#1488525) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST Another thought. For dewy, Maybe something like (ry)dw i? (I am) |
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19 May 05 - 06:14 PM (#1488534) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: Mary Humphreys What does the rest of the tune title sound like ? That would give us more of a chance of suggesting a suitable title. Mary |
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19 May 05 - 06:19 PM (#1488544) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens Let me explain: the Cumbrian fiddler William Irwin(19th century) had a son, Edwin, who wrote an account of his dad's activities. His dad was taught fiddle by a famous Keswick fiddler, Gillespie(Christian name unknown to me), in about 1820. Now Edwin said that his dad reckoned he wasnt the world's greatest fiddler, and that his teacher Gillespie in particular was much better at playing "Due Mungo" than he was. So, we can place a tune called Due Mungo in Cumbria in the early 19th century. but what does the title refer to? Mungo was a saint, well known in Cumbria and Scotland, but was also a Christian name. Welsh(or a variant of it) was the language in Cumbria in the time of Mungo, and lasted till maybe the 1300's in some remote parts. So it's probably a very long shot, but just barely possible, that the Welsh language was where I should look to make sense of this peculiar title "Due Mungo". What I dont know is whether Edwin was writing his father's pronunciation down, or his spelling. hence my wondering whether it's pronounced due or possibly dewy. |
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19 May 05 - 06:21 PM (#1488548) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens Of course, I would welcome any other suggestions...the Welsh idea is a wild guess, a tune title lying around in a dead language in Cumbria for 500 years is a bit of a romantic idea. But who knows? |
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19 May 05 - 06:23 PM (#1488550) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens Or maybe it's Scottish Gaelic, which might be more likely, in terms of linguistic history. |
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19 May 05 - 06:27 PM (#1488555) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: Mary Humphreys I'm stumped. If it was Mungo Dew, it could possibly be Fat Mungo, with 'Tew' meaning fat.But it would be pronounced day-oo, rather than due ( at least in my part of the north of Wales.) Anyone else with ideas? M |
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19 May 05 - 06:31 PM (#1488559) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST,Jon Not me Mary. I only have fragments of Welsh from later primary school and eary secondary school and bits picked up here and there. What part of N Wales btw? I lived in the Llandudno area. |
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19 May 05 - 06:37 PM (#1488565) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens How do you pronounce the Welsh dewi, as in St David..he's called "dewi" isnt he? |
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19 May 05 - 06:42 PM (#1488570) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST,Jon He is Dewi Sant. That brings up another problem - sant means saint - David Saint - not Saint David. |
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19 May 05 - 06:47 PM (#1488573) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: breezy Dewi Sant back to Duw yes it means God, so God Mungo now sometimes the Welsh does not make sense to anyone apart from us welsh like go and scratch! was a saying weell before scratch cards were common place I hasten to add. us Welsh were always advanced for the rest of the world. just play the frigging tune Greg, if its any good. But play it in Welsh mind |
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19 May 05 - 07:53 PM (#1488629) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: BanjoRay Well, In the Aberystwyth University online dictionary I found a word "mynog" (pronounced muh-nog, with the accent on the muh)which seems to be a rare adjective meaning noble or princely, so Due Mungo could possibly come from a mutated Duw Mynog, which would mean Noble God. Duw is pronounced like the English word "due". Which could of course be totally inappropriate! Cheers Ray |
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20 May 05 - 04:44 AM (#1488945) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: sian, west wales Well, tunes arent' my forte, but I've looked in Cass Meurig's "Alawon John Thomas: a fiddler's tune book from 18th C. Wales" and there's nothing close. I'm not keen on guesses, as they usually lead a person farther astray, but - what the hell - it's a grant Mudcat tradition and my guess would be, "Duwiol Mungo", lit. Godly Mungo. Of course, if you really want to know, I suggest going to Cass Meurig's website and sending her a message. I suppose Bob Evans (Bragod) might, but I think Cass is originally from the North of England somewhere so ... sian |
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20 May 05 - 04:50 AM (#1488951) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST,Allen Whats the problem, Jon? That's just how the language is structured. Lot's have a different order than in English. |
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20 May 05 - 05:10 AM (#1488964) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST,Jon Yes I'm aware of that Allen. The problem seemed to be if the word Saint is placed after the name as in Dewi Sant and Greg was looking for something like "Dewy Mungo" to mean "Saint Mungo", the order would have shifted to put "Saint" before the name. |
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20 May 05 - 05:17 AM (#1488968) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: mindblaster You can help yourself, man. Can't you? There's luverly! |
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20 May 05 - 05:29 AM (#1488979) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: Brian Hoskin I believe Dewi is pronounced Dhowi and so wouldn't fit anyway. |
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20 May 05 - 05:42 AM (#1488983) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: BanjoRay Dhowi's at least as far from the pronunciation of Dewi as is Dewey. The nearest English equivalent is probably "Dare we" if you leave out the r Ray |
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20 May 05 - 06:49 AM (#1489019) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: sian, west wales Dewi isn't, actually, David. It's a separate name. (DEwee, with the first E a 'short' one.) But Dewi Sant and St David are the same person. And don't get hung up on the placement of adjectives and whatever. Adjectives and other descriptive add-ons are usually tacked on the back-side, but sometimes on the front for poetic/aesthetic rationale i.e. 'bywiol ddwfr Esecial' = the living water of Ezekial, because it scans better within the carol. Also, if we're talking 'verrrry old' tune, things like grammar and spelling were far less prescribed in other ages. So "Duwiol Mungo' (and I'm still saying that's just a guess from way out in left-field) (sorry - North American baseball analogy) is still a possibility. sian |
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20 May 05 - 08:38 AM (#1489066) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST,Allen My apologies Jon, I misread your post. |
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20 May 05 - 12:55 PM (#1489295) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens Thanks for all the help. You we appreciate, it is not a Welsh tune I am looking for(as in "tune form Wales").What we have is an old Cumbrian(Scottish borders) tune. And I think it is barely, dimly possible that it's title might just conceivably be a memory when this part of England(and some contiguous parts of Scotland) were inhabited by people who spoke the British language which is now called Welsh. But I must admit I havent got a shred of evidence to back this suggestion up, nor even any credible suggestion as to what that name might mean(though the godly Mungo is the sort of region I was thinking about. It's really just the sort of thing us romantic old folklorists would like to be true! A more rational(and very prosaic) explanaton, is that Gillespie wrote the tune, named it for a pal called Dew Mungo(a noted local manufacturerer of contraband hooch), and couldnt spell Dew. |
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20 May 05 - 01:05 PM (#1489303) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: BanjoRay It's a good job you didn't tell us about a noted good ol' moonshiner called Dew Mungo, because we wouldn't have had this interesting discussion, hunting the web by the light of the midnight oil! Cheers Ray |
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20 May 05 - 01:19 PM (#1489321) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens Well, Dew Mungo the moonshiner from 1800 is just another plausible guess, as good as Saintly Mungo from 1300AD! Keep the ideas coming. What would be great if another version of the tune title turned up with alternative spelling that might give us a better guide as to pronunciation. |
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21 May 05 - 06:51 AM (#1489921) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens refresh |
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21 May 05 - 04:33 PM (#1490217) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: Snuffy "Humungo" was a variation of "humongous" when referring to only one person! :-) |
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22 May 05 - 04:02 PM (#1490738) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: Nigel Parsons Guest; may have hit it early on in the thread. I am Mungo can be "rydw i Mungo", which in turn would be contracted as "dw'i Mungo" pronounced "do(as in to do) ee Mungo" Nigel |
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22 May 05 - 04:15 PM (#1490746) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: greg stephens Thanks to Nigel and aguest for this "I am Mungo" suggestionn. It is phonetically plausible, though an odd title. But William Irwin specialied in odd titles. Rwo of his other tunes are called "Is there anyone here knows General Jackson", and"Over the dyke bellow". |
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23 May 05 - 07:47 AM (#1491168) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: pavane I used to play for Clog dancers Dwy Droed Chwith (Two left feet) in which Dwy means TWO Dwy Droed Chwith |
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26 May 05 - 07:08 AM (#1493474) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: pavane Clarification The reason for using DWY in this phrase is that feet are of feminine gender. |
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30 Nov 05 - 04:23 PM (#1617493) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST,valleys girl can anyone breakdown the name dewi for me as i have a big debate on my hands. i have had 3 different ways of saying it. the three ways being: Dew-ee Dow-ee Dar-wee Please help me out on this asap |
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30 Nov 05 - 06:46 PM (#1617588) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: GUEST The Welsh of Strathclyde which included Cumbria was a very distinct dialect from the Welsh of what is now Wales and modern Welsh has probably developed at least as much from those days as English has from its pre Chaucerian form. Add the passage of the name through non-Welsh speakers and even the association with St Mungo becomes problamatical. |
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01 Dec 05 - 04:31 AM (#1617899) Subject: RE: Help with Welsh please From: Liath Well, if it's Borders, it might be something linked with my lot - one of my great-something-or-anothers was Mungo Park, a once famous explorer from Selkirk. Whether the song refers to him or not, it tells us that Mungo was a name in use in the Borders area in the 18th century. btw, if there is an outside chance that this fiddle tune was composed in honour of my ancestor, I'd love to hear it :-) Liath |