Welsh yw?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 13 May 11 - 07:50 AM

Yes, the good old accents are certainly dying out. I could always read what the Preseli people were writing but the way they spoke it was too fast and furious for me. But I can say the same thing of Cofis, et al. There are just enough words that are 'different' to make it interesting. And there isn't anything particularly Welsh about that. Even in North America, my part of Canada drinks pop and parts of the States to the south drink soda. And then there's couch/sofa ... and when I was a kid we had a chesterfield. What the hey; rich tapestry of life and all that.

s.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,semiotic
Date: 12 May 11 - 06:58 PM

'fraid most of the youngsters round here don't know what a litre is but they do speak Cymraeg (of a sort!)
Perhaps we are more parochial up this way but where I would have (I spell phonetically here) darn o gacan efo fi panad i my friend from the next village to the East would have sleisen o gacen hefo fi paned and their Blaenau is pronounced Blaena' in my village and Bleune in Blaenau!
Even round this way llefrith is dying out in labels etc in favour of llaeth and you can't get buttermilk for love nor money as no one has cows any more. I remember when my daughters were little we visited a farm in the Preselis that was using heavy horses. The farmer and they tried to speak Welsh to each other but in the end they had to revert to English as their versions of Welsh were too far apart.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 12 May 11 - 12:31 PM

Thanks, Chris. It isn't so much a 'new' life as a return to an 'old' one!

One thing I really DISlike about the Beeb Welsh is the Huw Stephens 'Word of the Day'. I think his phonetics are rubbish. Coolness does not mean you can turn your hand to anything ...

The new trac website (up soon) will eventually build up a resource of Welsh songs and tunes. Slow but sure ...

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 12 May 11 - 10:49 AM

You'll have done better than me Chris. I only know the odd word like "llefrith" and "panad" (never heard of "llaeth" or a "cwmpan" :-)) and the odd expression.

How about wedi marw.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Chris in Portland
Date: 12 May 11 - 10:46 AM

I started learning Welsh with the BBC lessons, but the Beeb in its wisdom did not do North/South versions. Doing the Say Something in Welsh lessons, I have stuck with the North version.

Also, I've found this very good as a starter for looking up current meanings of Welsh words

Not that I'm going to be having long conversations in Welsh, but it's fun and good for aging synapses, and does help in knowing what is being said in Welsh songs. Sure wish someone would start a Welsh song of the day/week/month site. Welsh is very easy if sung! Surprise yourself - say what?

Sian, thanks for your comments. Good luck on your new life in Canada. Hope we still hear from you often here.
Chris

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 12 May 11 - 07:54 AM

That's enough! My dad was from the North and always thought of 'llaeth' as meaning 'buttermilk', and 'llefrith' is one of those words that just isn't used in the south.

Then you get oddities like 'oifad' which means swimming but, as far as I know, just in the area around Ammanford in south west Wales. I think everywhere else uses 'nofio'.

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 12 May 11 - 06:57 AM

LLaeth or llefrith? (or are there more).

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 12 May 11 - 05:41 AM

Well - not sure I'd agree that there are as many Welshes as there are places but you can certainly get thrown by certain words. My family are all north Welsh but I've spoken most of my Welsh in the south west. It took my cousins years to ask what in the world 'yn gwmws' was, as they would say 'yn hollol'. And don't get me started on milk! But, in general, I have no problem travelling through Wales and speaking Welsh with no problem, regardless.

And, asking for a "peint o baent" ... you're showing your age - as do I! I guess the retirees who are working at B&Q to shore up their pensions will sympathize but the youngsters will think we're from another planet! And so the world turns.

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,Semiotic
Date: 11 May 11 - 07:42 PM

Jones as with Williams, Edwards etc are reasonabl;y recent English imports into Wales. The convention was, and some are reverting to it, to be referred to as someone's son or daughter as Siôn ap Rhŷs (John Rhŷs' son) which transformed itself into Siôn 'p Rhŷs then Siôn Prhŷs and so until John Price and similarly Pritchard is ap Rhisiart, Probbert is ap Robert etc (Jenkins is ap Siencyn by the way)
A problem with asking how a particular word is pronounced in Welsh is that there are as many Welshes as there are places. Words are not only pronounced differently but there may well be totally different words. for example up here in Betws-y-Coed 'now' is rwan whereas Siân would probably say nawr and when she goes into B & Q for an eighth of a gallon of emulsion I suspect it would sound very much the same in English and Welsh "pint o' paint" where as I would ask for "paint o beint" which would sound more like paint o' pint" though we would both spell it the same (wouldn't we?)

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Snuffy
Date: 11 May 11 - 01:00 PM

Half of Wales is called Jones or Jenkins anyway, but for centuries they've managed it without a J in the language: why change now?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 May 11 - 11:07 AM

Thanks for the interesting info, Sian.

Over the years I have given a little thought to the letter J. Although the J pages of the dictionary are few, the J page of my address book is the longest. We seem to have a great affection for J in personal names.

John, Janet, Joan, Jessica, Judith, Jennifer...

And when people who speak different languages encounter one another, it's awkward to tell a person whose name begins with J that their name's no good. And thus the letter J creeps across the border...

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 10 May 11 - 12:28 PM

Again, before the 'modern' alphabet was agreed upon, you'd see 'v' and 'k', and 'ph' where we would now use 'ff'. You could even argue that there is now a 'post-modern' alphabet which seems to have embraced 'j'.

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: ripov
Date: 10 May 11 - 12:10 PM

And thinking about it, Europeans (in particular) do tend to pronounce the English v as (english) "w". Perhaps the hard v (written in welsh I believe as "f", belongs to a different language group? Is there a "v" in written Welsh or where it occurs is this an English bastardisation?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: ripov
Date: 10 May 11 - 11:51 AM

I was taught that the Latin c was pronounced "k", and that v was pronounced "w" (English "w"), the sounds "ch" and "v" (hard) being confined to "church" Latin.
"v" and "u" seem to be used interchangeably in inscriptions, but "u" would still suggest a sound like Welsh "w". Perhaps the Romans had problems with how foreigners spoke their language too!

Like written music, the written form of a language is only an approximation (except to the Victorians for whom everything had to be "correct"), and the spoken or played form (which is the real thing) can vary considerably.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 10 May 11 - 10:24 AM

The Latin alphabet didn't have any W (or U) either.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 May 11 - 10:14 AM

It wouldn't be because Latin, the language written the most in the olden days, has no K's?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Chris in Portland
Date: 10 May 11 - 09:36 AM

I posted a Welsh pronunciation guide on our church website -
Welsh Pronunciation Guide Any comments would be welcome.
There's also some other (IMHO)interesting language and music materials.
Say Something in Welsh is a really great language course - see the link.

The story I've seen is that the Welsh K was used before printing, but the English printers did not have enough K's in their type boxes, so they switched to C. Time to change that now!
Chris

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 10 May 11 - 04:41 AM

"C" is always 'hard', so "k". There is no K in the current alphabet, but that doesn't go back so long; couple of hundred years maybe? "U" isn't really pronounced like the "i" in "it" but it probably sounds like that, heard 'on the trot'. It's actually closer to the French "u" or German "u+umlaut" but without pursing the lips. And in south Wales "u" as well as "i" are pronounced "ee".

So - you're a 'gnome' is as in gnomic poetry, not hairy-thing-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden? (And it would be Dia Wireb, if so; or possibly Dai Gwireb)

s.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 May 11 - 03:23 PM

Another few daft questions after my weekend in Wales - Very enjoyable BTW. Is there a 'K' in Welsh? Is the 'C' always pronounced 'K'? And is the U always pronounced as an I - as in Rhithlan - or does it change value depending on other letters?

I probably need a language course!

And I like

Dai the gwireb

best :-)

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 09 May 11 - 01:40 PM

No Leenia, that's not an aspirate mutation. The Aspirate Mutation in Welsh (and it's equivalent in all other Celtic languages) involves changing the sound of the original consonant rather than intruding an 'H' sound as in your example.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 07 May 11 - 12:01 PM

I think I'm at, if not indeed way past, the outer limits of what I know about the science of grammar. I think that's probably true in terms of oral/aural communication; possibly something that varies significantly with local dialects. The Welsh mutations are, of course, "rules" and an incorrect mutuation can change a word and occasionally be quite embarassing ...

Welsh has 9 consonants which can succumb to 1, 2 or all 3 mutuations: soft, nasal and aspirate. But it still isn't as difficult a language as people make it out to be! (Although looking words up in a dictionary can be a challenge!)

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 May 11 - 09:15 PM

Thanks for the explanation. I've heard of mutations in Welsh.

English can have aspirate mutations too. There's a song I know from Kentucky that's been written down this way:

   The pale ghost of the one I used to love --
   Why hit makes my blood run cold.

I believe that if you asked 1000 English speakers to say that (using standard spelling), then several hundred of them would put that h sound between 'why' and 'it.' And would that not be an aspirate mutation? Right here in our own back yard.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 06 May 11 - 02:42 PM

"A" meaning "and" (or, for that matter, "a^" meaning 'with') takes an aspirate mutation so 'c' turns to 'ch'.

Mutations: you can grow quite fond of them, once you get past hating their grammatical guts.

The 4 lines ending in "canu'r dydd a chanu'r nos" is the chorus, of course. There are 3 verses usually sung, but I think I have a 4th somewhere.

sian

s.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 May 11 - 02:16 PM

Hello, Sian. Thanks for all your help.

The lyrics I have end with this:

Can-u'r dydd a chanu'r nos.

It means something like "singing day and night." But why does one 'canu'r' start with c and the other with ch?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 06 May 11 - 04:43 AM

Ah, right. Beloved by rugby crowds throughout Wales. Composed by John Hughes (1872-1914) - also a Swansea lad. Tune made it big in the 1904-05 Revival along with the words. The words are also sung to the tune Blaenwern which is mostly associated in English congregational singing with "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" I guess. That one's composed by William Rowlands (1860-1937), a Pembrokeshire native but who taught school in Treforys ... and so the threads draw together ...

Chris, the first 'a' in Calon La^n is more like in 'apple'. You're right about the tune being often used for protest lyrics - to this day, in fact. The 87.87 tunes make good vehicles.

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 May 11 - 10:36 AM

Hello, Sian. You asked what tune we are using. It's this tune:

calon lan with pretty pictures

There's a MIDI of this tune on the Kunst der Fuge site with a lovely arrangement by Barry Taylor.

Thanks to all who have helped with Calon Lan.
==============
About the pronunciation of Coed. If you say co-ed, then you say it faster and faster, you get 'coid.' So the two different pronuciations are not that different.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Chris in Portland
Date: 05 May 11 - 09:45 AM

My favorite Welsh song, whether or not really a hymn.

There's been threads before about the usual melody - sounds like "Life is Like a Mountain Railway" to me, and the protest variant "A Miner's Life is like a sailor's" even more of course. Some of the best loved Welsh hymns, such as Mae D'iesiau (I need thee), came from the US.

The Welsh radio hymn show had a choir singing the Calon Lan words with the melody of New Zealand's Pokarekare Ana - very nice to try.

And, I believe, it is a long "a" (as in "car") in Calon and a very long "a^" in La^n.

Chris, grandparents from Dolgellau (which can be pronounced lots of ways)

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: breezy
Date: 05 May 11 - 09:27 AM

Coed = Wood[land]

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:17 AM

Yep, Sian, it's "Koid" there.

Btw, our house is called Coedfa. Most people round here (Norfolk) go for CO-ED FFA

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:06 AM

........& then there's 'Calon Wan' composed by LB shortly before his own calon wan episode - predestination?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 05 May 11 - 05:59 AM

I'd use "Corach" for gnome so, Dai'r Corach. Remembering the 'ch' sound, of course. 'Gwireb' means gnome in the literary use, i.e. 'maxim' ... and lord only knows where Collins Spurrel gets 'ysbryd' from for gnome.

And you say 'coed' either as 'koid' or 'kode' depending where you're from; up there, I would think 'koid'.

Calon Lan: words by "Gwyrosydd" (Daniel James, 1848 - 1920) first published in 1892. It became popular in the 1904/05 Revival but was also criticized because it "hid Christ"; as one critic said (tho in Welsh) "The pure of heart see God, not themselves."

Gwyrosydd was born in Treboeth, Swansea. His father died young and he went to work in iron and alcam works and coal mines in Treforys, Aberpennar, Tredegar, Dowlais and Cwmgarw, although he spent his final days in Treforys. The "Cydymaith Caneuon Ffydd" where I'm getting these details says he worked in the coal mine in Dowlais.

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: breezy
Date: 05 May 11 - 05:06 AM

y = er like as in 'er indoors'   means   'The'

yw = pronounced u, or as above says , you or ewe, but lets not go down that lane.

verb , in english 'is'

What is.......? = Beth yw ......?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Splott Man
Date: 05 May 11 - 04:36 AM

Or they could both be derived from the old Celtic language.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: HuwG
Date: 04 May 11 - 06:53 PM

Dave the Gnome, From the Collins-Spurrel dictionary, gnome = gwireb, ysbrid or coblyn.

Unfortunately, the same dictionary translates gwireb back into English as truism or axiom. Ysbrid translates into English as spirit or ghost, which would seem to exclude goblins, which are generally held to be corporeal but ugly. Coblyn is obviously derived from the English "goblin".

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: richd
Date: 04 May 11 - 06:32 PM

My mother told me Calon Lan was a protest song when I learned it - a protest against squalor and meaness. Is it true that the words to Calon Lan were written by a chap who worked in the Dowlais Iron Works in Merthyr Tydfil?

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: BanjoRay
Date: 04 May 11 - 06:17 PM

Nearly, Dave. It's more like Bet-ooss (stress on Bet)uh koid

Ray

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 May 11 - 05:59 PM

We are off to Betws-y-coed this weekend - Help me make sure I don't embarrass myelf. Well, in the pronunciation anyway...

Betoos-uh-kowd?

I should know better - Greatgrandma from Rhuddlan (Rhythlyn?) but I have enough problems with the English and Rubbish I spout now!

Cheers

DtG

(BTW - What is Welsh for Gnome?)

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 04 May 11 - 05:14 PM

Oh - what tune are you using, just as a matter of interest?

s.

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 04 May 11 - 05:14 PM

It's like "you".

I had someone point out to me a few years ago that first verse and chorus are, actually, not 'religious' as such. I'd never realized it before.

sian

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 May 11 - 11:34 AM

That's what it sounds like HERE. (Click on the arrow by "pronunciation.")

Subject: RE: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,ifor
Date: 04 May 11 - 11:06 AM

rhyme with ewe?

Subject: Welsh yw?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 May 11 - 11:01 AM

I'm preparing a version of the Welsh song 'Calon Lan' for a gig.

How does one pronounce YW?