Thanks @owainlurch and @tatjana, this is great. I keep a list of words that are similar in Welsh and in Italian and there are so many!
1 Like
I’ve noticed that too! My family is of Italian heritage, and almost everyone (except me) speaks at least a little - and often I’ll be mumbling to myself in Welsh and they notice a similar word here and there. It’s quite strange!
1 Like
mam (mom) - Cymraeg
mama (mom) - Slovene
nos (night) - Cymraeg
noč (night) - Slovene
But “nos” exactly in Slovene means nose. 
Yah, strange are language ways, especially those ones of learning and exploring and speaking is the castle at the end of (our at least) roads comming together at the top of that hill where that castle tops upon the languageland. …
What is reading then?
A king and queen in that castle, not easily reachable for everyone, but we might all reach them at one point though…
(Ups @MarilynHames, obviously I’ve got some of your storytelling superpowers all of a sudden. )
2 Likes
It`s due to a combination of Latin and Celtic containing a lot of similar words due to their common Indo-European heritage and the words borrowed from the Romans during the days of the Roman empire.
All languages borrow from Latin, of course, but Welsh is one of the few languages in what was the Western Roman Empire to have survived and not have been replaced by a form of Latin, so the contemporary borrowings are particularly rich!
And the great majority of European languages have a common root, of course, but Celtic (especialy what used to be called p celtic) has more obvious connections to Latin than most~ possibly due to them having split up relatively recently, but not necessarily! To such an extent that it is sometimes difficult to tell whether a word in Welsh is from the Latin or simply both being from the Indo European.
[edit- or, less often but by no means unusual (the Romans were very influenced by the Celts in their journey from the bronze age into the iron age) taken from the Celtic into Latin!]
2 Likes
There are some good books describing the influence of Latin in Welsh, two that I happen to have are:
The Latin Element in Welsh by Samuel James Evans, first published in 1908
and
Yr Elfen Ladin Yn Yr Iaith Gymraeg by Henry Lewis, 1943
The number of Latin words in Welsh is quite large, and both books explain how words have evolved from Latin to Welsh following simple patterns, e.g gwyl from vigilia
2 Likes
I’ve read several studies about that Slovene actually isn’t rooting to any language but is ancient language …
Those are latest studies and I just am telling what I’ve read …
1 Like
Interesting you raise the informal or intimate name for mother: yes, growing up in Wales it was ‘mam’, when I moved to England I discovered that ‘mum’ was more common, but here in Canada it is ‘mom’. It’s all in the vowels… Why, I wonder.
1 Like
Well, and “Mammy” in Slovene is “mamica”
Yes, why really …?
1 Like
I would hate to hazard a guess, to be honest. But I have done the 3 original SSiW (N) Courses (still want to to Course 3 “properly” though), Level1 (N), and some catching up to do on Level 2. I haven’t done any other formal Welsh lessons. What I’m doing mostly now is listening to Radio Cymru via the internet and (slowly) reading novels (currently Bethan Gwanas “Hi yw fy ffrind”). I put off reading for as long as possible, in the SSiW tradition, but eventually got into it, and (only recently) getting somewhat into writing.
It was the one with a lot of "na"s in the thread title!
1 Like
Mam is also semi-common in the North of England.
2 Likes
Thank you for tlinking to my blog, @tatjana, I am very glad you enjoy it. I am afraid I have been neglecting it lately, in favour of work that I might actually get paid for, and writing my books.
Interesting discussion here. Interesting that mum/mam/mama/ etc should be so similar across so many languages, and yet pet names for a father show greater variation: tad/ vati/ babbas/ papa/ dad, etc.
1 Like
Oči, ati, tatko, tata … all those are Slovene variations of pet names for father but father himself is “oče” and grandfather is “dedek” or “oča”
And, you’re welcime @Millie. I always enjoyed it reading although I have to admit I didn’t read everything yet. You’ll come back to blog when time comes or when something will seam so interesting to you you’ll just have to write something about that.
Happy writing and good wishes from my end.
Oh wow! I’ll have to try find those books. It’s exactly the type of thing I’ve been searching for with very little success up until now. Diolch!
Diolch! The reason I asked about your level is that I’m in two minds whether or not to label my future blog topics as ‘beginners/intermediate/advance’. I shall search for ‘na na’!
That must be fascinating for both you and them! I attended a residential Italian course in Perugia this summer and was constantly coming out with ‘ooohs!’ and 'wows!'in the middle of the lesson as I came across more similarities between Welsh and Italian. Considering that neither the tutor nor the other students had ever heard of the Welsh language before, they must have thought I was a bit ‘over-excitable’.
1 Like
I think I’m more excitable about it than them, to be honest! I also find the similarities fascinating…my family usually just look at me like I’ve grown a second head when I comment on a similarity (or any aspect of Welsh, for that matter)!
I haven’t ploughed through all this thread, so hope I’m not repeating something, but I used to have a book on language and it pointed out that we all had to come up with the idea of vocalising and making the noises have meaning. The easiest noise is ‘ma’. The thing most important to a baby is ‘mama’. The next most important is ‘me’, my…'imi…
Simple instructions, like ‘run’ ‘stop’ ‘help’ are next most useful and the author tracked through a lot of languages finding similarities and differences.
I wish I hadn’t lost that book in one of my house moves!!!
n.b. small children say, me, me… and very rarely use ‘I’ until told ‘me’ is babyish!
4 Likes
You haven’t repeated anyone if memory serves me, so don’t worry!
I remember reading something similar - it’s a fascinating concept, really. Although, I also remember reading that the ‘d’ sound of ‘da’ is easier to make for a baby than the ‘m’ sound.
1 Like
Although interestingly, all those father names are pretty much front of the mouth stuff…
1 Like
Umm … welll, then I don’t understand why my son, when little always called "mami, mami, mami … " (mammy) at one point I’ve said “call daddy once for a change (oči is daddy in our language)” and he came out with somethig like “owow …” but then again “mami” was all he could call for when needed something …
2 Likes