Ever since I started SSIW, I’ve been going through the southern Welsh courses up to the end of course 3. I’m now going through the new Level 1 course, northern variant, and have found something nagging at me. In the south Welsh course, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pronunciation difference between vowels i, y and u when making the “ee” sound, but in this course there does seem to be a subtle difference. At least where “u” is concerned.
Can anyone confirm this? If I’m not just hearing things, how is that “u” sound made? I can’t seem to figure it out, whatever I do.
It’s one of the most ‘famous’ differences between Welsh in the north of Wales and Welsh in the South.
In the south, “u” and “i” (and sometimes “y”) represent the same sound.
in the north, “u” (and sometimes “y”) represent a different sound to “i”.
In the north of Wales, “u” (andsometimes"y") are pronounced - well, it’s often described as “further back in the throat”, but I don’t know if that is of any help!
You say you are doing Iestyn’s course? If so, I wouldn’t bother about trying too much to get any sort of natural pronunciation of the sound.
I’ve lived in Wales all my life, am speaking Welsh more and more and have no inclination to nail down a natural pronunciation of “u” as it tends to be pronounced in the north of Wales. It would be like trying to aim for a natural accent corresponding to a different part of the country - and certainly no more important.
As always, wait for a more natural speaker of the language than me to give you a better answer!
Diolch, Owain. Yes, I’ve been doing Iestyn’s course for the most part, but like I said, I’ve been doing Aran’s since I started the upgraded one–just for fun. The accent thing fascinates me though, so I figured I would drink from the fount of knowledge that is the SSIW community.
Practise Seriously, listening carefully and repeating is the only way. The ‘u’ sound has previously been described in this forum as being similar to the French sound in ‘tu’. Wikipedia describes it as similar to the sound in ‘pin’, as opposed to ‘it’.
I am with Owain on this, in any case.
I have dried my eyes and wiped my nose (after all the tears that you have gone to the “other” side… )…
You’re right about the different sound to “u” in northern Welsh, or at least north western Welsh. When I want to make the northern u sound, I push my tongue forward to touch the bottom front teeth, keeping it fairly flat, which just changes the volume and shape of the “sounding chamber” of your mouth. I’ll be interested to hear how Catrin makes the sound, though - I had a couple of gog friends in Uni in Cardiff, and they used to pee themselves laughing at me “talking gog” because it was so good and so bad all at the same time. It may be that my “u” was one of the bad bits!
Above all rejoice in the rich variation of pronunciation from one region to another or even from one village to another. You only need to compare the pronunciation of English vowels in Essex, Tyneside, Glasgow, Cerdiff (sic) and Truro to remind you of this. This applies to all languages. Wine is pronounced “Va” (with a nasal ending) in much of France but “Veng” throughout the Midi, for example.
Every now and then, there will be a story in the media about how Welsh should be standardised, and everyone should speak the same. Good luck on that, say I, but I won;t be sounding a gog “u” in natural speech anytime soon, and it would be a crying shame if the gogs stopped!
Interestingly, in Welsh strict poetry (cynghanedd), it is incorrect to rhyme “u” and “i” (so gyrru and slyrri for instance), even though the two rhyme perfectly to any southern ear. I know it has caused no end of heartache to Tahl, who has been following the @Cynghanedd course on Twitter. Hmm, maybw I should start a campaign to standardise things…
Don’t worry; South Welsh is my first love and the dialect to which I will always return. But there’s enough gog terminology on Radio Cymru that I didn’t quite get that I felt it was worth giving Aran’s version a go, too.
Don’t worry about concentration - if you dont hear it in the recordings, you won;t hear it in real life, until one day, you will hear it , and suddenly realise how wide spread it is.
Your ears have developed a very fine tune for the different sounds of English, and a very sledgehammer approach to anything that doesn’t fit into the english sound system, but as you are exposed tp more and more Welsh, your ears, (or really, your brain), become far more sensitive to the different differences. Strain for it once in a while to see if you catch it, and if you don’t don’t worry, and move on.
Oh yes, and Amethyst - good idea to widen you understanding - it’s obvious that you are really picking things up well. I can stop worrying about your actual soul now… !
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