Ceufad is a Welsh word for these very type of hollowed out long canoes I believe
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I have to disagree! I think they make the language flow more naturally. Yng Nghaerdydd, for example, is easier to say than Yn Caerdydd, with it’s awkward clashing consonants. Besides, they’re beautiful!
There doesn’t really seem to be a yes/no in Welsh, it’s more: ‘I do’, ‘we do’, ‘I did’, ‘they will’, etc. - hence the 5890 different answers. You could try what I do - which is totally incorrect, of course - just say ‘ie’ or ‘na’ to every question!
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Well, I do see the benefit sometimes, like in the example you make, but not all the time.
However , this thread popped up now but it’s from a year ago.
That is, about a month after I had started SSiW, and sentences seemed to change completely every time because of mutations, they were driving me crazy!
But now I got used to them and not going to say it too loud but even kinda enjoy them a little bit. 
p.s. didn’t even remember writing it, so that’s very interesting for me to read it by the way and see the difference in my impressions and perceptions! 
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That’ll teach me to read the date before I reply to something. I did think it sounded odd, given how fluent you are!
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Alright, never mind, now that’s flattering, Isata, diolch yn fawr iawn. 
But I’m only quite fluent in Datblyguan! Still got to improve on everything else! 
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It is isnt it? I went back to a “story” i tried to write for the class i was attending last year and was lovely to see how far I’ve come. We should start a new thread…#favourite mutations 
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I think that ceu has also been linked to cheddar as well - ceu ddwr. Not sure how real that derivation is though.
And ceubalfa is an old word for ferry or ferry crossing place apparently. Gabalfa in Cardiff.
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Cheddar is just up the road from me… it would be interesting to see if this is true (or plausible - sometimes truth is hard to find when something is as old as a placename!)
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I saw someone post that last week somewhere - I suppose it would have had to have been ceu ddwfr really _ dwr was usually pronounced liked that till recently - as in all the Dovers.
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Now that’s interesting — dwr is dowr in Cornish, which diverged from Welsh some time before the medieval period, so the “v” sound presumably disappeared before that, or Cornish would probably have retained it. (We’ve kept the “b” sound that dropped out of Cymru/Cymraeg — Kembra/Kembrek respectively, for example.)
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yes, thinking about this - many place names may have kept dwfr and dwfr was still common till the 20th century, but maybe dowr and dwr were interchangeable with dwfr. I was thinking about why in the 14/15th century it was Owain Glyndwr or Glendower to the English.
On the subject if ceu, I saw an old dictionary entry for ceu nant, described as a deep hollowed stream. I’ve never been to Chedder, but I imagine it has a deep river in the gorge or a river in a deep gorge. The domesday book had the place described as Ceder and the ending has been attributed to dwr, but the beginning to an Anglo Saxon word (seor). I have also seen a wholly Anglo Saxon derivation for the placename and I suspect the origins for this place name, like many others, is open for some dispute. I wonder if there are any other place names in the area that may give more clues?
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What does “ceu” mean in Welsh, then? (Any relation to “keus”, which is the Cornish equivalent of “caws”?? 
)
Well, a ceunant is a stream in a ravine. A dene to me but that won’t help. So a dingle is the nearest I can think of in Southern English.
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I think Ceu is meant to be a hollow, sunken of cavity - it’s the sams word apparently as cau, which means closed or shut - so for canoe its a hollowed out tree/wood, but for a river it could mean in a hollow or sunken - the river in the cheddar gorge runs underground most of the time apparently except when there’s flooding.
I don’t think there’s enough to really say where the cheddar name really derives from - ceus or caws would make a good story for the tourists though.
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I’ve heard them using the word ‘ceuled’ at Caws Cenarth, applied to the curd being separated from the ‘maith’ (whey), so some kind of cheesy implications there 
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There we are — Cheddar is really Caws-dwr, or Keus-dowr for the Cornish. We’ve just proved it.
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This cheddar thing has sent me off in another direction. Part of the gorge is in the Longleat estate, managed by the Viscount of Weymouth, who has the unusual name Ceawlin. This is an old name associated with former rulers of Wessex. To me the name sounded a bit Welsh and apparently the early royalty of Wessex, upto the death of Cadwalla (welsh Cadwaladr) claimed descent from Bretwalla or British rulers/kings and the early names were very British sounding, rather than Anglo Saxon. Wessex at that time was referred to as Gewissae (not sure if I spelt that right). That name has troubled some people - there is an old germanic name gewis and its thought to mean trust. A Welsh word gywystl means pledge and another Welsh word Cyfeisior means an equal or rival.
, Gan gyueisor por pawb ae gweli (Cynddelw).
Words similar to gywystl have been used more recently to denote confederate and that made me wonder if early Wessex, upto say 790, 100 years before Alfred the great, was something akin to a confederacy - a mix of British and Saxon - rivals, equals and maybe there would be a good sprinkling of Welsh sounding place names??.
Just some musings really - I’m sure people like the current viscount of Weymouth will know the history of their names etc, better than a Wikipedia trawler like me.
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