“O nhw” used instead of “roedden nhw”
Fairly early on in the lesson “They were still changing” is translated as “O nhw’n dal i newid”.
I can’t find any reference to this usage previously in the course although the Modern Welsh Dictionary gives"on’d" being used as a negative interrogative tag to preface an affirmative answer (whatever that means).
Can anyone please help as to how and when this usage should occur?
Hi Gerald,
O’n nhw is just an abbreviated form of roedden nhw. Sometimes you’ll also hear ro’n nhw.
Conversely, doedden nhw ddim can be abbreviated to do’n nhw ddim.
If you look in the Modern Welsh Dictionary in the information box under “bod”- ‘to be’, it has, amongst a lot of other information, under the heading “IMPERFECT’,
(Colloquial).
Affirmative and interrogative
O’n i
O’t ti
Oedd e/hi
O’n ni
O’ch chi
o’n nhw”
Page 26 in my edition.
Easy to miss. There’s a lot of information on “bod” crowded in there.
In general, this is a fairly common contraction - and ‘how and when’ is pretty much the same as ‘how and when’ for ‘do not know’ vs ‘don’t know’ in English - no, it really doesn’t matter.
In this particular case, I wonder if you might have not quite heard it correctly - the only example in the script of ‘they’ with ‘still changing’ is ‘they’re still changing’ (maen nhw’n dal i newid) - and the few examples just before that of ‘they were’ are all scripted as ‘roeddwn nhw’, so should have been recorded like that… 
Thanks everyone for your help. I’ve found the reference under “Bod” in the dictionary now, thanks. The passage referred to occurs at 10:58 minutes into the lesson and sounds definitely as “o’n nhw’n dal i newid” but at least now I know why.
Gerald
1 Like
Tiny shift there, from ‘maen nhw’n’ to ‘o’n nhw’n’… no worries if that’s not quite reaching your ears right now