Sorry - just wondering about different ways (?) of saying that something is ‘in’ a language.
Question has arisen from some coursework, where someone says (I think):
‘…sy’n ddrama o’r Ffrangeg - pam wnaethon nhw ddim gwneud rhywbeth gwreiddiol yn Gymraeg, dw i ddim yn gwybod!’
From other parts of the piece, I’m thinking that the drama is actually in French (and was acted in French) - is that what the o’r is conveying? As opposed to the later yn Gymraeg where the character is querying why they didn’t do something original in Welsh. Or are o’r and yn just conveying the same idea in different ways?
I would read that as “from the French”, and would take it to imply that it was a translation from French (rather than something that was “gwreiddiol yn Gymraeg” - originally in Welsh (didn’t need to be translated). Others may disagree!
Yes, I agree with Sara. o’r = from the. This, though, could be translated as “from the” or simply “from [name of language]
As a side note, technically, when talking about a language immediately after a preposition, you need a ‘the’ in Welsh, so o’r Frangeg, i’r Sbaeneg, yn y Gymraeg - which is why you will hear “Yn Gymraeg” where the y has been dropped but has left the soft mutation it causes, but not *yng Nghymraeg” because the Y or its effect needs to be there!
Diolch @sara-peacock-1, @siaronjames - that was how I’d read o’r Ffrangeg to start with, ironically! Think I overcomplicated things after my later impression that the piece was performed in French too!
Can the second part only be translated as ‘something originally in Welsh’?
Could it also be read as ‘something original in Welsh’, or would that need to be expressed differently?
Thanks for the side note Siaron - which I’d remembered re: yn/ yn y, but hadn’t really thought about as a general rule.
I read ‘…sy’n ddrama o’r Ffrangeg - pam wnaethon nhw ddim gwneud rhywbeth gwreiddiol yn Gymraeg, dw i ddim yn gwybod!’
as “…which is a drama [translated] from the French - why didn’t they do something original in Welsh, I don’t know!”
but I agree with Sara, and her suggestions to be completely explicit are spot on.
- that was how I’d read o’r Ffrangeg to start with, ironically! Think I overcomplicated things after my later impression that the piece was performed in French too!