Eisiau versus moyn versus angen versus just mynd i gyda 'flow'!

No - sounds like a recommendation. Why have I heard that name?

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I love these meandering threads that throw up so many extra bits of information along the way! Diolch to everyone whoā€™s added so much valueā€¦

The southern course teaches an Eastern flvour of Welsh (although the levels are a bit more Westernised, because Iā€™ve been living in Ceredigion for so long nowā€¦)

In the east, the natural word for ā€œto wantā€ is moyn. However, under the ifluence of school and people from all over moving to Cardiff etc etc, in many places youā€™ll hear a lot of eisiau. That is also the case in Ceredigion and western Carmarthenshire, although thereā€™s more of a mix in Carms.

Angen i slightly more complicated, and can be used as in the northern course (dwi angen), but can alos be used where I use eisiau in the southern course (mae angen i fiā€¦)

Mae eisiau i fiā€¦ is a very southern construct, and ranges from I want to I need, depending on whoā€™s using it. Compare it to the old English rhyme about the horse shoe - for the want of a horse-shoe the battle was lost, or something of the kind, and youā€™ll see that English also uses, or at least used want to mean need, so itā€™s not just Welsh!

I would advise to go with the flow. If you are more comfortable with angen to mean need, then by all means use it. Everyone will understand angen, and Iā€™m pretty sure no-one has ever misunderstood me saying ā€œmae eisiau i fiā€¦ā€, even if they use eisiau to mean want, because the two meanings are so close anyway.

Hope that helps!

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Thereā€™s only one word for it: ardderchog. @Iestyn and @patrickjemmer 's explanations hand in hand complement each other perfectly, especially Iestynā€™s extra precision on the geographical spread of moyn - perfect; thank you so much. And I love meandering too, but must apologise if it digresses too much. Having been in Radnorshire for 17 years and 2 weeks exactly (yay!) today, I very soon caught that ā€˜diseaseā€™ (curiosity) ably aided and abetted by the fact that I was as curious as a cat before anyway. So settling 'yere was a perfect fit for me! I remember my first encounter with a ā€˜realā€™ local whoā€™d been born around 1.5 miles down the road and had never moved (except for work on a daily/temporary basis) away from the area. He was about 55 at the time and though heā€™d been to London once, I think that was about it; never been on an aeroplane, etc. Anyway, he was leaning on a gate to a track that led onto some common land at the end of which was the house we were hoping to buy. He was very welcoming and friendly and in the course of conversation said: ā€œoh, donā€™t worry, leave him as you find himā€ (referring to the gate). ā€œIf heā€™s open leave him open and if heā€™s closed, close himā€. This was because we were mindful that the gate also led into his yard and those grazing sheep on the common might not take too kindly to their stock ending up (via his yard) eventually on the public road. It was his habit of referring to inanimate objects as ā€˜heā€™ or ā€˜himā€™ - it totally threw me at first. Then we learned that his feet were ā€œstarvedā€ (cold, starved of warmth). And thus started a love affair with Radnorshire. Radnorsheer, poor Radnorsheer never a park nor a dear save Sir Richard Fowler of Abbey Cwm Hir. :wink:

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(David Crystal): Well, heā€™s a linguist who has written an incredible number of books about the English language, of which I have only read a small number. One of those was:

"The Fight for English: How language pundits ate, shot, and left "

The title is obviously a reference to Lynne Trussā€™s well-known book ā€œ'Eats, Shoots and Leavesā€.

He is a bit kinder to Lynne Truss than the title may suggest, but takes a less prescriptive view of the language, about which he clearly knows a lot.

He also has the virtue of being a Welsh speaker :slight_smile: (something I did not discover until comparatively recently, and thanks to the SSiW forum).

(Heā€™s also quite knowledgeable about the historic pronunciation of English and there is a video of him and his son somewhere on youtube reciting Shakespeare as he believes it would have been originally pronounced).

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Arddechog @mikeellwood a diolch! I have just regaled myself with the 10m 21s (not that Iā€™m terribly b & w or anything!) YouTube video of David and Ben Crystal explaining and evidencing the differences in pronunciation of Shakespearean writings. It was absolutely fascinating and - to me - many of the differences between the ā€˜Oxfordā€™ accent and what they reckon was being said 400 years ago were somewhat akin to English as it would be pronounced in some of the south-western counties of England today. I did find it very amusing to keep hearing the interviewer pronouncing ā€œpronunciationā€ as proNOWNciation, though - that made me chuckle a lot. Sweet irony! Hen castan arall! I think that apart from being an archaeologist, perhaps I shouldā€™ve been a linguist - if life could be relived, perhaps Iā€™d have discovered and interpreted the Dead Sea Scrolls or some such.

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At one time, I thought this would have been a natural subject for me. Iā€™ve always been fascinated by the connection between languages, for example. However, when I tried a module of it with the OU, I found I really wasnā€™t cut out for it at a serious academic level.

Iā€™m still fascinated by languages, but thank heavens we have talented people like David Crystal to do the hard slog, and then write interesting and entertaining books which bring it all to life for the general reader.

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Iā€™m intrigued by the senegambian languages at the moment, but have no idea how to learn about them in any depth - the languages that take my interest are the main one in senegal Wolof and another one called serer.

They have consonant mutations and some intriguing aspects linked to distance from the subject or object.

I stumbled on these by chance when i put in an old welsh word for pray ā€œioliā€ and found a similar word in Wolof - ā€œdioliā€. I know thats just coincidental, but got me intrigued to find out more, but not sure how exactly.

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Too true @mikeellwood . I always found that anything academic was a bit of a ā€˜hard slogā€™. Perhaps anything that starts with an a, ends with a c and has cademic in the middle (!) was going to produce the same result in me: fear, loathing and always something better to do than bury my head in a book. You certainly couldnā€™t put swot and me in the same sentence! Which is why, later in life and with precious few bits of paper to wave at potential employers (those things called ā€œqualificationsā€ that everyone seems to dote on) I decided to do a MENSA test, just to prove that I did have two brain cells that I could rub together to make fire. Obviously being a member is partly just a money printing press for them (as is the case for any membership organisation), but at least I satisfied myself that I was no nincompoop, just not the slightest bit interested in learning via the traditional ā€˜modelā€™ and sitting blasted exams just when the sun was shining, the birds were singing and boys were beckoning. Still, no regrets - thatā€™s the main thing. Soā€¦ as you so rightly say: thank goodness there are others around prepared to do the hard work for us mere mortals to enjoy the results!

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Good luck with that one!

Well I failed one of my A levels and got shocking grades in the other two and then somehow seven years later I got a PhD and if I had to do those A levels again I would still fail them. School certainly isnā€™t for everyone and teenage years are certainly very complicated.

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Thank you for raising this issue as Iā€™ve just started 6 minutes/day. I was confused about moyn and eisiau as when I said to my daughter about it she had never heard of moyn, having done Welsh since Reception and attained A* in GCSE. So glad that Iā€™ve had a chance to read every bodies replies.
Diolch
Sally