I’m just putting together a page on fractions for Clwb Malu Cachu and I wanted to check if the ‘rhan o’ construction is ever used for quarters, eg dwy rhan o bedair, instead of dau chwarter?
Also, because rhan is feminine, feminine numbers are used throughout? Ie tair rhan o bedair not tair rhan o bedwar?
I can’t find any of this in my grammar books and am reluctant to trust Google Translate.
I found a short bit in Gareth King’s Modern Welsh, and apart from the most common terms hanner, traean and chwarter for half, third and quarter respectively, he only says that fractional terms are formed exactly like the ordinal numbers in decimal form (giving the examples un pumed one fifth and tri degfed three tenths)
Other than that you could express fractions in a more textual context in the form of “x out of y” as x allan o y.
Geiriadur yr Academi uses the ‘rhan o’ construction at times, but not consistently, eg:
All are annotated mth (maths) so does that mean they are only used in mathematical contexts, and not in speech?
So if I said I’ll take a fifth of the pizza, it’d be un pumed, not un rhan o bump?