Hiraeth. A beautiful word in the English language!

Had to look up pwdu, the dictionary says ¨to sulk, be sullen, take offence, pout¨. It apparently goes back at least to 1722 and seems from the examples to relate particularly to someone ¨turning up their nose¨ at food they don´t like. Well clearly the English turn up their noses while the Welsh pout their lips. Dach chi´n dysgu rhywbath newydd pob dydd!

It has to be “Car”, but you could debate that one forever.

OK the word car even precedes Welsh, adopted into Latin from their love of charriot racing and the Gaullish/celto-iberian masters of the charriots and it was probably first coined in English for the automobile, but before that it was a welsh word for exactly what an automobile is (without the engine) for a very very long time…

Also you probably can’t do much better than Dad

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I found this:
Pouting — Pout Pout (pout), v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Pouted}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Pouting}.] [OE. pouten, of uncertain origin; cf. Prov. pot lip, Prov. F. potte, faire la potte to pout, W. pwdu to pout, be sullen, poten, potten, a paunch, belly.] 1. To thrust out … The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

Looks like it may be of French origin

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Somehow that feels about right.

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Thanks for that, Louis - interesting and knowledgeable as always!
There is this though, from an etymological dictionary I’ve found often useful and reliable-
“early 14c., of uncertain origin, perhaps from Scandinavian (compare Swedish dialectal puta “to be puffed out”), or Frisian (compare East Frisian püt “bag, swelling,” Low German puddig “swollen”); related via notion of “inflation” to Old English ælepute “fish with inflated parts,” and Middle Dutch puyt, Flemish puut “frog,” from hypothetical PIE imitative root *beu- suggesting “swelling” (see bull (n.2)). Related: Pouted; pouting. As a noun from 1590s.”
“Pwd” is apparently first recorded in 1722, implying (by no means beyond doubt) that it came from the English.

Yes, “pwdi” - the meaning Leia gives is well known to Welsh people, whether they speak Welsh or not, or even think of it as a Welsh word, as she says!

It’s even got (to me, at least, and seemingly to other people) one of those “hit you there”, ‘basic’ feelings, in a way that something like ‘sulk’ doesn’t.

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Absolutely! The fact that it came from, as you say, Celtic, is a minor point! :wink:

Other words came into Latin this way, of course - even such a stereotypical Roman word as “Gladiator” seems to be from the Celtic (similar to the Welsh “cleddyf”). Considering the influence that the Celts had on Roman arms and armour this isn’t really surprising!

I wonder what Welsh word would be most known world-wide rather than just in Britain?
“Car”, of course would be a contender! But what about words from the language we could call Welsh (whatever definition you use for that).

Any advance on “penguin”?
A strange and unlikely concatenation of events (which could describe the history of most words, actually!) led to that being the word for penguins or penguin-like things in many languages of the world.

Yes: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=iron

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I like that we never picked up ‘ferrum’, despite the Romans having a lot of it and using sharp bits on lots of us!! We stuck’em back with haearn!

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Wow! Celtic again, rather than specifically Welsh, mind, but that fits in with Celtic words entering Latin because they dragged the Romans out of the Bronze Age. They obviously civilised a lot of the rest of Europe as well!

It puts in context those tedious ignorant jokes from English speakers about Welsh not having words for modern inventions… :blush:

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So many entered latin from a celtic source didn’t they and I think a lot of celtic words entered English via French from a celtic and non-latin origin. Latin for Horse is equus originally isn’t - no doubt from Greek. There is caballus as well, but that has to be borrowed from Celtic - all the horse linked words that sound like that - cheval, ceffyl etc - “chivalry” chevalier, caballeros etc are all originally from celtic roots.

Is there anything original in Latin that isn’t a borrowing from somehwhere else - I have heard it argued that there shouldn’t really be a distinct italic language group.

What about Monk - does that come from mynach?

The question I suppose is how many words in English are not of celtic origin - how many are germanic or come from Greek via Latin??

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The Welsh equivalent of equus is the eb- in ebol and Eppynt < eb+hynt ´horse track´. A common IE inheritance to Celtic and Italic in this case afaik.

Actually, the Ancient Brits seem to have got on fairly well as Roman citizens and borrowed Latin words in much the same way that a few centuries later English borrowed Norman French words. So there´s quite a lot of originally Latin words in Welsh, although they´ve long been ´naturalised´, they no longer feel foreign.

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Yes, but it is always assumed to be borrowings from Latin and not the other way around. Latin absorbed words from her there and everywhere - at the times we are talking about parts of Turkey and even Greece, most of western Europe - west of the Rhine - (both sides of the danube) and South of Scandinavia spoke Celtic languages, which shared common words and roots. In my mind it is almost inconceivable that celtic words and roots didn’t make up a large part of an Esparanto like cymysg of languages called Latin - the experts say the borrowings weren’t as extensive as I would imagine and I suppose they should know, so I guess I should accept that, except I find it a bit incredible and hard to fathom.

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Sorting out borrowings from common origins in related groups, e.g. Italic and Celtic isn´t always possible, and can get quite technical at times. One of the few good popular books on language development (if maybe a little dated now) is of course Henry Lewis´ Datblygiad yr Iaith Gymraeg, if you can cope with his slightly old fashioned literary Welsh. Worth having a bash at anyway, it keeps getting reprinted.

It does a bit! Certainly etymology in English is far more reluctant to accept Celtic roots of words than say French etymologists, through Latin or not.
Probably a difference in the way they look at their history- the French establishment have always embraced their Celtic past - British establishment has always seemed to have been a little suspicious of it!

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Yup, quite right. Even something as NormanFrench sounding as “vassal” came from the Celtic, related to Welsh “gwas”.
(A word which in the form “was”/“wus” has entered into the English in Wales for a second time directly from the Weksh! ( round here, anyway!)) Ironically, there might be more words accepted as being from the Celtic taken into English from the French than there might be accepted as being taken from Celtic directly into English! But it does seem establishments in such things do have different ideas, as I mentioned.

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Maybe this goes back to the Breton-Norman conflicts before 1066 - many of the British establishment like to trace their roots back to William the conqueror. I’ve seen many an old etonion on TV tracing their roots back to old William who must have been even more prolific in the bedroom than he was on the battlefield.

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Apparently, if you go back far enough we’re all related, so apparently it’s not that surprising. (Although, given my thoroughly plebeian roots - of which I am very proud - I find it very hard to believe there would be any link in my family!)

What would people consider to be the English word nearest in meaning to “hiraeth”?

I’m guessing that “homesickness” doesn’t quite cover it, and neither quite, does “longing”.

But maybe it just can’t be done in one word, and we have to resort to several (just showing of course the high relative value of Welsh words… :slight_smile: ).

Longing is the literal definition (hir =long) and one definition of longing defines it as “strong, persistent desire or craving, especially for something unattainable or distant: filled with longing for home.” Which seems fairly close and they presumably have the same origins but obviously the connotations people have with the hiraeth must be quite different for people to think there is no translation for it.

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Possible, but more likely direct from Latin monicus/monachus, in turn from Greek monachos, someone who lives alone or separately. More likely I think because there are many very similar derivations in other languages, Dutch monnik, German Moench, etc.

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