I’m trying to keep a diary in Welsh because my name is Blodwen James it’s a useful way of practising and it can raise interesting questions about how to use the ‘real’ language.
Today’s food for wondering was how native writers mix the various forms of the past as a matter of style. I’m comfortable enough with using both forms ('mi brynais ivsnes i brynu`) but I tend to choose them at random (and on whether I need to look up the stem, of course…).
I’ve read that the inflected forms are more common in S Wales and in posher writing (and I’m in N Wales and decidedly not writing poshly), but are there any other stylistic reasons to choose one form over the other within a piece of informal writing? E.g.
Does one method have a slightly different nuanced meaning, or even in its ‘feel’?
Is it odd to mix and match them, or do people tend to stick with one method in a single piece?
What about mixing and matching to change the rhythm of a paragraph? Do the two forms feel different as you read?
The answer to the first point is the simplest: none at all. The meaning is exactly the same.
The choice of the short form versus the auxilliary is purely stylistic or out of convenience.
It’s quite normal to mix and match, even from sentence to sentence. So many people will happily use the short forms for verbs like mynd, dod and dweud but switch to the wnes i form for longer verbs, or verbs you wouldn’t use often or regularly.
(Even in the south you’d be hard pressed to find someone saying, for example, ymddiheuriais i wrtho fe instead of wnes i ymddiheuro wrtho fe for “I apologized to him”)
I don’t think that’s reached my part of the Chester suburbs yet
More accurately, though I’d probably recognise it if someone else used it, daru wasn’t part of SSIW, so I haven’t internalised it yet and would never remember to use it in ink or anger…
I think Gareth King approves its use by learners on the basis that it’s completely unchanging, so really easy to use; but I have to confess myself content just to understand it, like you
