This is really bugging me. It is funny, but I need an answer for my sanity. I am perhaps “upper mynediad” Welsh and do not speak Welsh day to day so do not hear turns of phrases. I want to know if this is one of those “means more in the original language”.
There is an NHS poster at my doctor’s, which has, “Abuse of our staff will result in prosecution” (or something very close to that. The Welsh, smaller letters, different colour is underneath this two line statement, and is, exactly:
“Roeddwn i ar fin achub bywyd rhywun yna ces i fy mwrw”
When literally translated this is “I was about to save someone’s life then I got drunk”
The phrase for drunk that I know is “meddw”. Though Google translate gives the translation you posted, it’s wrong. I think the poster is actually saying, “I was on the point of saving someone’s life when I was punched.”
“Bwrw”, as in “bwrw glaw” means hitting or punching.
bwrw (to hit) has mutated after the fy, and ces i fy mwrw means “I got hit”, so the sentence is saying “I was about to save someone’s life then I got hit”
It’s actually pretty good practice, in my book, to have something that expresses the meaning of the message in its own way, rather than a slavish translation, so this is a really interesting example.
However, what is not good practice (and which goes against the Welsh Language Standards) is to have the Welsh under the English, in smaller type and in (I’m assuming, but it could be uncharitable of me) a less prominent colour. But GP surgeries don’t come under the Standards whereas the wider NHS does, so I suppose that’s why?
Sorry - that’s a tangent from the linguistic question, which has been so beautifully answered…
These are fabulous responses, and it makes ‘sense’ insofar that mwrw is a mutated verb, not noun.
However - why was the translation done this way? If a non-English speaker was reading this poster it only states from the person being abused point of view, not the consequences of their actions, which is what the English states. Why is it translated this way, why not “If you abuse our staff, you will be prosecuted”?
(PS sara-peacock1 - the Welsh is slightly smaller, perfectly visible and clear and a good colour, I would say that the English only gets real prominence because it is on top)
No idea. Perhaps whoever made the poster wasn’t a Welsh speaker and paired one bit of an English poster with the wrong bit of a Welsh one.
But next time I’m in my doctor’s waiting room, I’ll see what they’ve got.
As to “why”, the Welsh reader is also reading the English, so they get both messages. It’s a little bit like the phrase that’s on the front of the Millennium Centre in Cardiff: “Creu gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen / In these stones horizons sing”. I think of it as a sort of “value added” for Welsh speakers. (There’s a proper linguistic term for it that I learned, but have now totally forgotten, when I was studying for my masters…)
I once tried to do the ‘added value’ thing when I was creating a poster to advertise an app in a library. Was never sure if that approach was permitted under WLS.
Rhoi wybod if you do recall the term. I can add it to my stash of somewhat obscure language-about-language expressions. (One glorious day, someone at work will ask me what Antimetabole is and I will be completely ready and not have forgotten all about it.)
The Standards say that the Welsh “must not be treated less favourably than the English”, so there’s a certain amount of interpretation allowed there… (It’s been established by now that placing the Welsh where it is likely to be read after the English is considered as treating it less favourably.)
This seems rather weird, unless you are sharing some kind of joke like the No Vacancy meme in this thread. It assumes that the reader can understand both languages, but I thought the whole point of having dual languages was to make it inclusive to all, not just because they have to have both because of there being two languages in Wales. There are pockets of Wales that do not speak English at all. If the Welsh said “abuse of staff will result in prosecution” and the one I could read in English “I went to save someone’s life and then I got attacked” would leave me very confused. Why not keep it as a literal translation? This is a serious subject after all, and not a cartoon.
To be honest, I don’t think we are the ones who can answer this. I agree, it doesn’t really make sense to have two different sentences, but we are not inside the minds of whoever designed the poster.
