New parallel.cymru resource: Clarifying similar Welsh words

Hello happy SSIWers,

As well as doing first person magazine-style articles, I’m branching out into resources for Welsh learners and speakers. The first thing I’m setting up is a page entitled: Clarifying similar Welsh words. The idea is simple- a list of pairs of words that are spelt or sound similar, together with a mnemonic to remember the difference. Examples include:
Cefndir = background Cefnder = male cousin Cefn = back, tir = ground/earth, therefore cefndir = background
Cyfarth = to bark Cyfarch = to greet The ch in cyfarch is also used in congratulations, and one is more likely to issue a congratultions at the time of greeting than at the time of barking
ffôn = phone ffon = stick The roof on the â looks like a telephone receiver sitting on a phone.

I can’t remember all the times I’ve said the wrong word in Welsh (there have been too many occasions!) so I’m crwod sourcing the content for this. Do you have a suggestion to include? If so, add it here!

With many thanks,

Neil

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Hyd and Hud. One’s a magical short word to express length which seems to change meaning when something comes before it and the other simply means magic.

Another pair is Cu and Ci. One is linked to people who are loved and cherished - mam-gu and tad-cu and the other is reserved for faithful canine companions.

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sylwi “to notice” and sylweddoli “to realise”… I think it was @novem who pointed out that “realising” is a bit more “intensive” a mental action than just “noticing” and so it’s appropriate that the word is longer.

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Diolch bechgyn. I like those suggestions and will defintiely use them. I’ll post the link to the page here when I have a couple more additons, hopefully tomorrow…

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Not really that alike, but were confused recently! To bach - little roof, an obvious name for the accent on the ‘y’ of tŷ bach, with which it was confused! :grinning: if anyone does not know, tŷ bach is that facility which in past times was situated in a little building out back! The name has stuck, although I imagine everyone now has their’s indoors, usually in or close to their bathroom!

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BTW, in Gaelic it’s taigh-beag - very similar!

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NB because of the :heart: I was brought back here and noticed I had put ‘little house’ instead of ‘little roof’ making the same mistake backwards, so maybe confusion is easy after all!

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Thank you all for your contributions. This page is now live at: http://parallel.cymru/?p=2135. Let me know what you think!

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tŷ bach is toilet in English even if it is bathroom in American! :wink:

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Hi Neil.
I really enjoyed reading the article and found it to be helpful as well as entertaining.

On the bwyd/byd subject -
Throwing this open to anyone: Byd/byth tends to throw me a bit. OK, I appreciate that this is fairly basic, but dim byd (not at all), am byth (for ever) & byth eto (never again) seem to have meanings that are swinging about like a pendulum. I guess its just a matter of learning each one and not mixing them up.

Doesn’t byth=ever, so am byth = for ever. byd=world, so dim byd = not in the world, so not at all! :slight_smile: All I know is that Cymru am Byth was one of tje first things I learned!

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I believe that dim byd was originally a contraction of dim yn y byd as @henddraig just mentioned.

I was just playing with ideas around this, that I won’t translate in case I’m wrong, but in my mind play some interesting tunes on the words you mention - (sometimes erioed is needed as well?).

How about translations of:

there will be nothing in the world
there will be nothing ever in the world
there will be nothing in the world ever again
there will be nothing in the world ever again, forever
there was no-one in the world
there was no one ever in the world
there was never anyone in the world

etc etc

These ones would be interesting ones to translate - bad English perhaps, but I think their pretty typical.

A parent shouting at a child might say:

Don’t ever do that ever again right
or
you should never ever do that ever. Promise that you will never ever do that again ever

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Hi everyone. I’m pretty far from having the language experitise of some of the contributors here, so I wouldn’t be able to provode that much detail on byd/byth myself. The page I’ve created emphasises not just the words that are similar, but a way to help people tell the difference. I can’t think of a mnemonic for byd/byth at the moment, but if I do then I will certainly include it!
Thanks all :slight_smile:

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Maybe not so much as a mnemonic as an exercise in logic, but would this help for distinguishing between bwyd/byd/byth … ?

‘world’ ends in d, so could be either byd or bwyd, but bwyd has more letters so is more of a mouthful so bwyd = food, leaving byd = world. This then leaves byth to be ever & never.

Perhaps we should throw bywyd into the mix too, just to be certain - that’s an even longer word, one could say more complicated - and life can be complicated, so bywyd = life.

Too analytical?!! :grin:

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And then there’s pryd, which is a bit like bwyd and a bit like byd and can mean “meal” which is like “food”.

But when (pryd) do you eat food? At a meal!

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Not to mention pridd (soil), which you don’t want to eat.

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and bwrdd or bord is where you would (or byddet ti’n) bwyta the bwyd mewn pryd i weld y byd.

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But you need to grow food!

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Lol diolch i gyd. I see a section on Welsh tongue twisters coming up. Bydda i’n bwyta’r bwyd ar y bwrdd tra mwynhau bywyd yn y byd- if we ignored mutations anyway!

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Unless it’s made by Heston Blumenthal :cool:

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