Pump am y Penwythnos / Friday Five - 02/02/18

Welsh General / Questions
#21

It’s a bit complicated and I don’t want to flood the forum with Elder Scrolls Lore (I could talk about this for days)! Basically shouting is an ability that dragons have from birth, but takes humans (/elves/khajiit/argonians) a lifetime to learn. There have been a few individuals called the Dragonborn (Dovahkiin) who have the body of a mortal but the soul of a dragon, which means they can basically absorb souls off of dead dragons and use their knowledge to learn the words.

So technically you have this ability the entire time, but you only discover that you are Dovahkiin -
actually the Last Dragonborn, Laat Dovahkiin, just to make you feel extra special! - once you’ve progressed through the main storyline a bit (it is really early, though). Then you just explore, find word walls to read more words and use dragon souls to understand them :smile:

Nothing to do with levels directly, but obviously it’s more difficult to fight dragons if your level is really low, and some word walls are guarded by some pretty powerful enemies :smile:

Yeah, definitely! Though I feel that with Skyrim it’s especially important, because you can’t really speedrun it. You can speedrun quests, but the actual game has no ending, so it’s impossible to finish it (after over 1000 hours of playing I still come across new quests!). The best thing in the game is the amount of detail (books, lore, hidden quests, choices) and just doing the major quests barely scratches the surface.

Though it’s fun to watch videos of people finishing the main quest in like an hour by using all sorts of glitches :smile:

That’s from the main theme! I designed a t-shirt with the writing…

_20180204_153249.JPG3671×2081 1.88 MB

(I basically remember the entire song and the translation by heart)

And the Scrolls have foretold, of black wings in the cold,
That when brothers wage war come unfurled!
Alduin, bane of kings, ancient shadow unbound,
With a hunger to swallow the world!

Here’s a video with the rest of the lyrics. (this is a version of the main theme you only hear later in the game and I like it more than the original.)

#22

this made my hair raise out of special feeling I’ve got seing this. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Translation by heart is great. I can feel kind of warmth in your attitude toward this game and there’s a luck it’s endless to play …

My son played Skyrim but never told me the story and such detailed things. Thank you for this too.

Listening … Diolch

Well, you see @CatrinLliarJones, we both had a great lesson of gaming … Diolch @Novem for this.

Hwyl!
Tatjana :slight_smile:

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#23

1) You’re organising a social evening. Choose 3 individuals to make that evening spectacular - one chef, one speaker, one musician/singer?
Anyone who can cook Persian food; David Attenborough, seeing as how Jacob Bronowski’s been dead for a while; Ternipe.

2) Can you name 3 positive things about your coming week?
It’s the last week before half term, so I should have a breathing space after my teaching finishes on Wednesday; meeting SSiWers to chat on Friday; enjoying (most of) my teaching.

3) Teach me 3 simple things about something you know a lot about - an area of expertise/your occupation/a hobby, etc.
I’m interested in languages and the links between them, historical reconstruction, etc. so…
a) Catalan turns an inherited Latin ‘l’ into the -lli- sound of English ‘million’ in a lot of contexts, but it spells that sound just with a double l, so there are an awful of of Catalan words that look surprisingly like the same words in Welsh, if the latter come from early Latin loanwords: castell (castell), dilluns (dydd llun), llogar (llogi).
b) You can tell when languages are related from patterns of corresponding sounds. For instance, ‘two’, ‘ten’ and ‘tooth’ all begin with the same sounds in English, German, and Welsh (dau, deg, dant; zwei, zehn, Zahn). We know this isn’t down to borrowing, otherwise borrowed words like ‘tea’ would be ‘de’ and ‘Zee’ rather than ‘te’ and ‘Tee’, so we can use the patterns to see what the inherited words are and how the languages are related to each other. Also, once you spot patterns it helps you to remember new words that fit them!
c) There are a number of words in Indo-European that are reconstructed to have begun with the sequence swe-, which gets treated differently in different languages: in Welsh it tends to come out as chwe-, but in Latin the -w- disappears, leaving se- or so-, so you get Latin sex (six), socer (father in law – cf Catalan sogre), and soror (as in sorority) for Welsh chwech, chwegrwn, chwaer. Actually, ‘chwaer’ is my favourite, because all of these connections really clicked for me when I saw that the Persian word for ‘chwaer’, pronounced ‘chahar’, is spelt with a silent ‘v’ – Welsh ‘chwaer’, Sanskrit svasr, Persian khvahar, Latin soror, Gothic swesor, Old English sweostor, and Modern English ‘sister’ all being the same word :slight_smile:

4) 3 favourite songs/pieces of music from 3 different genres?
Casta Diva from Norma by Bellini.
This thing I’ve just come across by Romengo, just recorded by the roadside – it starts off as a version of their song Na Brigin (don’t sorrow) but then segues into Botoló (which is apparently a Hungarian word for a dance traditionally done with sticks – so kind of Hungarian Roma Morris or something…) Monika Lakatos has a really beautiful voice.
Will You? by Hazel O’Connor.

5) 3 favourite Welsh things - anything from food to mountains to celebrities?
Tintern Abbey, although I haven’t been there in decades; the little engines that I’m hoping to take a Thomas-mad five year-old to see in Summer half term; and yr hen iaith :slight_smile:

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#24

Mixture of both in Slovene (“dve” (2), “deset” (10) but “zob” (tooth))

“sestra” in Slovene …

You might add something to my “Slovenska beseda” FB album then, if you are on FB of course. :slight_smile:

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#25

Bore da! I hope you are all well and have good things planned for the weekend. Today’s questions are all about ‘threes’.

  1. You’re organising a social evening. Choose 3 individuals to make that evening spectacular - one chef, one speaker, one musician/singer?
    My daughter in law Rhoswen a fantastic chef
    A local history expert
    Something interactive - Kareoke perhaps!!

  2. Can you name 3 positive things about your coming week?
    We are on holiday and we are going on a train probably Clunderwen to Swansea (beautiful rural views), going to watch a film - probably Darkest Hour and visit our grand children

  3. Teach me 3 simple things about something you know a lot about - an area of expertise/your occupation/a hobby, etc.
    Wire a plug, fun with electronics and stay fit using HIT (High Intensity Training) on 1 minute a day

  4. 3 favourite songs/pieces of music from 3 different genres?
    Amazing Grace, Bat out of Hell and most musicals

  5. 3 favourite Welsh things - anything from food to mountains to celebrities?
    Welsh Chapels - a welsh learner with a stutter we have a really good time trying to communicate in Welsh!
    Farmers - as an electrician my son and I spend a lot of time working on farms
    The weather - honest I love it!

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