I would have thought the same. But in her own translation Manon writes:
“I don’t have anything else to teach you, Siôn,” she said yesterday. […] “There’s no point carrying on like this.”
(Quoted from https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/august-2019-welsh-the-blue-book-of-nebo-manon-steffan-sos
Interesting! Another reason not to worry if it’s “northern” or “southern”, it’s all Welsh
There‘s a translation? Now I have to try and not look at it while reading the original
Not yet, at least not as a complete book. She published the first chapters as a sort of teaser, and as far as I saw on her Twitter, she found a publisher.
Summer '21 is the word on the street.
Well, the actual word on the street is ARAF, but you know what I mean.
Yes - actually it’s a contraction of does 'na ddim pwynt - so (doe)s ('n)a (ddi)m pwynt , quite a contraction! And indeed this is really the origin of the sa i… negative set - sa i’n gwybod is probably way back (nid oe)s (ohon)a i’n gwybod, then onward with so ti’n… (etc), which is (nid oe)s (ohon)ot ti’n….; similarly the SW set smo fi…, which includes the ddim instead of the nid: smo fi’n gwybod is probably (doe)s (di)m o(hono) fi’n gwybod.
Am sbort!
What fun!
A lot of my instinctive Welsh is from Primary school (nearly 30 years ago!). I went to an English medium school but had a first language Welsh teacher for a few years and it obviously made it’s mark. Well my default for please is os gwelwch yn dda is that not really said now? Do people just say plis? Should I try to re educate my default for modern times? Thanks
Plenty of people still say “os gwelwch yn dda” (and also “os gweli di’n dda” ), although, yes, you hear plenty of “plîs” too - I myself use “plîs” more often than I should but I haven’t given up on o.g.y.dd completely - it’s just a natural (unfortunate, yes, but natural) thing to do because it’s so much quicker to say!
Stick to what you’re happy with, and if you can avoid “plîs”, more power to you - you’ve got more willpower than me!
o.g.y.dd
Perhaps we can shorten to just that? Conveniently it already looks like a Welsh word!
Ga i omled, ogydd?
I often receive emails with it on like that. Took me ages to figure out what the hell it was (not in any dictionary, obviously!)
Thank you. I’ll carry on as I am then. Though I’ll probably end up saying plis now I’ve thought about it so much
In the challenges I hear Aran and Catrin bouncing back and forth between “nest ti fwynhau/nes i fwynhau” and “nest ti mwynhau/nes i mwynhau”. Are both forms (mutated and not mutated) equally fine in that phrase?
It should be mutated but you won’t be misunderstood either way so don’t worry.
Thanks to @Hendrik’s link, several of my questions about Llyfr Glas Nebo have been answered (though there are a few differences/additions between the Welsh text and the translation). So here come the things I still don’t quite get.
“Ar ôl hynny, dyma fi’n cadw’r llyfr ar y silff uchaf”
What is the function of “dyma” here? It does seem to work like “nes i”. Is that a Northern thing?
“After that, here I am keeping the book on the highest shelf”
Noobish question about verb order.
I understand that Cymraeg is normally VSO, but can be SVO too.
I just don’t really have a handle yet on which to use in normal speech.
For example:
“Welsh is the old language of Britain”
Google translate throws back SVO “Cymraeg yw’r hen iaith Prydain”
Am I correct in thinking this is more formal Welsh. Is it even right?
I was guessing at at “Mae Cymraeg yr hen iaith Prydain” but I can’t tell if that is right either.
Thanks.
Hi Owen,
In your example your identifying something - so it uses the SVO, x yw y
Works when talking about occupations:
Ffisio ydy Anthony
This is also emphasis. So here in your example you’re emphasising Cymraeg as the old language, not Mexican.
It’s not more formal. It’s used in informal speech too.
It also works when you’re introducing yourself - Anthony 'dw i
Does that help?
Also, just reread and properly read your bit about mae, it doesn’t really work here because it’s an identification sentence.
Mae…yn + verb - is two verbs. Whereas in your sentence you only have one - yw.
Um, as a stattement, non-emphatic, wouldn’t Mae Cymraeg yr hen iaith Prydain actually work? There is only one verb - mae - and the rest of the sentence is “subject” (Cymraeg) and object (yr hen iaith Prydain). It is neither as direct nor as elegant as Cymraeg yw’r hen iaith Prydain but it most certainly would be understood, wouldn’t it?
Mae would need yn here. “Mae’r Gymraeg yn hen iaith Prydain” grammatically works but it’s a bit clunky
Edit: in speech i would use the emphatic in this example.
Just like I could say “Dwi’n Anthony” but I introduce myself as “Anthony dw i”