Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

That’s right - that’s what Spanish does, and the oldest French texts pretty much do the same; but then later on they stop distinguishing between the two except in proper literary language. Because they were talking about Ywain on the podcast Yr Hen Iaith, that’s got me struggling through the Old French version at the moment, and it’s full of things like Or vos ai antandue bien… Ma vie et mon cors me sauvastes - “Now I have understood you… You saved my life…” I’m not sure, but I imagine that literary French keeps up the clear distinction.

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That’s the thing about grammar - it’s just a naming system for organic entities that have evolved all by themselves. It’s entirely possible to make use of the system without learning the theory (a bit like I can recognise that the plant growing up my neighbour’s wall is somehow related to the hydrangea I’ve got in a pot on my patio, without having to know the whole Linnaean taxonomy).

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:+1:t2::ok_hand:

Question regarding owning/belonging/relating.

What are the main differences between eiddo / piau(biau) / perthyn

Any subtle nuances in use between?

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Sorry @brynle I’ve only seen your question today.

I tend to think of eiddo as property, so it gets used in expressions like ‘private property’ eiddo preifat or ‘lost property’ eiddo coll

biau (usually used in preference to piau) is a general word for possession with the ‘sy’ optional, e.g. fi (sy) biau hwn ‘I own this’, pwy (sy) biau’r siaced 'ma? ’ who owns this jacket?’
Note that you could also ask Siaced pwy yw hon? to establish ownership.

perthyn could also be used, e.g. I bwy mae’r siaced hon yn perthyn? but perthyn has a wider use showing relationships:
dw i’n perthyn i Dafydd, fy mrawd bach yw e - ‘I’m related to Dafydd, he’s my little brother’
so’r clawr hwn yn perthyn i’r pot - mae’n rhy fawr - 'this lid doesn’t belong to the pot - it’s too big.
wyt ti’n perthyn i’r clwb? - ‘do you belong to the club?’

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Are these both correct? If so, why is one fore (which I expected) and the other bore?

Dw i’n hapus i gerdded i’r ysgol efo chdi fore dydd Llun.

Be’ ti’n mynd i neud bore dydd Sul?

And for a bonus question, I’ve seen the “dydd” skipped, e.g. Saturday morning as “bore sadwrn”. Is that common, and if so is it more common in a particular region? Or does it change the meaning subtlety?

Ateb da iawn.

I would add that meddu - to possess and meddiannu - to possess/ occupy (take over) - are other good words! - although this also incudes possessing someone spirituality! :ghost:

meddianu’r eiddo - possessing the property

cymryd meddiant - to take possession

Please correct if the nuance is off

Also meddu / meddu ar rhywbeth

meddiannu can also be used to ‘take over’ or ‘occupy’ e.g.
mae’r protestwyr wedi meddiannu pencadlys y cwmni - the protestors have taken over/occupied the company headquarters

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As fas as telling one’s own story is concerned, both hanes and stori are completely interchangeable. But both words also convey different meanings in other contexts; so a stori can be a fictional story, and hanes also means history as in the school subject, or, for example, hanes Rhufeinig, Roman history.

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Sometimes there are simply multiple ways to express the same thing. Off the top of my head, English has two ways with any more and any longer, and Welsh just happens to have four (or maybe even more).

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To give some perspective … the phrase “Sut mae hanes” is an old and mostly unused phrase for “how’s life”/ “Hows the story”

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Sorry if I am asking too many but could anyone answer this one for me please? Both crop up in the course and I don’t know why one mutates and the other doesn’t.

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It’s not that you ask too many questions; sometimes questions just “fly under the radar” a bit, and then they kind of get forgotten. To answer the question itself, grammatically speaking only one of those is correct (with the mutation), as adverbials of time usually take soft mutation.
As for leaving out the dydd in bore and p’nawn, that is quite common and acceptable in day-to-day speech, and it doesn’t change the meaning (but it should be left in in more formal settings or written Welsh).

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Similar meanings … I hear “dim mwy” a lot more in colloquial modern welsh than written to be honest.

I have seen ‘dim rhagor’ used, as rhagor is “anymore/more” seems more positive
Rhagor o wybodaeth - more (of) information

Dwi ddim yn ei weld o, ragor … I don’t see him, anymore

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Shwmae bawb,

I know that in single syllable words that feature the dipthongs ae and oe (e.g oer, poeth, llaeth) are sometimes pronounced as if they’re just long a or o (ôr, pôth, llâth) instead of the standard way…

Is this a regional thing or do people all over do this?

Diolch!

It’s mostly a regional thing - and it can vary too. Words with dipthongs at the end like, for instance, chwarae or pethau are often pronounced chware and pethe in the South and as chwara and petha in the North.

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Ah thank you for the quick response! Ah yes I also pronounce dechrau like ‘dechre’ too :slight_smile:

Whenever I’m speaking I tend to use the ‘long vowel versions’ of these and but I was just worried that I’m not speaking like somebody from my area (Swansea) usually would.

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I think that’s exactly how someone from Swansea would pronounce them!

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Ah thank you Sara, I knew it just felt right pronouncing them that way ha!

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Bore da! I’m doing lefel 3 hen cwrs gwers 19 and have just heard “beth sydd eisau arna i.” I’m used to using “mae eisau i fi” so am a bit confused about the two different prepositions - can someone explain please?

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