When ordering adjectives, it’s size - colour - quality, and for a single female noun, you have to mutate every adjective. So a “cute small red dragon” would be draig fach goch ciwt (I’d lean to not mutating the english-loaned ciwt to giwt)
While trying the new languages on the app, I’m also trying the Automagic Welsh course, from time to time (South again, sorry Gogs!)
I just came across “You said”.
It sounded like “ddwedest ti” when I heard it, and now that the sentences can also be seen on the screen I can see it really is “ddwedest ti”.
I have to admit that when I did Level 1 I was completely lost and coufused with mutations, and I don’t remember how it was there.
But now I would definitely say “dwedest ti” (dywedaist ti) unless it’s a question, a negative sentence or preceded by mi or fe, which is not the case here.
The ddwedaist comes from where the preceding fe has dropped off but left the mutation it caused. It’s common for that to happen in speech, but yes, to be technically correct a positive statement should be fe ddwedaist (mi ddwedaist in the N) or dwedaist if you’re not using the mi/fe.
I am confused about a lack of mutation where I’d very much expect to see mutation: Yr Arglwydd yw fy Mugail; ni bydd eisiau arnaf. (Salm 23, Y Beibl.)
Now, as I understood it, the Bible is a main source of standardised Welsh grammar, and ni causing soft mutation on b is standard. So… what happened?
I’m not quite sure what you are asking here, but I think you are wondering why the definite article is appearing in different forms.
The definite article can appear as y, yr or 'r, depending on the letters surrounding it.
Between two consonants, the article appears as y: Dw i’n gweld y dyn ifanc
After a consonant and before a vowel, the article appears as yr: Dw i’n gweld yr afal
After a vowel, the article always appears as 'r, whether it is before a consonant or a vowel: Mae’r afal yn flasus, mae’r dyn yn ifanc.
If that was not what you were after, please give a bit more context.
You’re not wrong, that is confusing. The only reference I could find that deals with this unruly usage is in A Welsh Grammar by Stephen J Williams, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1980, p.52, para 77, the section about mutation after relative pronouns (not actually relevant here, I think):
§ 77. Mutation after relative pronouns.
The rel. pron. a takes the soft mutation: yr hwn a fu; y sawl a welodd;
y byd a ddaw.
After ni, na the spirant mut. of c, p, t follows, and the soft mut. of b, d,
g, ll, rh, m:
y sawl ni chred; . . . na phrynodd; . . . na thorrod; . . . ni fu; . . . na
ddaw; . . . na all; . . . ni fynnant; . . . na lwyddodd; . . . ni rydd.
Initial b in forms of bod sometimes remains unmutated: rhai na buont;
peth ni bydd marw.
mae is the Welsh word for “is” but unlike English, in Welsh it usually comes in front of the thing you’re talking about - so for “the man is” you get mae’r dyn - literally is the man which sounds like a question in English, but is just a statement in Welsh.
mae dyn yn siarad - A man is speaking / a man speaks (it can be either in English) mae’r dyn yn siarad - The man is speaking / the man speaks
I promise you that it will get clearer! It all feels a bit alien to start with, because Welsh has a very different kind of grammar to English, but you’ll get used to it, and then you’ll wonder why you ever had a problem because it will begin to feel natural!
Thanks Louis.
At least there is some allusion to it somewhere. But relative pronouns? That would seem to imply that the sense of the verse is “The Lord is my shepherd whom I shall not lack.”
I’ve never heard that interpetation suggested in English, but I suppose it’s possible.
Does anybody here know Biblical Hebrew?