I don’t know much about literary Welsh, but would like to as well. For reading things like Taliesin, then it might be worth looking at a thread that was on this forum a while back - if you search “Middle Welsh” on this forum then there are links to resources there that might help.
I think @henddraig answered the question regarding Dun and Caer etc. This is the sort of thing that intriques me as well, although nothing to do with learning to speak Welsh of course, but adds to the ambience if you like and some of my personal motivations to learn the language.
In Wales you won’t find Dun very much, although there are over 150 known Hill forts. What you will find is Dinas quite a lot, which is a derivative from Din, which is in fact the same as Dun. Obviously Dinas is very much in current usage as well for city. Dun seems to be very common in Scotland (Dundee, Dùn Eibhinn) and France (Liverdun, Verdun etc) - I suspect that Dun predates the Roman inspired Caer in most parts of Northern Europe. In Wales topology seems to be the main part of the names of the old hill forts - Moel is common (summit, bald) and a lot of names just seem to describe their location, often with caer or gaer, but maybe that was added later?.
Edit: I was just wondering about a possible link between gaer and garrison and looked up the etymology of garrison, which says from old French garir - to defend and that word is supposedly derived from a Germanic source - proto germanic *wer. Other words like the french guerre for war, supposedly again from proto-germanic *wers which links to the English war. Its possible that there could be a kernel of a common origin for a lot of words like these and if they do, then whether they come from latin, greek, proto-celtic or proto-germanic is probably up for grabs.
Oh diolch, Will!! I looked at the petition this morning and saw 959, and WJ from Idaho, and had forgotten where you were from! Now I know it’s you and thank you!
I started reading Y Gododdin before I knew all that much Cymraeg and, with a dictionary and an English translation as a crib when despirate, got on OK. However, this was about 50+ years back and I was learning in the old fashioned way, which taught very literary Welsh. I read Dafydd ap Gwilym and found that much easier, almost modern, but I didn’t know then that Iolo Morganwg had faked a lot of Dafydd’s work and I still don’t know if I was actually reading his stuff!
I was wanting to ask a couple of questions about ‘let’s/let’ translated into Welsh, as it doesn’t seem to be a one fix all answer.
I’ve seen for ‘I’ll let you know’ as ‘wna i adael i ti wybod’ using gadael, more to do with the future
I’ve seen ‘awn ni’ for ‘let’s go’ more to do with ‘come on, we should be going now’, but I was wanting to know how this would work for other sentences, like let’s see, let’s talk, let’s wait etc., because awn ni, or gadael don’t seem to work here, but are the answers google translate has given me, and I can’t find specific entries for these sentence structures anywhere.
Sorry to butt-in, out of chronological order. Regarding Din & Dun Celtic forts. Yes, Din seems to be Gaelic and Dun the Brithonic version. Here’s a couple for you, @henddraig (but I bet you already knew of them):
Segedunum: The British fort at Wallsend, later taken over by the Romans.
Durham: also known as Dunholm and Dunelm.
Edit: To clarify - The British fort at Sigedunum wasn’t taken over, just the location. The Romans built their own fort.
I’m not sure there’s a direct way of translating it, but in one of the courses they use ‘Beth am i ni fynd / siarad / aros …’ etc for that kind of sentence.
A friend pointed out to me that castell is from the Roman, I suppose a version of ‘chester’. I do not know which influences came when. Sanscrit? I am no expert!
Yes, corresponding to Latin castrum - but neither Henry Lewis in Yr Elfen Ladin Yn Yr Iaith Gymraeg nor Samuel James Evans in The Latin Element In Welsh list caer as a derivation of castrum. The closest analogy I could find are the words fenestra which became ffenest® window and closer still capistrum which transformed into cebyst® halter, muzzle, tether, rope - so castrum would have transformed into cest® possibly - actually very close to Chester! I now claim Chester as a Welsh name - after allowing for the English consonant shift from “k” to “ch”
Castell is listed in the above as derived from castellum - the diminutive of castrum - chester is from castrum itself.
Where in Idaho do you live, Will? I know there are some Welsh (heritage) communities in southern Idaho, so I’ve put you (just generally) on the map in that area, but please let me know if you would like me to move your marker to a different location.
I think this is for @Kinetic or possibly @tatjana! My preference is for the header of the page to be in green and it has been ever since I set it that way, probably when the format changed. But suddenly, in the last day or so, it has gone red!! I know that is the colour of dragons and crysau Cymraeg (Welsh shirts), but the version of red on my screen is rather sickly, with an orangy brown tinge which gives me a headache! There are no little boxes of colour to click on to change it to green! Help!!
p.s. I have realised, when I first log in, it is green. It’s when I click on Forum it goes red!!
If there are no tickers to change the colors then alternatively you can try this:
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Doing all this color should be to your desire again. Make sure also the ticker box “Use new layout for the whole website” is ticked. If not I (at least) still get old design but if others don’t have it ticked it probably gives you default red design instead of desired one.
However, make sure you’re logged in also. If you’re not, you get default red design with no tickers to change the colors.
I sent a private message to @Kinetic yesterday because the same thing happened to me. Everywhere else on the site is still my preferred color (blue) but as soon as I come into the forum it changes to red. When I go back to other places (lessons, FAQ, etc.) it goes back to blue. Kinetic had no immediate answer (other than needing to be logged into the main website) but it is possible that some software update changed the forum and he’ll have to track that down.
It’s not enough to be logged into the main site. Forum is separate software so if you’re not logged into the forum you’ll get derfault/red banner also. When comming to the forum check the upper right corner where your profile picture should be. If it isn’t there and it says “Login” instead then you are not logged in. If you’re logged into the main site you just need to click that “Login” link and it logs you in automatically if I’m correct. If not, you’ll get login page (or form) and you’d need to login with your user and password you’d set for the forum you’ve used when registered at it.
Hope this does the trick.
Pob lwc ac hwyl!
Tatjana
EDIT to add that I’ve gone testing things a bit and when comming back from the main site not being logged in to the forum (into which I was miraclously logged in) it gave me default colour as at the main site where I was not logged. There maybe is a bit of mess with the things as I’ve logged into the site successfully the first time, then I’ve changed the colors and logged off. Wanting login again it said my login was timed out and for several atempt it didn’t want let me in.
However it might all thing be very well connected with cookies though. I didn’t go to delete them though.
Let me also remind you @henddraig that on the forum page you don’t have tickers to change colors. You only have them on the main page.
I hope I didn’t comfuse you too much now, but maybe trying different “combinations” of where to login first might help too.
Ah diolch, Tatjana.
I just followed your instructions and they work well. This is what I am finding (dodgy English but ok on a Welsh site):
When I open up SSi, I am automatically logged into the forum with a red banner.
Next, I click on FAQ and log in to the site, then click on a chosen colour. Hey Presto! The colour changes
If I close down SSi and then reopen, it will be red again, so I just go back to FAQ…
All good if I feel like changing my rugby club colours - We just need a black and white one for Ospreys/Newcastle
