I have recently got to wondering about the use of the word fy in speech in my “target area” of Gwynedd. Varoius sources state that generally yn is used in speech rather than fy, so on my current rerun through old course 2 North, I started to use that in my lesson responses:
Course 2: Oedd o’n brathu fy llaw?
Me: Oedd o’n brathi yn llaw i?
Course 2: Dw i’n caru fy ngwraig ond ydy hi’n fy ngharu fi?
Me: Dw i’n caru yng ngwraig i ond ydy hi’n yng ngharu fi?
What I was interested in knowing was if the use of yn instead of fy is general in Gwynedd or if my experiments with this are leading me away from my target accent? Also, is it a total replacement or is fy retained sometimes? For example, I find ar ym mhen fy hun rolls off my tongue quite well, but not ar ym mhen yn hun so much.
I too will be interested in replies to this from everyday Welsh speakers.
Excellent book though it is, I got a bit confused by what Gareth King says about this in the Modern Welsh Comprehensive Grammar (though mine is an old edition), so for now I’m sticking by what SSiW teaches, but keeping an open mind (or empty head, if you prefer ).
Mostly a matter of personal choice, I’d say - either sounds very normal to me - but you’re certainly not going to sound ‘wrong’ because of veering away from ‘fy’.
Having said that, listening to lots of people who come from Gwynedd will probably be an easier way to close in on the accent than this sort of step-by-step stuff - easier said than done, I know, but we’ll try to help with that next year…
Diolch yn fawr Aran. At the moment, I am producing a bit of a mixture, so its good to know that I am not wandering off into obscure territory here. It is really interesting to note how the way I say things seems to change organically, by itself, to become more abbreviated. Using 'di instead of wedi is pretty natural to me now, in most cases at least. This appears to be heading in the same direction… The future listening sessions will, as you say, prove invaluable in bedding this sort of thing into the subconscious where it belongs!
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