Welsh in Russia

No, the Soviet countries all had one anthem. The Russian Federation kept the music from the sovietic anthem, and changed the words slightly.
I am ethnically Russian, though I live in Belarus, so when I wrote “we” in the previous post I was referring to the Russians.

So I have been listening to the same anthem in Ukrainian, Lithuanian etc, except sung in different languages. It has been confusing because the English translation from the respective languages seems to make then quite different.

Oh, I see what you mean! There existed the anthems of separate Republics - with words suited to their own cultures, and there was the national anthem of USSR - I believe it was translated in quite a few languages - which still lives on as the musical part of the anthem of the Russian Federation. So each nation basically had two anthems - the USSR one - it was the same for everyone, and their own one. Of course the USSR one is the most famous.
Sorry for the misunderstanding!

This now makes sense! I was saying that I had discovered there were more versions of the anthem (one for each republic) than just the USSR/CCCP united anthem. and that Russia has changed anthem again back to the old Sovietmusic (which makes sense, because it’s so good!) but with new words.

Belarus kept the music from the Soviet period too, by the way, which also makes sense because it’s wonderful music:)

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Help Stella - can you tell me what she is saying in Welsh - I can’t make it out - possibly because of the conversation from the taxi-driver. I’m dying to know.

Justin

a finna, cariad. yn ofnadwy.
sut fedri di ddweud hyn? di’n bosib bod mor genfigennus? yma does ‘na’m un dyn yn y byd heblaw amdana ti. ti’ di’r unig un!
di’r ferch ddim ond meddwl am ei bachgen.
ma’raid i ti ‘nghredu fi.
ma’i’n unig hebdda ti – dwi ar fin crio. ti ‘sho hynny?
dweda rhywbeth neis i ‘neud i mi deimlo’n well.
na chdi! dyna beth dw sho glywad.
a finnau hefyd. yma ac am byth.

(I took it all from the cymraeg.ru website)

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That’s very honest of you to say so - and thank goodness because otherwise we would have to invent a special title for your genius in the linguistic hierarchy - and I don’t think “Stellar”" would do you justice,

Justin

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I can’t hear almost anything of what she says - only that it’s Welsh.

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@stella
After I last posted, I remembered something on TV about the Rus being Vikings. I have tried looking this up and it seems a theory with little evidence, or possibly just that a leader and a few followers took over in Moscow (not unlike the Norman invasion of England!). The Normans were definitely Vikings, however!! I’m not sure the Rus were!! Can you shed light on this?
My reason for asking is shear curiosity, so don’t feel obliged to satisfy it for me!!!

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The Rus are believed to have been the Vikings that traded with Slavic tribes. There’s a legend (written in our most ancient history book “Tale of Bygone Years”) that the Slavic tribes, who were separate and fought against each other, at last desired to have a real state and thus invited, of their own free will, the Vikings to install themselves as a sovereign power in Russia and make a true state, with laws and everything, of our lands. Ruric accepted the invitation and became the first Prince of the united Russian tribes, and our monarchy were called Ruricovichi (descendants of Ruric), until the end of the 16th century.

Didn’t that exclude Belarus? Was it just Moscow? Are they the ancestors of the Romanovs or was that another set of Rulers who took over?
My knowledge of history is superficial and patchy, but I am still fascinated by it!! (My friend Janet would describe my knowledge as deep and general, which just shows that all things are relative!),

Mine too, I practically know nothing about the UK before the Regency period.

Moscow only started to grow and acquire power much much later. Belarus was never a state until the 20th century - it was divided into separate city-states first, of which the most prominent was Polotsk (a city near where I live), then it allied with Lithuania and became the Great Duchy of Lithuania, then, later, with Poland and the kingdom was known under the name of Rec Pospolita. In the 18th century Rec Pospolita was conquered and its territory divided among The Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany, and the lands that now form Belarus came to be a part of the Russian Empire.
But our story begins when there was no Russia, no Belarus, no Ukraine - only the city-states, of which the biggest ones were Kiev, Polotsk, Novgorod, Yaroslavl. The supreme power was Kiev, but only formally. The cities each had their own Prince. Only after the Tartar-Mongol invasion our princes understood how important it is to have one ruler and centralized power.

Ruricovichi were a separate dynasty, which left no direct descendant to the throne at the beginning of the 17th century - which led to a period which we call The Great Discord. After several wars and invasions by the Polish the Romanovs were elected among the nobility to become the new royalty.

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“kovač” is the word for blacksmith in Slovenian … Maybe that first “kov” which one could relate to “gof” since f is spelled like v in Cymraeg could hold that relationship … If this doesn’t equivalent, then there’s no relationship what concerns Slovene language … (in this particular matter of course). @Millie, what do you think?

Tatjana,

I would be surprised if the words didn’t share a common origin. The protoceltic endings tend to be dropped in Welsh which is a common language phenomenon so the protoceltic would have been longer than gof I suspect perhaps more like the Slovenian?. Also alphabets are arbitrary things and it is the sounds that matter not the spelling. G and c is interchangeable in welsh because of the mutation and also k was very present in welsh before the printing of the bible when all the k letters became c. So for g in welsh it could just as well be c or k. F in welsh is v in English, no difference so gof is equivalent to kov minus the ac ending in Slovenian.

For the PIE route it is useful to look at Lithuanian since this is often regarded as the language most closely linked to the original PIE root - Lithuanian is the language which has resisted change the most. In Lithuanian blacksmith is Kalvis. This is a bit different, but the differences are probably Celtic influences. I have taken a few leaps, but kovak has a Celtic link I believe.

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I have to correct you here, just to be understood correctly it’s not “ac” but “ač” č like said in word cherry in English Just to demonstrate here is how “kovač” is pronunced. Enjoy.

Oh, and … I never said it couldn’t be linked to Celtic language I just wanted second opinion by etimologist …

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Are you qualified in some area of linguistics? - I am enjoying reading your posts.

Justin

Well, yes, I’ve got the same question. You might be interested in this blog which @Millie is writing. It’s about exactly what you’re talking about here … relationships of the words and from where they originate. :slight_smile: I love it but, to be honest, I didn’t visit it in a while now. Will have to read something there again.

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Hi Tatjana - this is a great blog. Where is the reference to Millie. She deserves credit?

Justin

As someone who never did anything with languages, this thread is really interesting.
Now the question is if i can learn welsh then could i learn another language (through welsh).
It all sounds really difficult (to me) but just maybe.
SSI… is becoming and extension to life (don’t know where it will take me, but it’s interesting).
Many thanks for all the posts.

Cheers J.P.

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