I suspect I am not the only person with an aversion to Welsh that sounds like it is adopted from English. I admit, myself, to a bit of a skin-crawl when I hear ‘‘lickio’’ so I try to use hoffi instead
I used ‘‘stoppio’’ the other day in front of a Welsh friend of mine who scolded me and suggested I use ‘‘rhoed i fynu’’ (excuse my phonic Welsh) instead to avoid yet another ‘‘Wenglishism’’. I was trying to say ‘‘Dwy’n rhoed i fynu siarad Cymraeg rwan’’.
Would you agree that ‘‘rhoed i fynu’’ would be a reasonable alternative to ‘‘stoppio’’ in this context just as ‘‘hoffi’’ may be a reasonable alternative to ‘‘lickio’’.
Also, if I were talking about ‘stopping a person doing something’ I would use ‘‘rhwystro’’ instead of ‘‘stoppio’’.
I would use “peidio”, or more forcefully, “peidiwch”, which would literally mean “cease” or “don’t”. But then “stopio” is taught on the new course so in conversational Welsh it should be fine to use.
Do you feel the same way about words adopted into English? There are many thousands of them! I have always felt that I want to adopt the way people actually speak out there in the wild rather than limiting myself artificially. That’s my view anyway, your mileage may vary. I do not want to sound like a newsreader when I an chatting down the pub, but would probably sound inappropriate giving a formal speech or anything like that, I have to admit!
It’s strange but I do feel differently about a language like English that is dominant. Your point though is a very good one and I accept it with the logical side of my brain.
Emotionally, I enjoy and take pride in other languages that are independent of much English influence.
I’m feeling better about ‘‘licio’’ now I understand it has hundreds of years’ history.
I find myself arguing on both sides of the fence - always thought the Academie Francaise took a too purist approach to protecting the French language. It became absurd when normal IT terminology which was clearly new and often American created was ‘‘modified’’ artificially.
While the French have their own word for computer - ordinateur, so do we - cyfrifiadur (they both mean machines that are good at sums which, after all is exactly what computers are). As a retired physicist, I get a kick out of the ingenuity of our own de facto “Academy” who come up with “Pelydr X” (X Ray), "Perthnasedd (relativity), “Niwtron” (guess), ayb. It’s still possible (just) to study Ffiseg through the medium of Welsh at Prifysgol Aberystwyth and I’ve always taken that as a sign of the vitality of Welsh.
There has been long and frequent discussion on this forum about whether Welsh owes anything to English, Latin etc and I suspect we’ll hear the arguments again now. I’ll state my own position now - Welsh is a direct descendant of Klingon
That’s a bit confusing…doesn’t ‘gorau’ mean ‘best’?
I agree with the spirit of the original post; it saddens me when I hear “english-isms” and English words used in place of Welsh ones. Welsh is a lovely language; I wish it weren’t affected by the ubiquity of English.
In a caffi in Y Bala, I ordered bacwn, ŵy a sglodion, and was promptly corrected tsips. Its just what people say in the area you’re in. If I ever have the opportunity to live in Wales, I would certainly adopt the local usgae over “correct” Welsh, cant y cant.
I find this an interesting topic. Personally, I prefer to use Welsh words where they exist, but if local first language speakers consistently use a welshified English one, then I accept that’s colloquial use and I go with it. However today I was in conversation with a local farmer who liberally sprinkled his Welsh with English words and acknowledged that he did. He noted that I said ‘cyfrifiadur’ where he said ‘computer’ and commented that his children, who went to Welsh medium schools, said ‘cyfrifiadur’ too. It could be the case that some of the older people around went to English medium schools and have learnt lots of words in English - words that they wouldn’t have used at home when they were growing up, so they carry on using them in English.
My problem then was do I stick with using the Welsh words and risk sounding like I’m ‘showing off’ or putting down his way of speaking in some way, or do I fall in with his way of putting English words in and feel uncomfortable myself? I don’t want to come across as a ‘learner’ telling a first language Welsh speaker how to speak their own language! Luckily he was very friendly and laughed about it, but I wonder if some people would be put out?
And I notice it’s always “bacwn” (not “cig moch”) and “tsips” on Rownd a Rownd.
(I’m wondering if “cig moch” is only used in the context of breakfast?).
Edit: But actually, when you hear those English words on programmes like RaR where most of the dialogue is actually in proper slangy Welsh, you realise that the odd English word is not really a problem, and I suspect the same is true for people like @Deborah-SSi’s farmer.
A lot of older people in Ceredigion use the word telefision in place of teledu. I would guess that it’s simply a case of the English/International word coming into use before a Welsh version has been accepted and the generation that was exposed to the English before the Welsh being stuck with it through habit.
I suspect, however, that modern, lightning-quick communications would lessen the chances of a whole generation of people missing out on a word.
This is such a common stage for Welsh learners, I’m tempted to believe that everyone goes through it (I certainly did myself).
Eventually, it sort of disappears into a general linguistic courtesy kind of thing, as Dee describes, where for my money it’s less about Anglicisms vs Cymraeg Pur and more about naturally varying your register to put the people around you at ease, and knowing when that does and doesn’t make a difference
Actually, I’d humbly and mischievously suggest that ‘rhoi i fyny’ is more of an Anglicism than stopio, which is just a simple loanword - ‘rhoi i fyny’ is a structural Anglicism, which you could argue has a far greater impact on the language… ‘Rhoi’r gorau’ is definitely ‘more pure’ than ‘rhoi i fyny’ - but both of them, to my ear, carry something of a suggestion that you’re stopping on a permanent basis…
