I’m re-reading Y Stelciwr by Manon Steffan Ros, and this time I’m trying to translate it so I have to dig into the details, rather than just get a broad sense of what’s going on as I did the first time around.
Dwi’n ei gwylio hi’n paratoi ei swper drwy ffenest ei chegin wrth i mi fwyta afal, wy a thost i’m swper fy hun.
It’s the last phrase that I’m unsure about. Would a fair translation be:
I watch her prepare her supper through a kitchen window while I eat an apple, egg and toast for my own supper.
Specifically, what’s the function of the i’m – a colloquial form of i fy perhaps? I know that ddim is often contracted down to 'm but that doesn’t seem to fit here.
It’s not a colloquialism, but in fact it’s rather the opposite – you usually see this in literary or poetic Welsh. It is for all intents and purposes just an alternative way how to express the possessive pronoun when it follows a vowel.
(One other form off the top of my head is for i dy for example, which can be expressed by i’th)
If you know any of the words to Hen wlad fy nhadau you might recognise pleidiol wyf i’m gwlad now The other thing is that these literary pronouns cause different mutations from the ones we’re used to after fy, dy etc. - but unless you want to write literary Welsh that’s probably not worth worrying about.
I would like to know about that! I have noticed i’m and i’th in writing before and after a bit of confusion worked out their meanings from context… but I don’t specifically remember whether there were any unexpected mutations with them. My brain was probably working too hard just getting the main meaning without a dictionary to hand.
The main difference I remember is that with i’m you don’t need the nasal mutation like you do with i fy, so you get i’m tŷ instead of i fy nhŷ for “to my house”.
The others are the same though, e.g. - i’th dŷ - i dy dŷ
I’ve packed my Welsh Literary Language books though ready for moving, so I can’t give you more detail than that
I realised abbreviations are searchable on gweiadur.com, so I’ve learned now that 'm causes an H in front of vowels.
You can also search prefixes! Just put them in the search bar with - on the end, e.e. “cyd-”
I love Gweiadur.
The other thing is that these literary pronouns cause different mutations from the ones we’re used to after fy, dy etc. - but unless you want to write literary Welsh that’s probably not worth worrying about.