…wy a thost i'm swper fy hun

Shwmae…

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.

Thanks!

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)

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So I guessed right for the wrong reason!

That’s very helpful, thanks, Hendrik. I’ve never read any formal Welsh as far as I know, so that joy is still to come.

Thanks again!

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If you know any of the words to Hen wlad fy nhadau you might recognise pleidiol wyf i’m gwlad now :slight_smile: 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.

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I’ll think I’ll carry on trying to get the hang of Cyfres Amdami first – camau babi…

Though I did buy the Mabinogion in Abergwaun last year, so that’s waiting for me eventually.

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. :woman_shrugging:

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 :slight_smile:

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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.

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Yes, it’s not considered strictly speaking to be a mutation, but the ‘h’ does pop up in front of vowels at times.

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