Hi there fellow learners, I have a question about “the man” vs “the woman”:
Why is it “dyn” and “y dyn” but “dynas” and “y ddynas”? 
Anyone know?
Note: I’m learning the Northern dialect. 
It’s because feminine nouns soft mutate after “the” but masculine ones don’t.
e.g.
ci > y ci
cath > y gath
2 Likes
Um; think it is not dynas but dynes; I was taught at age seven that the feminine ending -es is the same as -ess in English.
Gawr, gawres; giant, giantess. They lived in the hill-forts you could see on the hills above the towns in Dyffryn Clwyd and along the coast. These were often called Dinas, just to be confusing, and the giants used to eat the young men who came courting their daughters. But whenever we clambered up there, the giants were out shopping.
2 Likes
You are correct, the standard spelling is dynes. But it is very common in some northern dialects to pronounce an e in endings as an a, so it sounds like dynas. (Same with panad, for example, which is technically spelled paned.)
1 Like
Ah, interesting! I got that spelling from the vocab lists included with each lesson…
Diolch; indeed we have panadau on the Permanent Way gangs of Rheilffordd Eryri. I note that the dictionary spelling is panaid.