Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales

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I absolutely loved this. I usually devour essay anthologies in one sitting, but I deliberately paced this one over a week so I had time to sit with each piece. What does it mean to imagine Wales and 'The Welsh' as something both distinct and inclusive? In Welsh (Plural), some of the foremost Welsh writers consider the future of Wales and their place in it. In the sentence Mae trwyn Siaco yn blastig ("Siaco's nose is plastic" ) plastig has undergone soft mutation, not nasal mutation. Welsh and other Celtic languages are unusual among the European languages in having no fixed words for "yes" and "no" (although many speakers do use 'ie' and 'na' in ways that mimic English usage). If a question has a verb at its head, the relevant part of that verb is used in the answer e.g.: Ydych chi'n hoffi coffi? (Are you liking coffee? = Do you like coffee?) then either Ydw (I am = I do = Yes) or Nac ydw (I am not = I do not = No) The name aspirate mutation can be misleading as the affected consonants do not become aspirated, but become fricatives. This is represented by the addition of an h after the original initial consonant ( c /k/, p /p/, t /t/ → ch /χ/, ph /f/, th /θ/), but the resultant forms are pronounced as single phonemes.

This is an edited extract from Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales edited by Darren Chetty, Grug Muse, Hanan Issa, Iestyn Tyne, published by Repeater Books on 8 March and available at guardianbookshop.com In words beginning with an-, the n is dropped before the mutated consonant (except if the resultant mutation allows for a double n), e.g. an + personol → amhersonol (although it would be retained before a non-mutating consonant, e.g. an + sicr → ansicr). The reflexive pronouns are formed with the possessive adjective followed by hun "self". There is variation between North and South forms. The first person singular possessive pronoun fy is usually pronounced as if spelt y(n). Decide whether the form you have entered constitutes a whole word, the beginning of a word, part of a word or the end of a word. As in most other Indo-European languages, all nouns belong to a certain grammatical gender; the genders in Welsh are masculine and feminine. A noun's gender usually conforms to its referent's natural gender when it has one (e.g. mam 'mother' is grammatically feminine), but otherwise there are no major patterns (except that, as in many languages, certain noun suffixes show a consistent gender, as sometimes do nouns referring to certain classes of thing, e.g. all months of the year in Welsh are masculine) and gender must simply be learnt.

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Word-final -f is rarely heard in Welsh. Thus verbal forms in -af will be pronounced as if they ended in /a/ and they may be written thus in lower registers. The present tense in particular shows divergence between north and southern dialects. Though the situation is undoubtedly more complicated, King (2003) notes the following variations in the present tense as spoken (not as written according to the standard orthography): True. And those words “Britain first” — an unfortunate pairing, these days. Capitalise the “first” and, yes, there are many descriptors in the Cymraeg, but you won’t find them in the dictionary. No Britain First for the first Britons. I bought this book while on a short holiday in Aberystwyth after reading one of the volumes in Malcolm Pryce's sublime Aberystwyth Noir series.

a b c d e King, Gareth (2016) [1993]. "443-476 Prepositions". Modern Welsh – A Comprehensive Grammar (Thirded.). London and New York: Routledge. pp.335–373. ISBN 978-1-138-82630-4. I’ve always been comfortable being in a space where I don’t fully understand what other people are saying,” she said. “In the UK we have several minoritised languages as well as languages that are spoken by second and third generation people, and I think it’s a really important step forward for us to start seeing ourselves as a multilingual, multicultural nation.”

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Mae'n bwrw glaw. It's raining. Roedd'n oer neithiwr. It was cold last night. Notes on the forms [ edit ] We Bleed Red by Joe Dunthorne - a hilarious and insightful essay about feeling Welsh when your accent doesn't sound it, and when your connection to Wales feels tenuous at best. I related to this one on an almost embarrassing level. Hanan takes over the role from Ifor ap Glyn, who called her a “thoughtful and engaged poet” who would bring “a fresh voice to the national conversation”. The common phrase dwn i ddim "I don't know" uses a special negative form of the first person present. The initial d- in this form originates in the negative particle nid: nid wn i> nid wn i ddim> dwn i ddim. Such a development is restricted to a very small set of verb forms, principally this form of gwybod and various forms of bod (e.g., does, doedd, from nid oes and nid oedd respectively)." Now it's time to practice your Welsh by looking at these phrases which are related to emergencies. Be prepared when traveling abroad, just in case you need help or by offering help to someone else. I recommend writing these expressions down on a notebook before traveling. English - Welsh