Rwy'n or rydw i

[garethrk]

There are a few bits & bobs, used regularly on Radio Cymru, that I had to track down elsewhere.

Yes please - I'd like to know what they are.

[Tahl]

There are a few bits & bobs, used regularly on Radio Cymru, that I had to track down elsewhere.

Yes please - I'd like to know what they are.

What pops immediately to mind are:
- The interrogative particle-thingies 'a' and 'ai' ('a oes heddwch?' 'ai dyma'r diwedd Rico?,' as Edward G. Robinson so famously said). These do show up in the modern spoken language: listen to any random five minutes of Vaughan Roderick on Dau o'r Bae.
- Onid . . . similar situation, though I admit I've seen it more than heard it.

[mrem01]

I'm in Wisconsin.

I'd love to go to Wisconsin.

WI needs Welsh teachers. Just something to keep in mind.

By the way . . . let us know if you are ever interested in suggestions/additions for the next edition of Modern Welsh. There are a few bits & bobs, used regularly on Radio Cymru, that I had to track down elsewhere.

I'm still trying to get my hands on a copy of the second ed. I think I need to place an Interlibrary Loan Request to check it out. As far as the first edition is concerned, I do occasionally come across things I can't find in there, but I think that's more so because I don't know where to look.

You might be surprised how many people in the US (and Canada) are learning Welsh right now.

I recently came across a map of people from all over the world on the SSIW forum. There was a big concentration of people on the east coast. I'm from PA originally and we used to have a lot of Welsh place names from all the Quaker settlements back in the day, but not so much in out here.

[garethrk]

- The interrogative particle-thingies 'a' and 'ai' ('a oes heddwch?' 'ai dyma'r diwedd Rico?,' as Edward G. Robinson so famously said). These do show up in the modern spoken language: listen to any random five minutes of Vaughan Roderick on Dau o'r Bae.

Oh yeah...you're quite right, they're very much part of the natural language. And funnily enough I noticed that ai as a sentence starter was missing from the grammar just the other week when I was putting in cross-references to MW, BW and IW in the commentaries that run through the new book. So noted!

- Onid . . . similar situation, though I admit I've seen it more than heard it.

I think the more common spoken variant on'd is in, isn't it? But anyway you're right, onid should at least be mentioned, if it isn't.

[garethrk]

As far as the first edition is concerned, I do occasionally come across things I can't find in there, but I think that's more so because I don't know where to look.

Well let me know next time - even if it is in the book, the problem might be that it's dodged the index - there's always room for improvement with indexes...I've found gaps myself over the years.

[Jashwntw]

In another forum there was a discussion about the use of fi in south west wales. It was suggested that fi sounded somewhat babyish to some ears. However, the fi often found in the south west wasn't really a fi, but more a wyf i with a silent wy'. A ghost sound that is made in speech, yet is quite subtle. Is this the case. Should there be a slight sound proceeding the fi?

Fi'n gwneud hynny" sounds awful, yet the Carmarthenshire "fi'n gwneud" has a natural sound to it. There are many patches of "wyf fi'n.." in Carms / Sir Gâr, and this is what makes me wonder whether that is the root, with a ghost of the "wyf" still appearing.

[dieuog]

I don't buy that at all.
It's easy for a speaker to kid themselves that they are pronouncing things differently from the way they really do because of other knowledge they have about the word in question. E.g. In English people will swear that they pronounce homophones very slightly differently because they know they are not spelt the same. And in Welsh it would not surprise me if someone thought they added a sound in front of "fi", influenced by the fact that they also have "(r)wyf fi" as part of their linguistic knowledge, and might produce something more like that option on other occasions.

[Jashwntw]

I think there's probably a bit of dialect snobbery going on to some degree. One Northerner said that fi would probably come across somewhat irritatingly pre-teen/teen to some people. I think i'm going to actively write fi instead of rwy in forums and for those who are "irritated" sws and pen nol are coming to mind

[Siomedig]

Well, dialect prejudice is quite difficult to get over. I know myself that there's nothing wrong with merging /θ/ and /f/ in English and that it means just about nothing in terms of what the person doing it is like, but I still can't stop myself from finding it annoying and maybe to some extent from thinking it sounds childish or 'uneducated'. Up here only small children use fi on its own like that (though it's probably spreading because of S4C etc), so it's not that surprising that people think it sounds childish.

[Jashwntw]

Well, dialect prejudice is quite difficult to get over. I know myself that there's nothing wrong with merging /θ/ and /f/ in English and that it means just about nothing in terms of what the person doing it is like, but I still can't stop myself from finding it annoying and maybe to some extent from thinking it sounds childish or 'uneducated'. Up here only small children use fi on its own like that (though it's probably spreading because of S4C etc), so it's not that surprising that people think it sounds childish.

Conversely dw i would seem learnerish in most of the south I think. At least that's what I've heard. It feels a bit like a tussle between North and South to me over who speaks proper welsh I would know, my step family are gogs. I just decided as my family were from the rural south west I would prefer to use fi and sa i and all that jazz

[Siomedig]

Conversely dw i would seem learnerish in most of the south I think. At least that's what I've heard.

Quite possibly, although apparently it's reasonably common in the South and not as marked a northernism as people think.

[dieuog]

Reminds me of an anecdote (or possibly piece of folklore!) I heard from someone about their family Christmas with Northern son-in-law and Southern parents-in-law.
Mab-yng-Nghyfraith: "Ga i chwanag?"
Tad-yng-Nghyfraith: "That's it. We're speaking English."

[garethrk]

[mrem01]

Reminds me of an anecdote (or possibly piece of folklore!) I heard from someone about their family Christmas with Northern son-in-law and Southern parents-in-law.
Mab-yng-Nghyfraith: "Ga i chwanag?"
Tad-yng-Nghyfraith: "That's it. We're speaking English."

I had to look up chwanag, but I couldn't find it at geiriadur.net, so I just googled it. The second hit was right out of Modern Welsh.

I discovered the existence of infixed object pronouns today and I couldn't find anything about them in MW. Or are they more on the literary side of things?

[garethrk]

I had to look up chwanag, but I couldn't find it at geiriadur.net, so I just googled it. The second hit was right out of Modern Welsh.

Of course!

I discovered the existence of infixed object pronouns today and I couldn't find anything about them in MW. Or are they more on the literary side of things?

Exactly so. As it happens, however, they do get a mention in the new Reader, so that's something to look forward to, isn't it?