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Monty Says Something in Welsh | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 41 of 76 13 November 2013 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, I seem to have joined the ranks of those using Harry Potter in their language
studies. The first of my recent book order to arrive turned out to be "Harri Potter a Maen yr Atbronydd". I'd never intended to read HP in Welsh, but when I was looking on Am. for books in Welsh, there it was, cheapish (2nd hand), and I thought it would be silly to overlook the opportunity. It's hardback, an ex-library book, in good condition except for one page. I'm actually slightly annoyed at the library chucking it out, since I feel I'm depriving some Welsh kid. I hope they replaced it with a new copy. I'd actually hoped the dictionary would come first, but dyna ni, there we are. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 42 of 76 15 November 2013 at 12:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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Most of the books I recently ordered have now arrived, including Gareth King's "Pocket
Modern Welsh Dictionary". It seems ideal as a learner's dictionary: clearly set out with lots of explanations, and errs on the side of clarity rather than comprehensiveness. Certainly enough words to be going on with. Apart from the Harri Potter already mentioned, perhaps the most fun looking book is one by Bethan Gwanas, "Tri Chynnig i Blodwen Jones". That seems to be "Three offers to/for Blodwen Jones". The base word is "cynnig" and has mutated because of the "tri". (Only some numbers cause mutation). I think it's aimed at teenagers and is great for learners, as it's not too long, the language seems simple, and there is vocabulary on every page. Bethan Gwanas also writes "grown up" books as well, and I have received "Hi oedd fy ffrind" ("She Was My Friend") and I have the sequel (or is it the prequel) on order as well. No vocabulary in that, and it looks more of a challenge. I couldn't find English translations for those. The thriller writer Llwyd Owen seems to get translated to English, and I'd ordered 2 of his, in both English and Welsh. Of course, I've received the wrong pairing so far, but I guess the others will arrive soon. I thought I'd ramble on a bit about Welsh Grammar. As mentioned before, the SSiW course does not teach grammar explicitly, but we learn a lot "by stealth", and when, very recently, I took my first look at a grammar book (since starting SSiW), a lot of it made sense. I won't be spending much more time with the grammar book - it was just curiosity. It was most useful for additional vocabulary and some useful phrases, but now I have the dictionary, I can get my vocabulary there. I've seen the question raised before on HTLAL as to whether Welsh is a "VSO" language or not. Because of the way we learn verbs on SSiW, I wasn't 100% sure about this, but I think I've picked up enough now to say. Yes, indeed, it is basically a Verb Subject Object language, although that can change in what Gareth King calls "focused sentences". I won't say any more about those (as I don't really understand them and I'm not going to worry them for now). For verbs in general, there are two different ways of forming tenses: 1. Periphrastic tenses, formed by using the verb "to be" ("bod") as an auxiliary (or "to do" "gwneud", and there is at least one other possibility we haven't covered yet) 2. inflected tenses where you add endings to the stem of the verb. In forming the periphrastic tenses, you are really using inflected forms of "bod" (or "gwneud") in conjunction with the dictionary form of the verb (what GK calls the verbnoun or VN - verbnouns can function as both verb and noun). Let's take a verb like "to go": dictionary form: "mynd". I am going: dw i'n mynd (dw i yn mynd) literally: am I going & nbsp; (that's a statement, not a question) V S VN (I am going = "I go" as well) simple past: I went: (w)nes i fynd (note soft mutation). The w is not normally pronounced. literally: did I go V S VN I was going: roeddwn i'n mynd ("on i'n mynd" in speech, usually) literally: was ; I going I will go: bydda i'n mynd literally: will &nbs p;I go We haven't learned the inflected tenses for "normal" verbs yet. I get the impression they are mostly fairly regular. I'll take a sentence from one of the Bethan Gwanas books: Aethon ni ddim yr holl ffordd went we not the whole way = we didn't go the whole way. "aethon" ia an inflected form of the irregular verb "mynd", to go. The Verb-Subject pattern is a bit more obvious in the inflected tenses. There are 5 irregular verbs: bod (be), mynd (go), dod (come), "cael" (get) and gwneud (do/make). . Interestingly, at over ½ way through Course 2, we still haven't formally met "bod" as a verb. Except that we have indirectly, by learning it as an auxiliary in the periphrastic tenses. I've just met "bod" in a secondary use, as the conjunction "that", e.g. "wyti'n meddwl bod hi'n iawn?" (example from the dictionary) "do you think that she is right?" (note that "bod" really means "that ... is" in this example). I haven't learned all the subtleties of this yet, so more revelations to come, I'm sure (dw i'n siwr). Edited by montmorency on 15 November 2013 at 12:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 43 of 76 15 November 2013 at 1:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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Had a very useful G+ hangout session with a couple of SSiW stud-buds yesterday evening.
We went through a lot of the vocabulary from Course 1 and some from Course 2, making up sentences in turn. Then we went through some extra stuff using visual cues, coming up with the Welsh word, then making a sentence out of it. One of the guys gave us to a nice vocab-building exercise, with audio: Taith Iaith 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Indíritheach Senior Member United States Joined 4044 days ago 108 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish, French | Message 44 of 76 15 November 2013 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting, so Welsh is VSO just like Irish...I mean, makes sense, as they're both Celtic languages I guess. And I see that whereas you have "mutations", we have "lenition" or "eclipsis". Very interesting post, thanks! Edited by Indíritheach on 15 November 2013 at 1:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4843 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 45 of 76 15 November 2013 at 2:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't want to nit-pick, but technically "lenition" and "eclipsis" are mutations. Other than that, thanks for the little introduction to Welsh grammar, Monty! It makes me want to get back to Welsh some day. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 46 of 76 15 November 2013 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, I have deliberately avoided even thinking about grammar up until recently, but I guessed that sooner or later, the lurking grammar bug within would find an outlet. :-) But I can see exactly why SSiW hide the complexity away for as long as possible. It reminds me why I was probably put off studying Welsh in the past, by starting with the grammar. I think traditional courses used to start off by teaching you all the tenses of "bod", so that you could then learn the periphrastic way of using the other verbs. And they'd probably be trying to teach you formal written Welsh into the bargain. The whole thing is a bit of a minefield, to be honest. I mean the explanation of "bod" in Gareth King's Pocket Modern Welsh Dictionary is 2 pages long, and it's a dictionary not a grammar book. And even that's a simplified version. That's not the place to start, assuming you want to speak the language anyway. But of course, it's useful as a reference, and if you need to write something and spell it correctly, although even that is a moving target for the colloquial language. e.g. "to want" is officially spelled "eisiau", but it can be spelled "isio" and several other ways (this is partly a North-South thing I think), even in print, at least in the modern novels I've recently acquired. (GK lists it in the dictionary, pointing to "eisiau", then says it's never pronounced "eisiau". Interestingly, technically it's not a verbnoun, although it can function like one, except that it does not take "yn". "dw i'n mynd" - I am going. "dw i isio mynd". I want to go. "dw i isio car newydd" - I want a new car. He also shows it functioning as a noun, but I need to study that more to understand it, so better not quote any examples yet. Edit: "angen", to need, also does not take "yn": "dw i angen bara a gwin" - I need bread and wine. "dw i angen siarad efo chdi" - I need to speak with you. Edited by montmorency on 15 November 2013 at 6:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 47 of 76 15 November 2013 at 6:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been wondering about mutations and why they evolved.
I mean I'm sure they evolved for good reasons, and not just to make life difficult (or more interesting). In some cases, they seem to be gender markers, e.g. female nouns soft-mutate (for only some initial letters) when the definite article ("y", sometimes "yr") is used. In another situation, an aspirate mutation happens for "her" but not for "him", and in another situation, a soft mutation occurs for "he" but not for "her". However, in other cases, we see soft mutations where gender isn't an issue: "dw i'n mynd" - I am going "nes i fynd" - I went. it appears that the "i" has caused a soft mutation "nes i ddim mynd" - I did not go - "dim" (=no) has soft-mutated to "ddim", and apparently blocked the soft mutation, so that "mynd" does not mutate in this case. Now, that could be a kind of confirmation of the negative, in case the hearer didn't catch the "ddim". Well, I am just speculating that there might originally have been logical reasons for these things, although one shouldn't necessarily look for logic when it comes to grammar. We've only really covered the soft mutations and a few examples of aspirate and nasal mutations, and haven't learned them formally at all yet. I believe that will come in Course 3. EDIT: Found this interesting essay about mutations. Should interest Tolkien lovers! :-) Consonant Mutations EDIT2: A more formal paper, focusing on Irish: Initial Mutation in Celtic Curious: I can't make the above work as a link, but if you copy and past that URL in your browser address bar, it works (remove any spaces generated by the forum): http://www.uni-due.de/~lan300/13_Initial_Mutation_in_Celtic_ (Hickey).pdf (I found it by googling: "origin of mutations" in Welsh ) EDIT3: I think the link problem is that the forum software is removing those ellipses (or round brackets) around the name "Hickey". I don't think there is a way around that. Edited by montmorency on 15 November 2013 at 8:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4098 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 48 of 76 15 November 2013 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
This doesn't necessarily (though maybe) apply to fortition, but lenition and spirant mutations I've always assumed it's a matter of speech fluidity. That's just my theory, though. My Gaelic teacher couldn't explain it and my Breton material doesn't attempt to. But, anyhow, I speak a dialect of Swedish where we use lenition quite a bit, informally, in speech. K, for example, after a long vowel, becomes G. G is, after all, just a sounded K. P also often lenites to B, the sounded version, after a long vowel. Take the Swedish word "äppelkaka" (apple pie/cake), which I would, in dialectal company, call "äbblakaga". The middle K does not mutate because there's a slight pause before it, but also because the preceding vowel is short. There's no rule to it. Swedish consonants do not mutate, but you'll hear people speak like this in the south. "ut och röka" ("[go] outside and smoke") becomes "ud å röga". Anyhow, my guess is that lenition pops up rather naturally when your language has a certain kind of melody to it and that kind of fluidity is valued and if the language lends itself to that sort of thing; my Swedish dialect does other things too, like insert an extra vowel in hyphenated words, and the French sometimes pop a little T in there just for the hell of it. Spirant mutations, as I understand it, at least in Breton, are just double lenitions. A soft mutation on top of a soft mutation, so to speak. Edited by eyðimörk on 15 November 2013 at 7:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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