Etymology being your.favourite, @Mererid… I should drew one more’s attention on here. Calling @Millie… If she has time, of course as she’s extreamly busy right now, but maybe she would like to jump in anyway…
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Hi thanks for this! Can I put a link of your blog to our local Welsh learning group on Facebook?
I use this group to promote local Welsh speaking events, word of the week or any info that will help Welsh learners in the Swansea.
Diolch
Tricia
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I enjoyed reading the blog, Mererid! Looking forward to more! 
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Hi @Meredid,
This is quite a big subject, so I’m not sure if it would fit in with what you had in mind, but we recently had a thread on (well, the way I would describe it, wearing my grammar glasses) subordinate clauses, which are rather different in Welsh than in English.
I’ve read Gareth King’s take on it in the first edition of his “Modern Welsh:A comprehensive Grammar”, and then very recently found (surprisingly) the new 3rd edition already on Google Books (only part of it, but quite a large part), and I think he’s improved the explanations, but nevertheless, there is still quite a lot to take in.
Maybe we need a slightly simplified picture, but not too simplified.
I recently found this, which is quite old, but answered some of my questions, but it’s not clear who wrote it or how authoritative it is.
http://www.oocities.org/icstirk/Teaching09/Welsh.html
The bit that interests me is where he starts talking about noun phrases:
You can see that noun phrases are rather prominent in Welsh
However, I think there is quite a bit more to it than that.
It would be interesting if you were able to write about your take on it.
@AnnaC I’m really glad, thanks! I look forward to writing more, too.
@tatjana Oh, you’ve just given me an idea! I’d love to do some research regarding the connection between Welsh and other languages. I know there are many Latin connections, like’dydd Llun’ - Lunedì in Italian, Lundi in French, and so on. The other day, someone told me that cadair (chair) is caderia in Portuguese! I bet we could gather quite a list on SSiW! Do you think it would be appropriate to start up a new thread? Would it have to go in a certain place on the forum? What do other people think?
Oh sorry everyone, I seem to have messed up the ‘reply’ thing.
@mikeellwood Fantastic suggestion. I love a good subordinate clause. Thanks for that link, by the way. It’s interesting to read the author’s take on the passive tense. It doesn’t need to be that complicated, though. It would be quite interesting to read the thread that was on here previously that discussed subordinate clauses. I’ll try searching for it. I’m definitely adding your suggestion to the list of blog topics! What’s your current level in Welsh, btw?
“Do you think it would be appropriate to start up a new thread?”
Plenty of threads on etymology of Welsh on this and the old site, so fill your boots I would think!
This thread might be of interest to you, as one of many on the subject.
I haven’t been able to access your blog, but if Trisha thinks it is interesting, I look forward to reading it and hopefully linking to it on her site will be ok!
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Thank you @owainlurch. I thought in approximately the same direction. So @Mererid the topic which Owain suggested could be just the right one.
And, if I may suggest, @Millie writes a great blog about etimology, which you can find here: Glossologics You might find reading it enjoyable.
And, I’m glad I’ve given you some idea.
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Thanks @owainlurch and @tatjana, this is great. I keep a list of words that are similar in Welsh and in Italian and there are so many!
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I’ve noticed that too! My family is of Italian heritage, and almost everyone (except me) speaks at least a little - and often I’ll be mumbling to myself in Welsh and they notice a similar word here and there. It’s quite strange!
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mam (mom) - Cymraeg
mama (mom) - Slovene
nos (night) - Cymraeg
noč (night) - Slovene
But “nos” exactly in Slovene means nose.
Yah, strange are language ways, especially those ones of learning and exploring and speaking is the castle at the end of (our at least) roads comming together at the top of that hill where that castle tops upon the languageland. …
What is reading then?
A king and queen in that castle, not easily reachable for everyone, but we might all reach them at one point though…
(Ups @MarilynHames, obviously I’ve got some of your storytelling superpowers all of a sudden. )
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It`s due to a combination of Latin and Celtic containing a lot of similar words due to their common Indo-European heritage and the words borrowed from the Romans during the days of the Roman empire.
All languages borrow from Latin, of course, but Welsh is one of the few languages in what was the Western Roman Empire to have survived and not have been replaced by a form of Latin, so the contemporary borrowings are particularly rich!
And the great majority of European languages have a common root, of course, but Celtic (especialy what used to be called p celtic) has more obvious connections to Latin than most~ possibly due to them having split up relatively recently, but not necessarily! To such an extent that it is sometimes difficult to tell whether a word in Welsh is from the Latin or simply both being from the Indo European.
[edit- or, less often but by no means unusual (the Romans were very influenced by the Celts in their journey from the bronze age into the iron age) taken from the Celtic into Latin!]
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There are some good books describing the influence of Latin in Welsh, two that I happen to have are:
The Latin Element in Welsh by Samuel James Evans, first published in 1908
and
Yr Elfen Ladin Yn Yr Iaith Gymraeg by Henry Lewis, 1943
The number of Latin words in Welsh is quite large, and both books explain how words have evolved from Latin to Welsh following simple patterns, e.g gwyl from vigilia
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I’ve read several studies about that Slovene actually isn’t rooting to any language but is ancient language …
Those are latest studies and I just am telling what I’ve read …
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Interesting you raise the informal or intimate name for mother: yes, growing up in Wales it was ‘mam’, when I moved to England I discovered that ‘mum’ was more common, but here in Canada it is ‘mom’. It’s all in the vowels… Why, I wonder.
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Well, and “Mammy” in Slovene is “mamica”
Yes, why really …?
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I would hate to hazard a guess, to be honest. But I have done the 3 original SSiW (N) Courses (still want to to Course 3 “properly” though), Level1 (N), and some catching up to do on Level 2. I haven’t done any other formal Welsh lessons. What I’m doing mostly now is listening to Radio Cymru via the internet and (slowly) reading novels (currently Bethan Gwanas “Hi yw fy ffrind”). I put off reading for as long as possible, in the SSiW tradition, but eventually got into it, and (only recently) getting somewhat into writing.
It was the one with a lot of "na"s in the thread title!
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Mam is also semi-common in the North of England.
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Thank you for tlinking to my blog, @tatjana, I am very glad you enjoy it. I am afraid I have been neglecting it lately, in favour of work that I might actually get paid for, and writing my books.
Interesting discussion here. Interesting that mum/mam/mama/ etc should be so similar across so many languages, and yet pet names for a father show greater variation: tad/ vati/ babbas/ papa/ dad, etc.
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Oči, ati, tatko, tata … all those are Slovene variations of pet names for father but father himself is “oče” and grandfather is “dedek” or “oča”
And, you’re welcime @Millie. I always enjoyed it reading although I have to admit I didn’t read everything yet. You’ll come back to blog when time comes or when something will seam so interesting to you you’ll just have to write something about that.
Happy writing and good wishes from my end.
Oh wow! I’ll have to try find those books. It’s exactly the type of thing I’ve been searching for with very little success up until now. Diolch!