There’s a lot of us about in Wales who have always known a little bit more than bits and bobs of mongrel and hybrid things in Welsh. In my case, not enough to be a speaker although exposed to plenty of the language and not nurtured in it, meaning that I was never encouraged to speak it or corrected in the use of it, because English was the language of the time at school and for future prospects.
So most of what I had learned before comprehensive school was my idea of what I was hearing, which is bound to lead to gross errors - these are things that kids would correct, by parental guidance or learning from their peers, but in my case it was just wild guesswork and I’m still guessing most of the time, but SSIW and a bit of school second language Welsh, has created an intereting language mix. SSIW coupl;ed with generally reading around the subject has been the best thing for explaining all of the things that I should have known, but could only guess.
Yes, true- and “speaking the language from birth” is something which probably most people in Wales could lay claim to to some degree or other!
I do remember in classes where Welsh learners would claim they couldn’t speak a word of Welsh, they were brought up speaking English only - and in their first classes would look suspiciously at something they are being taught and say that it “didn’t sound right”! (and would turn out to be correct for their background).
Like @owainlurch I’ve been lucky with my tutors. I’ve had @aran and @CatrinLliarJones , @Iestyn , Cat, Gwenllian and Elliw, and two tutors with Cardiff University whose favourite phrase has been “ar lafar”. I have been corrected more on Facebook than face-to-face. But then we can all be keyboard warriors at times. I write “ro’n i’n” but say “o’n i’n”, I almost always cheat and say “mae’n” when talking about “it” because I don’t really know genders of stuff. I’ve also read the rule that “it” when non-specific is feminine, but the people I speak Welsh with almost always use “fe/fo” for “it”. Example:
“Sut oedd y gampfa?”
“Oedd o’n iawn”
No “r” and ignoring the “rule”. My kinda language!!
As Aran said, we should think positively about people’s intentions, so be thankful that they tried to help. Then go back to what you feel comfortable with.
All absolutely true, but just a couple of things in defense of people I have heard talking about [quote=“AnthonyCusack, post:37, topic:5778”]
I’ve also read the rule that “it” when non-specific is feminine, but the people I speak Welsh with almost always use “fe/fo” for “it”. Example:
“Sut oedd y gampfa?”
“Oedd o’n iawn”
No “r” and ignoring the “rule”. My kinda language!!
[/quote]
When I’ve seen or heard this discussed, it has normally been described as something like a “tendency” rather than an always observed rule (what’s the difference, you ask? ), and there seems to be a difference between an “abstract” it - “it is raining”, etc, which ‘is’ () feminine, and a “non-specific” it “Did you buy the present? Yes, I bought it”, which tends to default to masculine.
I think there’s a thread on here in which better people than I discuss and explain it. I’ll see if I can dig it up.
I’m not saying this to counter what you say - just to add to it!
I’m not even sure which heading your example falls under! I’ve a suspicion it could be either depending on how you look at it
Ah, here we are. Good one here on the matter with responses from both Mererid and Gareth King if you look up and down *
And another one hear with a response from Iestyn
Again, just out of interest and further explanation, what AnthonyCusack says is very true!
[*If you look up and down the thread. Not where you are. Unless where you are Gareth King is crouching on top of the wardrobe and Mererid is hiding under the table.]
In English, wouldn’t it be, “How’s the gym?” “Fine!”. All you really need to reply to the question yn Gymraeg is, “Iawn!” If you were writing it, it would be a reported conversation, “I asked how the gym was and he said fine!”
Centuries of male dominance, especially in writing and especially in Rome. Even in Britain, in the past, women took male pen-names to get published or to avoid notoriety. Result - anything fractious or annoying was female and everything else was male! I have noticed that men refer to their cars and boats as ‘she’ .Our first family car was a 1936 Morris 8, purchased in 1952. ‘He’ had been registered in Hull and was CAT. Our cat, mentioned elsewhere, was a very fearsome ex-Tom, very certainly ‘he’, so I naturally thought of CAT as ‘he’ and thought my dad calling him ‘she’ was very weird!
Generally true of course, but both all the early Celts and the later Welsh (eg laws of Hywel Dda) seem to have had a comparatively high regard for treating women comparatively equally.
I think you would have to look elsewhere for any reason for the split to be different to that in other languages.
I am getting at the fact that Cymraeg was influenced by Latin and this was particularly true of writing. It was a while before anything got written in anything but Latin and the Church got involved with the whole job of writing things down. I suspect that even the early church was pretty male-centred and we know it was brought to Britain and spread by the Romans! Of course the Iceni ‘rebellion’ was caused by Rome’s total inability to understand the rights and status of a Queen in Britain, but that got put down pretty effectively in the end.
The best part of 400 years does affect a language, I think, if less so when most people can read…mmm… how long since American movies started over here? My mam remembered the first talkies!! Infuence? I would say so!
or maybe men are more likely to refer to things as she and women to things as he. I had two brothers and our cars were she, but my wife had two sisters and thejr cars are all given male names.
If women talk more than men and i think that’s probably true, then more words would be male?
I’ve put my tin hat on now in case I’ve just crossed the line and come across sexist.
parts of the face tend to be female though which is interesting, perhaps it is down to describing beauty and female appearance?
Absolutely, but it seems (at least, from the link given) that Welsh is unusually skewed towards using Masculine rather than feminine nouns. More so than romance languages (again, just going by the above link) To me, this suggests that influence from Latin is not the reason.
I would maintain that we are all sexist and cannot help but be, because we all live in, to a certain extent, a solipsistic universe and can only imagine roughly what it is like to be someone else. Being the other sex - well transexuals are very aware of what they are not, I understand, most of us only know one view and find it hard truly ro imagine the other! So you don’t need a hard hat, Bach!! Sympathy, yes!
In that case, doesn’t it show that Y Frenhines Iceni won the war, if not the battle!! The Romans brought ‘sexed’ nouns and we imprinted our views over them more effectively than most other parts of their Empire!! I am very encouraged!! I didn’t know those statistics! Oh, nasty thought… are all the female nouns things like cegin and male words associated with ‘men’s’ work?
I don’t know any details, or how accurate the figures are, or how they relate to different kinds of nouns or how it relates to percentage of words used in speech etc. I know nothing. Just going by the above link
But yes, even after the Romans, the laws of Hywel Dda seemed to regard women in a comparatively high status.
If there is an explanation needed, just a thought- a completely off the top of my head, made up thought.
Welsh seems (I know no other language!) to have comparatively few ‘markers’ for gender (compared to say French). Mutations don’t always “show up” depending on the first letter of words, the word for “the” is the same, etc.
If this is the case compared to other languages, then there might, even amongst native speakers, a comparatively large number of lesser used nouns where the speaker would not be entirely sure of the gender.
In this case, that might produce in the language a ‘default’ gender, in to which lesser used nouns or new nouns tend to drift.
Fifty fifty chance that default would be masculine!
How common and obvious the gender markers are in all the other languages in that link, and whether or how this affects the gender split in them though, I wouldn’t pretend to be even able to guess.
), and there seems to be a difference between an “abstract” it - “it is raining”, etc, which ‘is’ (