My suggestion would be “Sion Corn cyfrinachol”, but others may have better ideas.
1 Like
Sion Corn Cudd might be another way of saying it. We didn’t do it at work this year and I can’t remember what it was last year!
3 Likes
Sion Corn Cudd has a very good ring and flow! Like it!
2 Likes
Thank you all!
By way of explanation, my parents have got their Cymrophile (but sadly not Cymro-Cymraeg) neighbours in a secret santa. I’ve just been correcting the gift tag my Dad concocted with Google Translate (it did a surprisingly good job for once), but wasn’t at all convinced with its suggestion for ‘secret Santa’.
As I suspect its going to be taken to the local Welsh Society for translation, I’m keen to get it right!
To be fair, secret Santa is a modern concept! It may not have an ‘accepted translation’! @aran? @Iestyn? @garethrking?
Quick query arising from the 5-minute test thread. I said there that
which obviously involved me messing up an identification sentence…
…but I think that when I said “something like” I was actually over-thinking and re-writing it because I’d got myself confused about what I actually had said. I think what I said – and afterwards mis-corrected – was actually something like Dyna’r peth dw i angen. I think I got my knickers in a twist about the fact that that didn’t seem to have a main verb at all, but now I’m wondering if it’s not, after all, better Welsh than what I changed it to. Is it??
2 Likes
That’s an interesting question (so I’m joining your thought train if that’s OK? 
) . I’m never sure with Dyna. When I read your sentence I imagine you pointing at the thing you need. I kind of think of Dyna as “that there…” I only really use “dyna” when i’m saying 'na ni/fo/fi ayyb.
With @aran’s example for the 5 minutes, if I were to say “that” (without the point) I’d say “hynna ydi’r peth dw i angen”. So that, slightly emphatic but without the point in a direction.
(I’ve no idea if that made sense?)
You remember when we were looking at the list of ‘shrunken’ bod forms? Well, if you think about it, that’s kind of what has happened here. “Dyna’r peth dw i angen” is a shortening of “Dyna’r peth yr ydw i angen”.
Oh, yes - but if I was trying to say “There’s the thing I’m in need of,” I wasn’t bothered by “I’m” vs “I am” (or anything from yr ydwyf to dw i). What bothered me was that I’d said “There the thing” rather than “There’s”, and then I made a mess of trying to correct it.
On the one hand, I was worried that I’d unintentionally dredged up some mediaeval syntax from somewhere in my brain, from when they used to say things like “Hen y dyn” instead of “Mae’r dyn yn hen.” But on the other I had a feeling that it’d be perfectly good modern Welsh to say “Dyna fo” for “There he is.” (I think.)
Yes, makes perfect sense - I think it’s things like “Dyna fo” with no actual verb that made me come out with what I did.
1 Like
Ah, I see - I thought you meant the “didn’t seem to have a main verb” bit. Oops!
That’s fine…
2 Likes
That reminds me, in a conversation a while back I said ‘dyna’n well’ for ‘that’s better’ meaning ‘that one’s better/that thing is a better choice’. But I thought it didnt sound right and wondered if I should have said ‘mae hynny’n well’ or some other option?
1 Like
Yes. But it depends on context, of course. If, for example, you mean ‘That’s better’ in the sense of an improvement in the general situation (say, you tightened the washer on the tap to stop the dripping, and then said ‘That’s better’), then
’Na welliant
(lit. ‘that is an improvement’) is very commonly heard.
3 Likes
Yup, I’d have gone for ‘mae hynna’n well’ or ‘dyna welliant’ (which makes me suspect that ‘dyna’ would generally only work with nouns?)…
2 Likes
Quick one, I promise.
In RaR they say “dwi’n gaddo.”
In PyC they say “dwi’n addo.”
Discuss. 
Meaning? PyC tends to be south, I think and R&R is certainly Gogledd, but I think ‘addo’ means promise and I’m none too sure of gaddo. O, mae’n ddrwg gen i, truth is, I don’t know and trying to find out wasn’t very successful!
They both mean “I promise” but why is one “reverse mutated”? The word is “addo” but why on RaR do they assume that addo is mutated from gaddo and then use the “assumed correct” version?
The same happens sometimes with “wyneb/gwyneb”.
1 Like
true, addo is the correct form but gaddo is very often used even though it is technically incorrect (born of a dialect thing maybe). wyneb and gwyneb, however, are equally correct according to Geiriadur yr Academi.
6 Likes
My vote is also with the Glamorgan/Gwent reverse mutation hardening thingy/thinggey 
A sort of Llangadog/Llangattock split?