Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

Oo, interesting! Round here it seems to be the general word to such an extent that there is no other version needed, as it were. Just a neutral word for it, used in any circumstances with anyone (where you would talk about such a thing!)

(As a (possibly) amusing illustration, I remember my father telling me that when he was a young child, a nurse was telling him to give a urine sample. In English she said - “you just need to… erm… wel, pisio yn y botel…”

2 Likes

That’s probably mostly what I was getting at - you wouldn’t be very likely to hear ‘piso dryw yn y môr’ in church, for example… :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Ah, thanks for the insight. @owainlurch, too. I realise I talk to the dog a lot when I’m walking with him, so I might as well talk to him in Welsh hah.

An unrelated question, too: a friend of mine is trying to name something hes making “Under land” but in Welsh. When he puts it in Google translate, it says “O Dan dir”, and when he types “under land” it just says “Dan dir”. Is the O used for proper nouns or is Google just being weird?

That’s a bit of a tricky one - ‘o dan’ is how you’d usually say something similar to ‘under’, but you can just go to ‘dan [x]’ in an adjectival kind of way - so scuba diving is usually ‘nofio tan-ddwr’ rather than ‘nofio o dan dwr’…

What’s he trying to say with the ‘Under land’? What’s the context?

Interestingg. I think I sort of get it. Well, maybe. If I’m understanding right… names of things that include the word “dan” come with the O and …you know what, I started typing this and the more I try to explain it to see if I understand, the more I think I don’t get it.

He’s using it as a name for an subterranean city he’s making in a game, if that helps at all. I know automatic translators can’t be trusted for everything, and it seemed weird to me that capitalization is what triggered the change and it made me wonder how O was typically used vs when it was left out.

to @tatjana
testing: 104 105 106 107 108 109 1010 Well, that failed!! Clearly I can’t copy superscripts into here!! In my mailing program and when sent to Janet’s tablet, they were superscripts!! I think it is just a good thing this isn’t either a maths or chemistry Forum!

One for the techies. I have just bought a new phone (Samsung with android OS) and didn’t realise that android OS doesn’t have Welsh language regional settings. On my last phone, I could set a lot of the features to Welsh and had the lock screen showing the date and time in Welsh. Is there a way to do this on Android or is there an app or apps out there that could do that?.

Really unhappy with my phone saying Tues 16 August - it just seems wrong. Just tried the voice search on Google and it’s hilarious if you speak Welsh to it - just tried Siarad rhywbeth yn gymraeg and it gave me Jared rubus and Cwmbran.

Any advice on how to cymraegify my phone would be appreciated.

I had not twigged that US keyboards didn’t have AltGr.

The To Bach utility is somewhat configurable, and I have configured it for some things.
I will look again, and see if there might be an alternative to the AltGr that one might be able to tweak it to use.

(You have had answers to the other 2 questions, which is just as well, as I wasn’t going to attempt them! :slight_smile: ):

Well, it seems fine as far as Gweiadur is concerned, except that it has done what it sometimes does and given a variation as well: saib

see: http://www.gweiadur.com/en/Pawb/seibiant

And apparently “toriad” might also work.

If it’s for a name, I’d go without the ‘o’ - for example, ‘Dan yr Ogof’ - so on that pattern, ‘Dan y Tir’ would work fine.

@toffidil - might get more responses to that if you give it its own thread - tech stuff isn’t always a good fit for ‘tiny questions with quick answers’…:wink:

1 Like

thanks for the help!

1 Like

Before you set up a new thread!

I myself have not found any way to set the language to Welsh on a Samsung android phone (though there is an “out of the box” option for Irish (Gailge) for some reason.)

To be honest, though, I’ve found that putting the “swiftkey” app on my phone more than makes up for that. This is an on screen touch keyboard with predictive text in many languages, including Welsh. The predictive text in Welsh is better than any one I have seen in English, and every Welsh speaker I know using it says the same thing. It makes writing in Welsh so much easier (as I say, even than writing in English) that it makes up (to me) for the fact that Welsh is not an option for the other information on the screen.

5 Likes

I’m glad you mentioned the app. I tried to do the same thing and couldn’t find anything for it. I’ll be downloading that to try it.

2 Likes

Just watching pobl y cwm without subtitles - any ideas on paid a rhaffu nhw_ don’t rope them into it?

I wish I was more helpful here,
But where are you watching it? I found a couple episodes of that on YouTube but I couldn’t find any more. Is there another place to watch it?

Frank,

You will have to get access to S4C somehow. There are tips on here on how to do it and I know Henddraig is running a petition to make it easier and legitimate - to me it is crucial for hearing Welsh and last night there was some really good programs on there whcih I could understand in the main.

I played back the episode of Pobl-y-cwm this morning on BBC iplayer and at 7 min 45 secs you have what sounds like Paid a rhaffu nhw or paid araffu nhw and the subtitles say don’t lie to me. My ears are maybe playing tricks here, but whatever this is, it is an expression I don’t know. I know Celwydd for to lie, but this is a new one to me and I really want to know what it is.

Edit: GPC says: rhaffu (rhaffo) celwydd(au): to lie profusely, concoct a tissue of lies, spin a tale or tales.

Now wondering if what was said on Pobl y Cwm was derived from this and maybe paid a rhaffu nhw is a bit like “don’t spin 'em”/“stop spinning 'em” in colloquial English?

Edit again: more digging on GPC and it says this:

Ar lafar yn enw. mewn ymad. megis ‘ei rhaffu hi’, ‘eu rhaffu (rhaffo) nhw’ yn yr ystyr ‘dweud celwydd(au)’.

So eu rhaffu nhw gives the same sense as dweud Celwydd.

1 Like

And another one:

Everyone was out last night so I also watched the very funny Mewn Twll after Pobl y Cwm and I heard the lovely little word Cwmws - Google translate says this is exactly which fits with the dialogue, but GPC and UWTSD don’t recognise it.

So is this correct and would exactly on it’s own as a reply to a question be “cwmws” or “yn gwmws” or “'n gwmws”?

“Cwmws” is how it’s pronounced when speaking (at least in the south) but the standard written form is “cymwys”.
Usually used in the south when speaking to mean “exactly” in the same way that the more standard “yn union” is.

THere are other meanings for cymwys a common one being “suitable” .

(Lots more info on GPC)

2 Likes

Great - should have thought about the spelling. So if someone said something to me and I just wanted to reply exactly. should I say cwmws or yn gwmws.

“yn gwmws” would be the natural reply in that context. (in the same way as “yn union” could be used also).

2 Likes