Grand Parents

My 2 year old grand daughter has come to stay. Question is, what will she call me?

So I’d like suggestions. What do Welsh children call their grand parents? Something a two year old can handle. I called mine poppop, gramps, meme, mommom,. What are some Welsh equivalents?

Doesnt even have to specifically be grandfather. Even something appropriate as a nickname like friend, etc.

Any suggestions for my wife and I?

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In North Wales, it is commonly Taid (for grandfather) and Nain (for grandmother). In the South it is generally Tad-cu (grandfather) and Mam-gu (grandmother), although in my original neck of the woods (South East Wales), we used Granch or Grancher (pronounced with the english ch as in chip) for grandfather and Nan (grandmother).

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And just incase you don’t already know here’s a pronunciation guide.

Nain - nine
Taid - tide
Mam-gu = mam gee (hard G)
Tad-cu = tad key (lock and key)

Frustratingly my kids call my mother and father-in-law nana and tada which they shorten to nan and tad (tad is Welsh for dad). :frowning2:

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What do they call you? It seems very confusing to me!

My grandson was initially unable to get his mouth round “tadcu” so settled for 'cu. I was delighted with this because the suffix “cu” means “dear” or “loved one” and I’m happy that he still uses it at the age of 6+

My granddaughter calls me “mamgu” every second time because she confuses me with my wife (whose beard is far less pronounced than mine :laughing: )

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how is ‘cu’ sounded differently from ‘ci’?

Not confusing at all, I work with two Matts and never get muddled.

There’s no difference in the south I believe but in the north the letter ‘u’ has a unique sound not fully heard in English but if you say queue it’s the sound that’s between the ‘q’ and first ‘u’. :smile:

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@henddraig if you listen to this song whenever he says ‘gweud’ or ‘dweud’ you can hear the northern ‘u’. I hope …

https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/tracks/n43gzg

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You can mangle / shorten tad-cu and mam-gu to cu / gu or ta’cu (like tacky but with emphasis on the y) and man-gu

I guess we’re pretty flexible where our grand kids are concerned!

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what i was getting at is that calling your Grandmother ‘gu’ is OK, but, given the southern pronunciation of ‘cu’, which is the one I know best, it is a bit like calling your Grandfather ‘dog’. Now some men call each other “you old dog!” but it seems a bit rude for your Grandfather! Taid and Nain seem a lot safer and it is ironic that, where you are likely to say, “Taid” is the area where cu and ci are distinguishable!

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Isn’t context wonderful?!

I think if you saw two people with a 60-70 year age gap and the younger one referred to “Cu” most people would jump to the “Tad-cu” link not the dog link.

We were often taught on our degree “when you hear hooves you don’t expect a zebra” - in other words, “Cu” is the obvious link here.

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Born in Bristol, and having fallen in love with ‘Gog’, I have to be called ‘grandad’ in order to be distinguished from ‘taid’ who doesn’t speak a word of Welsh and comes from Llantrisant. Bummer!

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Mae’n ddrwg gen i! Occam’s razor rules!

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Maybe you could convince them to go with “tad-cu”, even if it isn’t Gog.

Interesting.

This video, which has one northern and one southern speaker, compares the “u” and final “y” sound:

See also:

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i will never, ever have a proper gog accent! My u and i are certainly forever de!

We used to call my great-grandmother ‘Nin’ (corruption of Nain?)

Thanks for the link Mikeellwood. Interesting and useful series of videos.

Good band and great song, well whole album really. Has anyone transcribed all the lyrics? And spot on for s Gog u😀