Native Welsh speaker using Dwi'n eisiau

For me dwi’n isio sounds like the equivalent of saying ‘Me wants’! That’s how wrong it sounds like to my ears anyway, and I’m still young! Could be a regional thing but I’ve never heard it myself.

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@garethrking Or, super colloquially ‘Ma’ ‘sio fi’. Literally all you will hear generally is ‘Masho fi’! Bit difficult to translate for @henddraig. If I were to really analyse it, it feels like talking about myself in the 3rd person. In usage, it kind of suggests that you should do something as well, rather than just needing to. For example 'Ma’sio fi dalu’r bil ‘na fory’.

Personally, I tend to use 'Dwi angen ‘insert verb’, for straightfoward ‘I need’.

I was typing this when I asked myself, why ‘fi’ instead of ‘mi’. ‘Fi’ sounds more natural, even if it might be less grammatically correct. ‘i mi’ sounds a bit textbook to my ears, a bit like ‘Lle ma’ bag chdi?’ compared to '‘Ym mhle mae dy fag’?, but it might not for other areas, who knows. I’m from Llyn so that colours my thoughts. However, the example I gave is a subject for a WHOLE different thread ( regarding usage of possesives)! Ha!

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I always use ‘dw i angen’ which is just ‘I need’.

‘mae angen geiriadur arna i’ sort of translates as ‘I’m in need of’

Folks, I’m sure I should know this, but my poor old brain has gone blank. A white dog is ci gwyn, yes? A white cat? Cath wen or cath gwen? I think ‘wen’, but If so, is it ever right to use ‘gwen’ except in names?

Me too - and I’m not even a native speaker. But it definitely grates something dreadful! :slight_smile:

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The way I have seen it –
It’s gwen when used as an adjective:
Dw i’n gweld cath gwen (I see a white cat)
As an adverb it gets mutated:
Mae’r gath yn wen (The cat is white)

I hope that’s correct.

No, it’ll be cath wen because feminine singular nouns mutate a following adjective.

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So can you think of a context where you’d get gwen, i.e. unmutated feminine? All I can come up with are fragments of mediaeval poetry, where you get “nominal sentences” with no verb ‘to be’ – something like hen y dyn meaning “the man is old” (or maybe “old is the man”), as opposed to hen ddyn (I guess?) for just “an old man”.

In which case, maybe, “Gwen y gath” would be “White is the cat.” I think literary Welsh still does nominal sentences, but it’s probably a bit mediaeval-style for everyday chit-chat…

Diolch yn fawr, @garethrking. Do you agree with Richard Buck that gwen is only used in names and archaic or poetic contexts? I should explain that i was asked a simple question about Welsh and then realised it didn’t seem so simple after all! i.e gwyn - male, gwen - female…oh dear, all the examples seem to give me ‘wen’!

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I think: Cathod gwen - white cats. The plural doesn’t have the same mutation.

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Brilliant!
i do hope that is right! It feels right! I was sure I’d used gwen in the past, but couldn’t be sure it wasn’t one of my ancient usages!

Well, that does sound much more sensible, but I’m sorry to have to give up on Gwen y gath - I was getting quite attached to it, what with the alliteration ‘n’ all :frowning:

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Another problem! Gwên = smile. Probably, need to show that the accents are in use to differentiate!

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Ah yes, I’ve tracked it down now: it’s Llywarch Hen’s Llym Awel, in the Black Book of Carmarthen:

Gwen y gath
Hen y ci
Rhy seiw gwr ar un conyn

“White the cat; old the dog; a man might stand on a single stem.” :grin:
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Yes - different stage of the language, of course, and an abnormal word order which nullifies the mutation effect of the feminine singular noun. :slight_smile:

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I’m pretty sure this isn’t the case. The prioblem with gwyn is that it pluralises as well, so it would be cathod gwynion. Although you can say cŵn gwyn or cŵn gwynion, I’ve never heard anyone saying cathod gwen, and a quick check of David A Thorne tells me that the plural adjective is made from the male version - thus gwynion not gwenion. It is unclear on what adjective is used in the case of a plural feminine noun followed by a singular adjective, but my guess is that because the “rules” are being broken to simplify things, there’s never (aaagh, I’ve said the n word. Now I will definitely be proved wrong!) going to be a feminine / masculine differentiation.

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Ah so that’s the plural rule! I knew there was a difference, but I wan’t sure what exactly.

I did know about lilis gwynion from ‘Ar Lan y Mor’, but hoped the plural wasn’t essential!

No, its not essential, though neither is feminising the adjective in modern Welsh.

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And just to muddy the waters further, the grammar that I have mentions pobl being able to take a plural adjective, because it’s a collective, and giving as an example pobl wynion :slight_smile: