Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

She sounds like an actress to me!
Maybe the Northern makes me think a bit more of a few dialects from Northern Italy/Alps or maybe Finnish (or what I remember as such from times I heard someone speaking it)… I guess @Novem can confirm or deny! :smiley:

In general, yeah, probably a bit more nasa/back of throat, just like @mikeellwood reminded…but for most people, I can’t really say!

Actually I remember that when I started learning English, I didn’t really have a strong “standard” in my mind. UK, USA, Australia…Northern, Southern, Irish, Scottish, Indian (meaning from India), Nigerian or even German and French speaking it as a second language…it was all just a big effort for me to understand!

From time to time I met some tougher ones…but I think was much more flexible then, than later - when I got used to fewer accents I happened to hear more often and created a sort of expectation in my mind about how it “should” sound…

Yes, Sian is an opera singer and a lovely person. I love the all of the accents of Wales.

Incidentally, not Cymreag but Radio 4 at 09.00 this morning was Charlotte Church in Georgia (E Europe). Appatently the harmony type singing of Georgia reminded her of Wales. She gets them to sing Bread of Heaven.
Then at 09.30 is a programme with different UK accents including S Wales. Sorry they arent speaking Welsh but the accent tends to be the same in both languages.

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I agree :smile: Southern dialects sound like Italian and northern dialects sound like Finnish :stuck_out_tongue:

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Yes I actually didn’t dare writing that Southern reminded me more of Italian (I just mentioned the dialects - that are slightly different).

But odd as it may be…since you say it, I’m with you! :smiley:

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Here’s a quick question regarding Welsh language history. I see a lot more ‘v’ used in Welsh words in older documents…

Er enghraifft / for example … Ffion Verch Hywel … not ‘ferch’

How much of this was due to the printing presses not having enough v’s for the Welsh language (is this a myth?) or was it that the ‘v’ was down to a latinising or even English influence?

Or thirdly…was the use of V and not f in many modern words … wholly Welsh /Romano-British in origin?

There wasn’t a standard orthography and I assume that most if not all scribes knew Latin and adapted what they knew. Nothing odd about that - most languages are the same and many of the worlds smaller languages ate still struggling with things like this - to understand old English (which I don’t) then you need to understand the differences in orthography as much as anything else.

It’s quite easy to guess in Welsh I think - it’s pretty easy to guess what a V was meant to be.

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so were the Vs used in Old Welsh too?

No Stephen, you were spot -on right with the first one!

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Yes - the F for V is a innovation in the early stages of the modern language (i.e. after Middle Welsh).

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Bum. I should learn to trust my instincts! Actually, that sums up SSIW: I seem to do better when I think less and just start talking.

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Usually best with language learning. If something immediately comes to mind (i.e. instinctive), it is often because it is already there from you having encountered it before, I think.

I used to tell school pupils that as well, for exams: if an answer occurs to you immediately and unbidden, put it down. And don’t go back and change it later - because if (as it very often does) it turns out to have been right all along, you’ll feel doubly bad about changing it. :slight_smile:

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what is “do” and “some”?

This type of question can be hard to answer, as often words don’t map one-to-one, so usually you’ll get better answers if you provide some context. For what it’s worth: “to do” = gwneud, “some” = rhai.

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do you want some water?

= wyt ti isio dŵr? which proves Hendrik’s point - you don’t need a form of gwneud nor a word for ‘some’ in that particular instance.

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what happened to “moyn”

Siaron just used the more northern form isio. In the south you could use the more familiar
Wyt ti’n moyn dŵr?

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ah cool, sounds good

rhyw ddyn - some random man … rhyw preceding = some random… rhai more specific I believe

although rhyw on its own is a different meaning ! :smiley: :wink:

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Mae ’ na for There is -
Tricky to explain without using tje actusl words.
Ive been using this SSIW phrase (I live near Swansea).
I recently read that it was only N Wales. Perhaps GK or BBC?

Ive heard it on the radio, but probably Mid Wales. Is it ok for S Wales? If not, what should I use. To be fair Im a bit of a N/S hybrid now so Im not too worried
Also one I keep hearing on the radio, especially around 07.30 a few times this morning. It sounded like hirtach. Perhaps herlach. Possibly a fuss or commotion. Just wondering if anyone else heard it?

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