Mi wnes i dyfeisio cwlwm tafod Cymraeg heddiw:
Llawr ar lawr y cawr enfawr mae llawer o lewod lliwiog yn llyfu llaw Gwawr nawr.
Ti’n gwybod unrhyw glymau tafod Cymraeg eraill?
This is a Welsh tongue twister I came up with today. It means “Down on the giant giant’s floor many colourful lions are licking Gwawr’s hand now.”
Do you know any other Welsh tongue twsiters?
On Tuesday I saw a play in Bangor called Merch yr Eog / Merc’h an Eog (Daughter of the Salmon) in four different languages: Welsh, Breton, French and Guadeloupean Creole.
It was a co-production between Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru (Welsh National Theatre) and Teatr Piba from Brittany, and featured actors from Wales and Brittany. The lead role was played by Lleuwen Steffan, a Welsh singer-song writer who lives in Brittany and speaks Welsh, Breton, French, and English, fluently.
For me it was interesting to hear all the different languages, especially the Breton. I understood most of the Welsh and French, though I couldn’t always hear what they were saying clearly, and understood, or at least recognised, bits of the Breton.
There’s some discussion in the play about similarities between Welsh and Breton words, though I doubt very much if any of the Welsh speakers in the audience understood much of the Breton, unless they’d studied it. The languages have many similar words, but sound very different.
When one of the actors started speaking in Guadeloupean Creole I thought it was French at first with an unfamiliar accent, but when I listened more closely I thought is was probably a French-based Creole.
Translation was provided via an app called Sibrwd (Whisper) and was available in English, Welsh, French and Breton. However it was mainly a summary of what the actors were saying rather than a word-for-word translation, and wasn’t in time with the speech. Sometimes it was behind, sometimes ahead, so it was like watching a badly dubbed film, and made it tricky to follow the story.
There’s a review of the Bangor performance in the Daily Post.
The phrase barking up the wrong tree means “making a mistake or a false assumption in something you are trying to achieve”. It comes from hunting dogs barking up trees where they thought their quarry was hiding, but wasn’t [source].
Apparently one French equivalent of this phrase is Frapper à la mauvaise porte (to knock at the wrong door). Does anybody know the origins of this expression?
Another French equivalent is se mettre le doigt dans l’œil (to put your finger in your eye).
To get the wrong end of the stick means to misunderstand something. I combined the two phrases in the title of this post because I like playing with words.
One equivalent in French is comprendre de travers (to understand in a crooked, askew or wrong way) [source], se tromper (to make a mistake) or faire fausse route (to go the wrong way; be on the wrong track), which can also mean ‘to bark up the wrong tree’ [source].
Are there equivalents of these phrases in other languages?
Image from: Idioms4you.com
| français | English | Cymraeg |
|---|---|---|
| la pédale | pedal | pedal |
| pédaler; aller à velo | to pedal (a bicycle) | pedlo; padlo |
| le lotissement (de logements sociaux) | (council) estate | (y)stad (dai cyngor) |
| la cité | housing estate | (y)stad o dai |
| courageux; brave; vaillant | brave | dewr; gwrol; glew; eofn |
| droit | straight | syth; union |
| les groseilles noires | black currant(s) | cyransen ddu (cwrens duon) |
| la haie | hedge | gwrych; clawdd |
| le noyau | (fruit) stone | carreg; cnewyllyn; dincodyn |
| la graine | seed (of plant) | hedyn |
| le pépin | seed / pip (of fruit) | dincodyn; carreg; hedyn |
| étudiant de première année; jeune recrue | first year student; fresher; freshman | glasfyfyriwr |
One of the words that came up at the French conversation group this week was brise (breeze), which appears in the following expressions:
– pare-brise = windscreen / windshield
– brise matinale = early breeze
– brise insulaire = island breeze
– brise de mer = sea breeze
– brise de terre = land breeze
The French word brise and the English word breeze come possibly from the Old Spanish briza (cold northeast wind), which was used from the 1560s in West Indies and the Spanish Main to mean a “northeast trade wind”, and then a “fresh wind from the sea”. Breeze came to mean a “gentle or light wind” from the 1620s, and something easy from the 1920s in the USA.
Alternatively the English word breeze might come from is from East Frisian brisen (to blow fresh and strong), or the Saterland Frisian briese (breeze) or the Dutch bries (breeze).
Apparently as well as being a light, gentle wind, a breeze can be:
– Any wind blowing across a cricket match, whatever its strength.
– Any activity that is easy, not testing or difficult.
– Ashes and residue of coal or charcoal, usually from a furnace.
– An excited or ruffled state of feeling; a flurry of excitement; a disturbance; a quarrel.
Sources: Online Etymology Dictionary, Wiktionary and Reverso
| français | English | Cymraeg |
|---|---|---|
| la brise | breeze | awel |
| convenable; adéquat; apte | suitable | addas |
| la poterie | pottery | crochenyddiaeth; crochenwaith |
| sculpté; gravél ciselé | carved | cerfiedig; nadd |
| tailler; sculpter; grave; ciseler | to carve | cerfio; carfio; naddu |
| plongée | diving | plymio |
| luxuriant | lush | toreithiog; iraidd; ir |
| enflé; gonflé | swollen | wedi chwyddo |
| la cheville | ankle | ffêr; migwrn |
| le bord | edge | min; ymyl |
| le pare-choc | bumper (on car) | bymper; ffender |
| le course à travers champ | cross-country (race) | ras ar draws gwlad / traws gwlad |
| seul; solitaire | lonely | unig; digwmni |
| français | English | Cymraeg |
|---|---|---|
| l’attaque d’apoplexie (f); la congestion cérébral |
stroke | strôc; trawiad |
| avoir un accident vasculaire cérébral | to have a stroke | cael strôc / trawiad |
| caresser | to stroke | tynnu llaw; anwesu |
| le trait de génie | stroke of genius | fflach / strôc o athrylith |
| le coup de chance | stroke of good luck | tamaid / tipyn / strôc o lwc |
| aller se promener | to go for a stroll | mynd am dro |
| l’atrophie (f) | atrophy | gwywiad; edwiniad; crebachiad |
| la corbeille d’arrivée; la corbeille de courriers à traiter; le classeur pour le courrier entrant |
in tray | cawell derbyn; basged dderbyn |
| le courrier sortant | out tray | cawell allan |
| le plateau | tray | hambwrdd |
| le casier | pigeon-hole | twll colomen; cloer; colomendwll |
| cousin(e) au deuxième degré | first cousin once removed | plentyn eich cefnder/cyfnither |
| petit(e) cousin(e) | second cousin | cyfyrder (m); cyfyrderes (f) |
| enfant unique | only child | unig plentyn |
| le tonneau | barrel (beer; wine) | casgen; baril |
| la casque | barrel (fish) | casgen; baril |
| le baril | barrel (oil) | casgen; baril |
| l’animal empaillé; l’animal en peluche |
stuffed animal | anifail stwffiedig |
| le cogneur; le malabar | bruiser | colbiwr; paffiwr |
| diriger | to conduct (an orchestra) | arwain; tywys(u) |
| le chef d’orchestre | conductor | tywyswr; tywysydd; arweinydd |
| l’entrepôt | warehouse | warws; stordy; strorfa |
| la taille | size | maint |
| le pic | woodpecker | cnocell y coed |
| marcher sur la chaussée | to jaywalk | croesi diofal |
I learnt an interesting new French word today – célibataire. When I first saw it I guessed that it meant celibate, but when I checked in a dictionary I found that while it does mean celibate, it is more commonly used to mean single. So un célibataire is a single man or bachelor, and une célibataire is a single woman or spinster. A confirmed bachelor un célibataire endurci and une mère célibataire is a single / unmarried mother – the male equivalent is un père célibataire.
Célibataire comes from célibat (celibacy), from the Latin caelebs (unmarried, single), from the Proto-Indo-European *kaiwelo- (alone) and *libʰs– (living) [source].
Single comes from the Middle English sengle, from the Old French sengle, from Latin singulus, a diminutive of simplex (simple or literally “onefold”*, from sim- (the same) and plicare (to fold) [source].
*Duplex = twofold, double
One of the things we talked about in the French conversation group this week was suspending disbelief, which is accepter les invraisemblances in French. That is “accepting the improbabilities”. Another way to say this in French is suspension d’incrédulité.
The word invraisemblance also means unlikeliness or inverisimilitude. Related words include invraisemblable (unlikely, incredible, implausible, improbable) and invraisemblablement (implausible, unlikely).
Its antonym is vraisemblance (plausibility, verisimilitude, likelihood). It comes from vrai (true, real), plus sembler (to seem).
Expressions incorporating vraisemblance include:
– selon toute vraisemblance = in all likelihood, apparently
– essai de vraisemblance = plausibility test
– contrôle de vraisemblance = absurdity check
Sources: Reverso, Linguee and Wikipedia
Apparently the English phrase suspension of disbelief was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 in his Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions
See: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/suspension-of-disbelief.html
Are there interesting ways to express this idea in other languages?
| français | English | Cymraeg |
|---|---|---|
| le jeu de rôle | role playing | chwarae rhan, chwarae rôl |
| accepter les invraisemblances | to suspend disbelief | |
| nom à rallonge | double-barrelled surname | enw dwbl (baril) |
| fusil à canon double | double-barrelled shotgun | gwn haels dau/dwy faril, dwbl baril |
| l’épaule | shoulder | ysgwydd |
| l’omoplate (f); la scapulaire | shoulder blade (human); scapular | palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd |
| le paleron | shoulder blade (animal) | palfais; asgwrn palfais; crafell ysgwydd |
| railler; se moquer de qn/qch; se payer la tête de qn |
to make fun of sb/sth | gwneud hwyl/sbort am ben rhywun; chwerthin am ben rhywun |
| (liquide) trouble | cloudy (liquid) | cymylog |
| furtif | stealth | lladraddaidd |
| interdit | banned | gwarharddedig |