français | English | Cymraeg |
---|---|---|
l’étui (m) à lunettes | glasses/spectacle case | blwch/castan/cas sbectol |
la bannière Web | web banner | baner we |
le budget | budget | cyllideb |
le découvert budgétaire | budget deficit | diffyg cyllidebol |
le découvert | overdraft | gorddrafft gorgodiad dyled cyfrif |
à découvert | in the red | yn y coch |
promouvoir | to promote | dyrchafu rhoi dyrchafiad |
être promu(e) | to be promoted | cael dyrchafiad |
le syndiact | trade/labour union | undeb |
l’épingle (f) | pin (sewing) | pin |
l’épingle de nourrice | safety pin | pin cau pin dwbl |
la punaise | drawing pin | pin bawd pin gwasgu pin pen fflat |
la broche | pin (medical) | pin |
le papier bulle | bubble wrap | pecyn/papur swigen (?) |
(la cérémonie de) remise des diplômes | graduation ceremony | cyflwyniad graddau |
DAB (le distributeur automatique de billets) GAB (le guichet automatique de billets) le guichet automatique (Québec) le bancomat (Suisse) |
ATM cash machine cashpoint hole in the wall |
peiriant arian parod twll yn y wal |
Category: Welsh (Cymraeg)
Coasts and competitors
Sometimes when I see new words in English or other languages I can immediately break them down into their component parts and work out their roots, but other times I just accept words as whole entities without trying to work out their derivation.
One such word in Welsh is arfordir, which I hadn’t tried to analyse before. Last weekend, however, I was explaining some Welsh words to a friend who recently moved to Cardiff and who wants to learn Welsh, so I was in the right frame of mind, and the probable etymology of that word jumped out at me – ar (on, by) + môr (sea) + tir (land), so it’s “land by the sea” or the coast. This is correct, according to the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru.
Another etymology I discovered today is the word competitor, which comes from the Middle French compétiteur (rival, competitor), from the Latin competītor (rival, competitor, adversary, opponent; plaintiff), from con (with) and petītor (seeker, striver, applicant, candidate, claimant, plaintiff, suitor, wooer).
Petītor comes from petere (to make, seek, aim at, desire, beg, beseech), from the Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (to fall, fly), which is also the root of the English word petition, and the Spanish word pedir (to ask for) [source]
Les mots de la semaine
français | English | Cymraeg |
---|---|---|
le fossoyeur | gravedigger | torrwr beddau |
la fosse | pit; grave | pwll; twll; bedd |
le fossé | ditch; gap | ffos; twll |
la fosse d’orchestre | orchestra pit | pwll cerddorfa |
la fosse septique | septic tank | tanc carthion |
le canot de sauvetage | lifeboat | bad achub |
l’aube (f) | dawn | gwawr |
le lave-vaiselle | dishwasher (machine) | peiriant golchi llestri |
le plongeur | dishwasher (person) | golchwr llestri |
les couvertures et draps; la parure de lit; la literie |
bedclothes; bedding | dillad gwely; gwellt gwely; gwelltach |
la vipère (péliade) | (common) adder (vipera berus) |
gwiber |
Suo Gân
We are learning the traditional Welsh lullaby Suo Gân [sɨɔ ɡɑːn] in one of the choirs I sing in at the moment. It’s a lovely song that was first written down in 1800, but was probably composed around before then.
When I first saw the words Suo Gân I thought they might be Mandarin Chinese – I knew that gân is mutated version of the Welsh word for song, cân, but suo doesn’t look like Welsh. In fact suo is a variant spelling of sïo, which means “to hum, whizz or murmur”, so suo gân could be translated as “humming / murmured song”.
Here’s a recording of Bryn Terfel singing this song:
The words suo [suɔ] and gan [kan] have many meanings in Chinese, but there are only a couple of expressions I can find that combine both of them:
– 锁杆 [鎖桿] (suǒgǎn) = locking bar
– 所感 (suǒgǎn) = one’s impression of something
Polyglot Gathering Berlin 2015
I got back from the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin about an hour ago. I took the train all the way from Berlin to Bangor, via Cologne, Brussels, London, Crewe and Chester, leaving Berlin just before 7am this morning, and arriving in Bangor just after 9pm this evening. On the way there I also travelled by train, though I had to stay in Brussels for one night, and continued the next day. It cost slightly more than flying (only about £20 more) and took a bit longer (about 2 hours – more on the way there), but I saw so much more, and went through parts of France and Germany I hadn’t been before, and visited Belgium for the first time. The engineers on German railways started a 5-day strike today, and I was worried that my trains might not be running. Fortunately they did run, and were more or less on time.
The gathering was bigger than last year with about 350 participants from many countries. There were many people there I knew from last year’s gathering, and from the Polyglot Conference in Novi Sad, and I met lots of new people. I had conversations in all the languages I know well, and most of the ones I know less well. There was a Breton speaker there, though I didn’t get to talk to him, as well as speakers of Welsh, Irish, Cornish and Scottish Gaelic. Like last year, there were plenty of Esperanto speakers, and I had quite a few conversations in Esperanto, which I brushed up a bit beforehand. There were a number of people who had studied sign languages there, including BSL, ASL, Dutch Sign Language (Nederlandse Gebarentaal / NGT) and Slovak Sign Language (Slovenský posunkový jazyk / SPJ), and the Slovak signer demonstrated how she interprets songs in SPJ, which was fascinating to watch.
The talks and lectures were really interesting, and I went to quite a few introductions to languages, including Northern Sami, Navajo, Arabic, Hebrew, Milanese, Gottlandic, Finnish, Greek and Basque. I don’t intend to learn any of these languages just yet, but it was fascinating to find out more about them. My own presentation, on the History of Writing, was well received, and I got lots of positive comments.
Some of the polyglots at the Polyglot Gathering – from right to left: Richard Simcott, Alex Rawlings, Christopher Huff, Jimmy Melo, and me – between us we speak at least 20 or 30 languages, to varying degrees.
The evening activities included a polyglot games evening, an international culinary festival – I took some Welsh cakes and bara brith, which were popular – a book fair, a polyglot game show, a concert with the multilingual French singer JoMo, who sang in 25 different languages, and an international cultural evening, at which I sang a Scottish Gaelic waulking song (Ceud soiridh soiridh bhuam) and one of my own songs – A Hen in My Hat (in 5 languages). After the cultural evening there was a little Irish and Scottish music session – I had a couple of tin whistles with me, and a few other people had instruments.
So now I’m back in Bangor and will start to catch up with the work I couldn’t do while away due to time constraints and internet connection issues.
Les mots de la semaine
français | English | Cymraeg |
---|---|---|
ADN (L’acide désoxyribonucléique) | DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) | DNA (asid deocsiriboniwcleig) |
la salive | saliva | poer |
roux; roquin | red-haired | pengoch |
noisette | hazel (eye colour) | gwinau; brown golau |
l’œil au beurre noir; l’œil poché | black eye | llygad du |
aux yeux troubles | bleary-eyed | â llygaid molog/molglafaidd |
Carrying coals to Newcastle
An idiomatic way to say a task is pointless is to say it’s like carrying coals to Newcastle – Newcastle, in the north east of England, used to be a major coal mining area.
In French the equivalent is porter de l’eau à la rivière (to carry water to the river).
In German they say Eulen nach Athen bringen/tragen (to take/bring owls to Athens).
In Welsh there are quite a few equivalent expressions:
– cario glo i Fflint = to carry coal to Flint (a former coal mining area)
– cario dŵr dros afon = to carry water across a river
– bwrw heli yn y môr = to throw salt in the sea
– iro blonegen = to grease fat
– iro hwch â bloneg = to grease a sow with fat
– gwerthu mêl i berchen gwenyn = to sell honey to a bee keeper
– mynd i ‘ngheg i chwilio am fy nhafod = to go to my mouth and look for my tongue
– gyrru halen i’r Heledd = to send salt to a salt pit
– golchi traed alarch = to wash a swan’s feet
– taflu ‘fale i’r berllan = to throw apples into an orchard
What about in other languages?
Les mots de la semaine
français | English | Cymraeg |
---|---|---|
la honte | shame | cywilydd; gwarth |
avoir honte de qch | to be ashamed of sth | cywiliddio; teimlo cywilydd; bod â chywilydd |
faire honte à qn | to make sb feel ashamed | codi cywilydd ar rywun; cywilyddio rhywun |
honte à vous ! | shame on you! | rhag cywilydd ichi! |
shameless | éhonté, effronté (without shame); impudique (immodest) | digywilydd; hy |
le mineur | (coal) miner | cloddiwr; mwynwr; glöwr |
porter de l’eau à la rivière | to carry coals to Newcastle | cario dŵr dros afon |
Llap y dwndwr – the drink of prattle
I discovered last night that an old Welsh expression for tea is llap y dwndwr [ɬap ə ˈdʊndʊr], which could be translated as meaning “the drink that makes one talkative” or “the drink of chatter”. It is also the name of a tune.
The word llap means soft and wet, and appears in the expression bwyd llap (soft and wet food), which can refer to soup (cawl) or rice pudding (bwdin reis).
The word dwndwr means noise; to make a noise; to bluster, prattle or babble; or to daunt, hector or bully. A related word is dwndrio = to babble or talk too much. It appears in the expressions cap y dwndwr = rattlepate (a frivolous, talkative person), and rhap y dwndwr = a gossip, or loud-mouthed person.
Other poetic/slang names for tea include dail y dwndwr (“the leaves of chatter”) and llysiau’r dwndwr (“the herbs of chatter”).
In colloquial Welsh tea is te [tɛ] and a cup of tea is panad or paned in North Wales – this comes from cwpaned o de (cup of tea), and it’s disgled (o de) in South Wales.
Does tea have any interesting names in other languages?
Source: Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru
Multilingual conversations
At the French conversation group I go to most weeks we usually stick to French most of the time, however when the leader of the group isn’t there or leaves early, as she did last week and the week before, we often switch to English and/or Welsh. Most members of the group speak Welsh, as well as English and French, so we quite often have trilingual conversations mixing all three languages in a wonderful way. I really enjoy such conversations, and it feels great being able to understand and use these languages in this way.
With other friends I may have one, two, or more languages in common, but it’s relatively unusual for a group people to have three or more languages in common, like in the French group.
Do you know groups of people with whom you can have multilingual conversations?
In how many different languages are your multilingual conversations?