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1273e “An
Elementary Welsh Grammar” by John Morris-Jones (1864-1929), professor of Welsh
at Coleg y Brifysgol (
1)
There are two main ways of forming the plural - either by changing the vowels
within a word
(car = car, ceir = cars); or by adding an ending (peth = thing,
pethau = things).
2) There are a variety of endings (-au, -iau, -ydd, -i, -oedd,
etc)
3) The most common way of forming a plural noun is by adding the ending -au and
-iau; we'll examine these two and the rest we shall look at later.
The ending -au is pronounced [ai] in literary Welsh. But in natural
spoken Welsh it is never pronounced in this way. The most usual pronunciation
is -e [e].
QUESTION: If it is pronounced -e, why isn't it written -e?
ANSWER: In dialect writing, where an author tries to reproduce spoken forms as
closely as possible, it is used. In the 1800s there were calls to use -e
instead of -au in formal Welsh writing too. However, there is also a
pronunciation -a in the north-west and the south-east. So -au has
been retained because it is the literary form. The idea is that if you can also
interpret it as 'e' or 'a' according to the local dialect.
For example, pethau = things
In reading a literary text, you'd say [pe· thai]
In speaking standard colloquial Welsh, you'd say [pe· the]
In speaking the colloquial Welsh of the south-west, central and north-east
Wales you'd say [pe· the]
In speaking the colloquial Welsh of the south-eastern corner, and the
north-western corner, you'd say [pe· tha]
Some speakers who have learnt Welsh as adults use this [ai] pronunciation in
normal everyday conversation because they have been led to believe that
'literary' is correct and 'colloquial' is incorrect. It is noticeable too with
many who have learnt Welsh in Welsh-language primary and secondary schools. If
you are delivering a sermon or reading the news on TV, it is correct; if not,
it is totally out of context and wrong!
A famous Welsh-language bookshop in Aberystwyth in the county of Ceredigion is
called Siop y Pethe, rather than Siop y Pethau.
(the shop of the 'things' - which means in Welsh the 'things' which make up
Welsh culture - poetry, music, literature, religion)
Place names generally use the literary forms - Caerau [kei rai]
(ramparts), part of Caer-dydd / Cardiff, is (or was) locally [kei ra].
In South Wales tonnau (literay pronunciaiton [to nai] ) means 'meadows'.
But a village of this name in the county of Castell-nedd Aberafan is unusually
spelt according to the local pronunciation Tonna [to na]
The ending -iau is pronounced [yai] in literary Welsh. In the South
though the semi-consonant 'y' is generally lost (though not always). We can
represent the resulting forms by imagining that Wales is a square. Roughly
speaking, there are two main dialects in Welsh - northern and southern. And
each has a western and eastern variant. So we can divide the square into four.
·····
|
NORTH-WEST |
NORTH-EAST |
|
SOUTH-WEST |
SOUTH-WEST |
·····
Let's look at some examples.
The accented syllable in Welsh is the one before last
(called the 'goben' in Welsh).
If the word is a monosyllable, then the plural form is
still accented on the monosyllable root.
peth, pethau
If it is a polysyllable, then the accent will shift to
the new syllable before last
adran (= department), adrannau
If a vowel is long in the singular form, it becomes
half-long in the plural before -au.
peth [peeth], pethau [pe· the].
In the South-east, however, it often sounds as though
the long vowel has been maintained [pee tha]
But before -iau it becomes short - two consonants
together in Welsh usually indicate the the vowel before is short
Sul [siil] = Sunday, Suliau [sil ye] = Sundays
Some vowels change in length; but others change in
quality. and diphthongs may also change in quality
y [i] becomes y [ø]
aw > o
ai > ei
âi (spelt ae) > ei (also spelt ae)
ûi (spelt wy) > ui (also spelt wy)
dydd [diidh] = day, dyddiau [dødh ye] = days
gwyl [gûil] = festival; day's holiday, gwyliau [guil ye] = festivals,
holidays
bìl [bil] = bill, biliau [bil-ye] = bills
tad [taad] = father, tadau [ta· de] = fathers
mam [mam] = mother [ma me] = mothers
tân [taan] = fore, tanau [ta· ne] = fires
gwaith [gwaith] = work; factory, gweithiau [gweith ye] = factories
llawr [lhaur] = floor, lloriau [lhor ye] = floors
Sul [siil] = Sunday, Suliau [sil ye] = Sundays
dôl [dool] = meadow, dolau [do· le] = meadows
llain [lhain] = strip of land, lleiniau [lhein ye] = strips
llun [lhiin] = picture, lluniau [lhin ye] = pictures
caer [kâir] = rampart, fort; caerau [kei re] = ramparts
bryn [brin] = hill, bryniau [brøn ye] = hills
blaen [blâin] = top; blaenau [blei ne] = tops
mynydd [mø nidh] = mountain, hill; mynyddau[mø nø dhe] =
mountains
(this is the historical plural form and one which survives in colloquial
Welsh; in the literary language the spurious 'mynyddoedd' has ousted it)
traeth [trâith] = beach; traethau [trei the] = beaches
côt (North) [koot], cot (South) [kot] = coat; cotiau [kot ye] = coats
cloc [klok] = clock; clociau [klok ye] = clocks
taith [taith] = trip, journey; teithiau [teith ye] = trips
cath [kaath] = cat; cathau (South) [ka· the] = cats
In the North and in the literary language, it takes the ending -od, often used
with animals - cathod.
saeth [sâith] = arrow; saethau [sei the] = arrows
twyn [tûin] = hill; twynau [tui ne] = hills (twyn is a Southern Welsh
word)
ffynnon [fø non] = well; ffynhonau[fø nho ne] = wells
(where a word historically has -nt-, we see this as -nn- in the singular
and -nh- in the plural. The word ffynnon is from Latin fontâna)
An 'n' or 'r' may be toubled in the plural, although
they are pronounced the same as the single 'n' or 'r'. Such double letters
indicate that the vowel is short.
rhan [hran] = part, rhannau [hra ne] = parts
glan [glan] = bank, coast [gla ne] = banks, coasts
man [man] = place, mannau [ma ne] = places
Sometimes nt > nn
tant [tant] (string of an instrument such as a harp), tannau [ta ne]
strings
Another example is the old plural of nant [nant] (valley, stream) found in the
place name Nannau [na ne]
As we have seen above, in the South -iau can become
-au. There seems to be a tendency among younger southern speakers to adapt the
language towards the retention of 'i' since the forms without 'i' are felt by
these speakers to be substandard (this is their perception of its use; it is
however in no way at all substandard).
However, the use of 'i'-less forms continues to be
common.
Cot = coat, cotiau > cota [ko te]>= coats
Gwaith is 'work', a masculine word; in fixed
expressions it survives as a feminine word, meaning 'time, occasion'. And the
plural 'gweithiau' literally 'times', but meaning 'sometimes' is used in
standard Welsh as 'weithiau' (the soft mutation of the initial consonant,
gweithiau > (ghweithiau) >
weithiau
is common with adverbs.
Weithiau in th south becomes "wiithe" [wi· the]. (It is typical in
the south for ei to become a half-long i in the syllable before last - here we
represent it by "ii" in dialectal spelling).
There are farms in the south-east, and also an
ex-mining village, called Brynnau [brø na]. Brynnau is the southern form of bryniau = hills.
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