Andy Brown

“During my second month of nursing school, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. “Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say ‘Hello’.”

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Consonants:

Consonants in Welsh can only make one unique sound, as opposed to English which can make several sounds per consonant. For example, the c can make a k sound as in cat or a s sound as in city. When you learn the sound a consonant makes in Welsh, it will only ever make that sound you learn.

Consonant sounds same in English and Welsh:

These consonants look the same in English and Welsh, and sound the same.

·         b /b/ Like b in boy. Welsh example: bachgen (English: boy)

·         c /k/ Like c in cat. Welsh example: cath (English cat)

·         d /d/ Like d in dog. Welsh example: drwg (English bad)

·         g /g/ Like g in gun. Welsh example: gardd (English garden)

·         h /h/ Like h in happy. Welsh example: hen (English old)

·         l /l/ Like l in lake. Welsh example: calon (English heart)

·         m /m/ Like m in mad. Welsh example: mam (English mother)

·         n /n/ Like n in none. Welsh example: nain (English grandmother)

·         ng /ŋ/ Like the end of the English word sing. In Welsh, this letter can come at the front of a word. In Welsh, it is never pronounced with a hard g, as in the English finger. Welsh example: angau (English death)

·         p /p/ Like p in poker. Welsh example: pen (English head)

·         s /s/ Like s in sad. Welsh example: sebon (English soap)

·         t /t/ Like t in tar. Welsh example: tŷ (English house)

·         th /θ/ Like th in think. Welsh example: methu (English fail)

·         si is pronounced as in English sheep, when it comes before a vowel.

  Consonant sounds in English, Different letter in Welsh:

These sounds are found in English, but they are assigned to a different letter in Welsh. Train yourself to read them differently now.

·         f /v/ Like v in violin. Welsh example: gafr (English goat)

·         ff /f/ Like f in friend. Welsh example: ffrind (English friend)

·         dd /ð/ Like th in then. Welsh example: hardd (English beautiful)

  Consonant sounds in English, Not in Welsh:

These sounds are in English, but you will not hear them in Welsh.

·         The c in Welsh only makes a hard /k/ sound. It will never sound like an s, such as in the English city.

·         The g only makes a /g/ sound. It will never sound like an English g, like in the English gender.

·         The th in Welsh represents the th in English think. The dd represents the other th in English, like the word then.

·         There is no z sound in Welsh.

  Consonant sounds only in Welsh:

These consonant sounds may be new to you.

·         ch /x/ Like the Scottish loch or German composer Bach. Welsh example: chwech (English six)

·         ll /ɬ/ The ll is a hard Welsh sound to make. It is best described as putting your tongue in the position of l and then blowing out air gently. Like saying a h and l simultaneously, but with more puff. Welsh example: llyn (English lake)

·         r /r/ The Welsh r should always be trilled. Welsh example: ar (English on)

·         rh /r̥/ The Welsh rh should be trilled with aspiration. Like saying a h and r simultaneously, but with more puff. Welsh example: rhan (English part)

  Vowels:

There are seven vowels in Welsh. Most vowels can be two different sounds. The y can take three different sounds. 

·         a

·         e

·         i

·         o

·         u

·         w

·         y

Short Vowels:

·         a /a/ Like a in pat.

·         e /ɛ/ Like e in pet.

·         i /ɪ/ Like i in pit.

·         o /ɔ/ Like o in pot

·         u /ɪ/ Like i in pit.

·         w /ʊ/ As in book.

·         y /ə/ Like uh in above

The rules governing the letter Y are some of the most confusing in Welsh. Normally it’s pronounced like the u in cut, but in the last syllable of a word it represents the sound like the i in bit. Note; This includes words with only one syllable, such as llyn (hlin).

Similar rules apply for combinations of y with another letter;

·         yr is (approximately) pronounced like English burn, except in the last syllable of a word, where it is said like in English beer. (Both times, the r is audible, not dropped. See the preceding rule.)

·         yw is pronounced like English moan, except in the last syllable of a word, where it is said like the Welsh iw and uw (see below).

That just leaves the exceptions. The small words, y, yr and yn are pronounced uh, urr and un.

Dipthongs:

·         ae, ai and au /aɪ/- like English sky. (Actually, there is an exception for the last one. “au” is the plural ending for certain words, e.g. creigiau. In these cases, its pronunciation is shortened to a “hanging A”

·         aw /aʊ/ - like English cow.

·         oe (and oi and ou, which are rare) /ɔɪ/ - like English boy.

·         ei and eu and ey /əɪ/ - like nothing in English; try ‘uh-ee’ and then running the vowels together.

R:

When you see a vowel followed by an R, or a diphthong followed by an R, both the vowel and the R are pronounced; this differs from many dialects of English. The following sounds are therefore approximate, and you should make sure to pronounce the R.

·         aer, air and aur - like English fire.

·         awr - like English hour.

·         er - like English bare, but shorter.

·         ir or ur (or yr in the last syllable of a word) - like English beer.

·         wr - like English poor.

Long Vowels:

·         a /ɑː/ Like a in father.

·         e /ɛː/ Like ae in aeroplane, but without any trace of an r, or a y sound between the a and the e.

·         i /iː/ Like i in machine.

·         o /ɔː/ Like aw in hawk.

·         w /uː/ Like oo in pool.

·        u and y take the same values as i does. 

·        A vowel is short if it comes in a word with more than one syllable.

So all these rules only come into play when we’re talking about one-syllable words.

·        A vowel is short if it’s followed by two consonants, if the first of the two is n or r.

·        A vowel is short if it’s in a word of one syllable and the consonant following it is any of the following; p, t, c, m, ng

·        If the vowel is a, e, o, w or y and it’s followed by l, n or r then it is also short.

·        This leaves the following options for when the vowel is long; in a word of one syllable; followed by two consonants the first of which is ll or s; either followed by no consonants, or followed by b, ch, d, dd, f, ff, g, s or th, or (if it happens to be i or u) followed by l, n or r.

ART PRINTS BY MANOOU

fox spirit 

white deer 

raccoon spirit 

rabbit 

owl winter 

fox cercle 

polar bear 

deer autumn 

eh, i grew up with it so i’m pretty used to the idiosyncrasies (as i am to English’s) but when i step back i do see why people find it a scary language

like, on the one hand, you have a phonetic writing system with diacritics that actually mean something (as opposed to french, where they are largely historical), a relatively relaxed syntax where what you want to emphasise goes at the front of the sentence, proper verb conjugation is entirely optional, the counting system is nice and regular, words that are onomatopeic like you wouldn’t believe, and it’s a gorgeous language to sing in

and on the other hand the spelling is pretty unintuitive to most english speakers, you have barely any regular plurals, really odd verb conjugation, the existence of another counting system (an older one) that is still in use, and then you have the joys of initial consonant mutation and grammatical gender and two main dialects that branch into subdialects with really distinctive accents (notably the merging of U, I and Y in southern welsh)

and then there’s the infamous Ll, also known as the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (google it), which is basically a litmus test

also the reason why proper verb conjugation is optional is because people are ridiculously lazy and that carries over into other things as well, like the fact that most people use the soft mutation for everything even where you’re meant to use the nasal or the aspirate

BUT i cannot recommend it enough as a language to learn! i think one of the reasons i find languages easier than my friends is because welsh is so different to english and i learnt it really young. from a linguistic point of view it’s really interesting and it’s also just a fun language to speak in. i might upload a clip sometime so you can get an idea of what it sounds like

The Welsh language has been called many things; dying, gibberish, a load of letters thrown against a wall by a blind monkey. In reality, some of our most famed terminology is in fact English, but you have to say it in a very specific way for it to make sense.