Just a general question of curiosity, are there many casual acronyms in Welsh? I noticed you translated ‘btw’ as ‘gyda llaw’ and wondered if you did that more for clarity? If so, what are some of the more common casual acronyms you’d use in everyday life?
There are! I covered a few in a previous ask, but generally we don't use many acronyms and abbreviations - at least, not in comparison with English! The Welsh language style guide on the Welsh Government's website even casts a bit of shade towards the English language's overuse of them:
"Acronyms occur commonly (and are indeed overused) in English texts."
I wouldn't abbreviate 'gyda llaw' (by the way) into 'gll' (btw) because that's not an abbreviation that's happened naturally in the Welsh language - generally, abbreviations only work if there's a mutual understanding between the writer and the reader. Personally, I'd just use 'btw' if I was writing casually, even if the rest of the sentence was in Welsh! But because this blog has developed into somewhat of a learning tool for a lot of people, I try to use the Welsh-language equivalent whenever possible, even if it doesn't always 100% replicate a fluent Welsh speaker's colloquialism.
Having said that - we might have fewer abbreviations and acronyms, but that doesn't mean we don't use them! These are the ones that I'd say are relatively common (for me, at least):
CGÂPh (cyn gynted â phosib) = ASAP (as soon as possible)
AYYB (ac yn y blaen) = etc
PBH (pen-blwydd hapus) = happy birthday
OMB (o mam bach) = oh my God (literally 'oh little mother')
YFMI (yn fy marn i) = IMO (in my opinion)
I think a big reason as to why we tend to avoid abbreviations and acronyms unless they're already well-established is the fact that the Welsh alphabet is made up of several digraphs, or double letters (Ll, Ch, Dd, etc - or ayyb!). Unless the acronym makes proper use of upper and lowercase, the amount of words making up the acronym won't always be clear.
Take CGÂPh for example: someone unfamiliar with Welsh might assume it's made up of five words, but it's in fact just four - 'Ph' is a digraph! Considering the dominance of lowercase characters on the internet (btw > BTW), certain Welsh-language nuances like this are immediately lost, which is probably why 'gyda llaw' (by the way) will never become 'gll'.
Diolch for your question!
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