Blwyddyn newydd.....

Well here we are on the verge of a new degawd (decade) (I think? though some say that'll be in 2011) and I'm looking forward to, and trying to write lesson plans for (yes there are plans!) a new term of teaching Welsh. So 'Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i bawb, a dwi'n edrych ymlaen at eich gweld chi i gyd wythnos nesaf' :)

I've been doing a bit of 'homework' myself, namely reading in Welsh which I find improves my vocab, and general understanding of the language. I'm still dipping into Malcolm Allen's (the footballer) hunangofiant (autobiography) from time to time, but have been gripped by Llwyd Owens
latest novel 'Y Blaidd' (the wolf), which I got as a Christmas present.

Llwyd Owen is a young writer from Caerdydd (Cardiff) who rocked the world of Welsh literature when he won the 'Llyfr y Flwyddyn' (book of the year) competition with a gritty graphic novel about Cardiff's underworld 'Fydd, Gobaith, Cariad' (faith, hope, Love). I remember writing on my blog back in 2007 after reading the book something like 'I'm glad I learnt Welsh just to be able to have read this book', and being in the middle of a Llwyd Owen book is still a great feeling. There are some of his short stories in English for free on the website as well, though i've yet to read them. I've never been a great reader, but do find that reading in a second language gives another dimension to the experience, and remember there are many novels written specifically for learners out there which are a good starting point. I started with Bywyd Blodwen Jones by Bethan Gwanas.

I haven't got a date for the learners Eisteddfod yet, though I should get some info within a week or two, so we can plan ahead this year. I have an idea for a recitation piece which I will share with you when we return!

Hwyl am y tro, Neil

Nadolig Llawen...

Wel mae'n 'noswyl y Nadolig' (Xmas eve) bron,
ac mae hi'n bwrw eira tu allan (wel tipyn bach). Dwi ddim yn gwybod os fydd hi'n Nadolig gwyn yma yng Nghilgwri, ond mwynhewch y gŵyl beth bynnag, a Nadolig Llawen i bawb!

bron - almost
tu allan - outside
os fydd hi - if it will be
mwynhewch - enjoy!
gŵyl - holiday
beth bynnag - whatever

Siopa Dolig (Christmas Shopping)

There's a vocab/geirfa underneath this piece to help:

Wnes i wibio draw i'r Wyddgrug y p'nawn 'ma, er mwyn prynu cardiau Nadolig Cymraeg yn Siop y Siswrn (a great place to 'earwig' some Welsh and maybe practice(!?)relatively locally). Tra oeddwn i yna, wnes i sylwi ar y siop drws nesa (o'r enw 'Tlws'), sydd efo casgliad mawr o gemwaith, felly es i i mewn er mwyn prynu anrhegion Nadolig. Mae popeth yn y siop yn ddwyieithog, felly wnes i ddechrau siarad Cymraeg efo'r dynes tu ôl i'r cownter a gaethon ni sgwrs braf am ychydig o funudau cyn i mi brynu breichled arian i Jill a chrogdlws ar gadwyn i'r merch.

Wedyn es i mewn i Siop y Siswrn a phori trwy'r llyfrau am ddeg munud (yn trio ffeindio ysbrydoliaeth am anrhegion Nadolig i fy rhieni) cyn holi am gardiau nadolig Cymraeg. Yn anffodus roedden nhw wedi gwerthu allan bron, ond wnes i brynu hanner dwsin o'r rhai ar wahan (ffordd eitha drud o brynu cardiau), i ychydig o aelodau'r teulu sy'n Cymry Cymraeg.

gwibio - dart/dash
draw - over
er mwyn - in order to
tra - while
sylwi - notice
casgliad - collection
gemwaith - jewellery
dwyieithog - bi-lingual
breichled - bracelet
crogdlws - pendant
cadwyn - chain
p(h)ori - browse/graze
ysbrydoliaeth - inspiration
bron - almost
ar wahan - except
eitha drud - rather expensive
Cymry Cymraeg - Welsh speaking Welsh people

D-Plates

This spoof documentary made by The Fiction Factory in South Wales called D-Plates (D for dysgwyr) sends up a Welsh residential course, the students and tutor, and was made as a pilot for possible series. It's only about 5 mins long and is worth a look.

http://www.ukindies.co.uk/programme_video.asp?name=D%2DPlates&id=845&video

Yr wythnos yma (this week)

Yr wythnos yma, wnaethon ni gario ymlaen (we carried on) efo Uned 18 - 'Rhaid'.

We'll move on to Uned 19 yr wythnos nesaf.

Gyda llaw (by the way), Ges i sioc (I got a shock) ddoe. Wnes i weld fy mlog Cymraeg i 'Clecs Cilgwri' mewn rhestr (list) o'r 'Unofficial Top 10' Blogs Cymraeg Amateur! I suddenly thought though about all the grammar mistakes etc. which my Welsh posts are no doubt full of (well even more back in '04 when I started! though if I can make this list then anyone can, so stick at it....

Cerdd Dant (lit. String Music)

Around this time of the year the annual Gŵyl Cerdd Dant (Cerdd Dant Festival) is held in Wales, like the National Eisteddfod its location moving from one year to the next. Cerdd Dant is one of those traditions unique to Welsh culture, and one that is fairly difficult (from my experience at least) to understand. Cerdd Dant does not mean 'Tooth Music' as I once read somewhere (though that is propably an easy mistake to make!), but rather 'String Music' (Tant/string, mutates after 'cerdd' giving Dant, which means 'tooth'!).

Basically 'Cerdd Dant' is singing accompanied by a harp, but one particular form called 'penillion' is perhaps unique to Welsh music. In penillion the harp plays a melody (known as a 'cainc') while the singer/s sing a completely unrelated song or 'counter melody' over the top. Normally the singing will start each verse a few bars into the 'cainc', with the object being to finish at the same time. Often the harp may be playing in 3/4 time for instance while the singing may be in 2/4 or 4/4, creating 'interesting' effects and rhythyms. Penillion may have developed from a sort of musical challenge, with bards competing to create the most unlikely marriages of song and melody, and there is undoubtedly a real skill to making the whole thing work.

Though much of modern day Cerdd Dant is fairly traditional, modern songs can be given the 'Cerdd Dant' treatment as well, giving the whole thing a more contemporary edge and keeping it a living tradition.

Cerdd Dant is I suppose a traddodiad enjoyed by many Wales, but one that many would be happy to see die out! being an aquired taste many have no wish to aquire! S4C give the annual Gŵyl Cerdd Dant plenty of coverage so you can make your own mind up!!

Rhaid.....

Yr wythnos yma yn flwyddyn 2, wnaethon ni ddechrau (we started) edrych ar sut i ddweud 'I must, you must' etc.

It's covered in 'Uned 18' of Cwrs Mynediad.

The word 'Rhaid' means necessity, and in Welsh we say '(Mae'n) Rhaid i mi' which literally translates as 'There is a necessity for me'. The (mae'n' part in speech is often dropped leaving 'Rhaid i mi' for 'I must', 'Rhaid i ti' for 'You must' etc.

e.g.

'Rhaid i mi fynd i Tescos yn y bore'

'Rhaid i ti ddod adre'n gynnar yfory' (you must come home early tommorow)

To turn it into a question we use 'Oes':

'Oes rhaid i mi wneud y gwaith cartre?' (do I have to do the homework?), the answer being 'Oes' or 'Nag oes'.

Pob Hwyl

Cyn ac Ar ôl (before and after)

This week (3ydd Tachwedd/November) we spent most of the time looking at 'Before and After', Cyn ac Ar ôl , which is covered in 'uned' 17 of Cwrs Mynediad.

Points to look out for!

* When saying 'before/after I/he/you/they etc. the preposition 'i' comes before the I/he/you etc. part i.e.

Before I = Cyn i mi
After you = Ar ôl i ti/chi

* The 'i' bit in these structures changes, depending on what follows, giving the variations 'cyn iddi hi, Ar ôl iddo fo, Cyn iddyn nhw'.

*These structures are the same no matter what the tense. Look at these examples:

Cyn i mi fynd, dwi'n cael diod arall (before I go, I'm having another drink)
Cyn i mi fynd, ges i ddiod arall ( before I went, I had another drink)

Ta waeth(anyway), dwi'n edrych ymlaen at eich weld chi wythnos nesaf gobeithio, hwyl!

Calan Gaeaf

The First day of a season or month is known as Calan in Welsh. Calan Mai is Mayday, Dydd Calan New Years Day, and Calan Gaeaf the first day of winter, and the begining of the Celtic New Yyear. Celts believed that at this time the souls of their ancestors could return to earth and created masks that would keep evil spirits away, and carved fierce faces from turnips to the same effect.

The Christian church adapted this pagan festival to become All Saints Day and All Souls Day, but most well known today is of course Halloween, the name coming from 'All Hallows Even'. Some traditions from its pagan origins are still observed (such as the carving of turnips and pumpkins). In Welsh Halloween is Nos Galan Gaeaf, and a tradition in a similar vein to trick or treating was known as 'gast neu geiniog', though many of the old traditions have been lost to more commercialy driven ones. Calan Gaeaf/Halloween remains though, a 'tradition' derived from our Celtic origins!

Ymddiheuriadau - um-thee-hay-rrree-ad-eye (apologies)

I must apologise for missing some of the comments on this blog, as for some reason they are sent to an obscure e-mail address I rarely check! There must be a way of changing this, and I'll try to do this a.s.a.p. as I appreciate any response, comments etc.

Anyway, one of the problems people can encounter when learning Welsh is a Welsh speakers eagerness to turn the conversation back to English as soon as they sense you're a learner, and perhaps you're struggling to communicate something. Thank goodness many Cymry Cymraeg (Welsh speaking Welsh people) are happy for learners to practice on/with them, and resist the urge to help in this way.

This is not just a problem for dysgwyr Cymraeg, as highlighted in this post (part of this is in English) on Morfablog (Morfablog, by the way was one of the first blogs in the Welsh language, and is written by Nic Dafis, a learner turned tutor). Perhaps not suprisingly, practicing your Finish skills in Finland can be quite a challenge!

Diwedd yr Haf....

Today the clocks back (I think... spring forward, fall back is the only way I remember) which means the end of summer (diwedd yr haf), or at least 'British summertime'. Below is a small piece which shouldn't be too hard for those half way through Mynediad to understand (where there is a mutation I've highlighted it in italics :


Mae hi'n amser 'newid y clociau' unwaith eto. Yng Nghilgwri, mae hi wedi bod penwythnos digon tymhorol, efo glaw a gwynt, ond dydy hi ddim wedi bod yn rhy oer.
Mae'r ysgolion wrth cwrs wedi cau am (g)wyliau yr hanner tymor, ac mi fydd rhai bobol yn dianc am wythnos yn yr heulwen efallai, neu yn mynd i fwynhau yr hydref rhywle yng Nghymru. A dweud y gwir, dwi'n eitha hoffi'r hydref, er dwi ddim yn edrych ymlaen at ddyddiau byrion y gaeaf sydd ar y gorwel.



unwaith - once
digon - enough
newid - change
tymhorol - seasonal
a dweud y gwir - to tell the truth
eitha - rather
byrion - short(plural) byr = short (singular)
gorwel - horizon

Death of a language....

I heard a piece on Radio 4 this morning about the predicted death of 50% of the worlds languages over the next century, and have just read the related article on their website. Welsh interestingly is quoted as a success story, though in one response on the website, a correspondant from Cardiff suggests preserving 'dead' languages is through teaching them as a secondary language in schools, as with Welsh he goes on to say! ...not quite sure he understands the concept of Welsh medium education. Others clearly welcome the demise of minority languages as a positive thing and look forward to a world where we can travel without the inconvenience of encountering different tongues.

Clearly the most endangered languages are in remote areas where tribes have little autonomy and whos language is seen as a hinderance to progress, or to finding employment/education in rapidly changing cultures. This takes us back to Welsh in a way, a language that was seen as a hinderance by some and not passed on by parents, where they felt it would stop them getting on. This attitude to a smaller extent continues I'm sure. I remember a friend (a first language Welsh speaker) from Holyhead but living here being asked to say something in Welsh once, his mumbled reply was something like "Why, do you want to talk about combine harvesters?". This always struck me as strange, as if he was embarassed by his culture (past?) and associated Welsh as an agricultural language.

Thankfully though attitudes are changing, and Welsh has seen a small yet significant revival, on paper at least. Welsh is seen to be of value by many these days, and there is a confidence in Wales that no one could have dreamt of before 1998.

Gwthio'r ffin.... pushing the border....

(apologies for the grammar, this is a quick translation of a posting on my Welsh blog Clecs Cilgwri)

Last year I rememmber one of the night class asking whether the Wirral had ever been a part of Wales. It's a good question, and one I hadn't really considered before then. It depends I suppose on how you define 'Wales' ("When Was Wales" asked Gwyn A Williams in the title of his book), and of course on the history of the torturously twisting border of today, a border confirmed under the Acts of Union between 1536 and 1543.

Anyway, I was reminded of the discussion once again by a picture which appeared in the October edition of the magazine 'Barn'(opinion), one that represents in paint (i think) Owain Glyndŵr's vision of extending his countrys border to include the 'marcher' counties, from the banks of the Mersey in the North to the Severn Estuary in the South, including places like Worcester, and the Wirral. Certainly neither the 'Welsh' nor the Welsh language where confined to the lands to the west of the border (like today!), but the Wirral had been colonised by Vikings from Ireland in the tenth century, and Saxons of course had arrived before that. So at the time of Glyndŵr, it's unlikely that many of the scattered population of Wirral would have felt 'Welsh'. But if Glyndŵr had won his 'argument' who knows, Wirral could have been a part of Wales, and us Wirralians genuine Welsh!?

Noson Cofrestru...enrolment evening

It was great to see so many people turning up to enrol for Level 1 Welsh last night, as well as getting a chance to catch up with those returning to do Level 2.
I think there were around 16 who enrolled for the first year, and there may well be one or two more who turn up on the first night. It's always interesting for me to hear other peoples reasons for wanting to learn Welsh, and this year there seemed to be quite a few with direct Welsh family connections, as well as others who spend a lot of time in Wales for one reason or another.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to finding out more over the coming weeks...

dysgu tra cysgu..... learn while sleeping....

As a learner I've tried many techniques over the years to try and improve my Welsh, one of which was to set our clock radio to Radio Cymru (perhaps more suited to couples learning together!). At saith o'r gloch yn y bore there is no music (good news for many..) and the gentle sounds of 'Post Cyntaf' are sure to wake you up as well as anything. To be honest the fact that the clock radio has still been tuned to Radio Cymru on those occasions when it has, has sort of been accidental, propably a result of me failing to tune it back to Radio 4 after listening to a football match the previous evening. Jill doesn't quite see the need for such dedication! However the effect of a torrent of Welsh disturbing my sleep from time to time did I believe help in some way. In recent years (and this is going to sound equally sad..) I've taken to downloading podlediadau Cymraeg (Welsh podcasts) and occasionally listening to them on my i-pod before going to sleep, which inevitably ends up with me waking up in the middle of the night amongst a tangle of wires.

I don't have any evidence to back up claims that this actually helps, but any familiarisation with the language has got to be helpful, and to do it on the edges of sleep can sort of take the pressure off any expectation that you should be understanding more than you are...

So: dysgu tra cysgu, so long as it's not in the class...

Penblwydd arbennig a special anniversary

on this day, September 16th, in the year 1400 one of Wales' most famous sons was proclaimed Prince of Wales. Owain Glyndŵr, whos name derives from the village of his birth near Llangollen: Glyndyfrdwy, remains a fascinating figure. As the last Welsh born Prince of Wales, Owain remains an important figure symbolically, but he was a man with far reaching visions for his country such as universities in North and South Wales, and an independant church. Interestingly, the borders he was trying to negotiate for Wales included Cheshire, and other border counties, meaning the Wirral could well have ended up as part of modern Wales!

Huw Edwards tells us more:

Paid Edrych i Lawr

Cerys Matthews will create history next month by releasing two albumns similtaneously, One called 'Paid Edrych i Lawr', and one called.... I'm sure you guessed.... yes, 'Don't Look Down'. As you will have realised by now these two records are Welsh and English versions of the same collection of songs, some of which appeared in Welsh only on last years EP release 'Awyren=Aeroplane'. So hopefully before long Radio Cymru will be playing plenty of new Cerys Matthews tracks.... can't be a bad thing!

Release date is Hydref 5ed, though I've pre ordered a Welsh copy (wrth cwrs). You can preview the songs (but only in English) on the same site.

Google translate....

Google have recently added Welsh to their 'translate' tool which is quite something given that only around 50 or so of the worlds languages are there. Cymraeg appears to be the first of the Celtic languages made available.

As I'm sure everyone's aware, translation tools are a mixed blessing and are responsible for many of the disasterous and unintelligable translations that appear on the internet, as well as on 'occasional' signs in Wales. One fine example was of an establishment near Ruthin that translated Brasserie as 'Y Bronglwm', which as you can guess is the Welsh for bra!

However if you're not sure of something it's a useful tool, and obviously translating from Welsh to English you'll spot any results that makes no sense. English to Welsh though is a bit more risky for the learner...

Learn to pronounce LlanfairPG with a catchy ditty....mmm...

This video will drive you mad, but some people say it's helped them learn how to pronounce the name of the famous Welsh village, mae'n ddrwg iawn iawn gen i...

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllarghhhhhh......

noson cofrestru - enrolment evening

S'mae! I hope you're all having a good summer!! After two seperate holidays in different parts of 'Gogledd Cymru', the British seaside holiday has lost its shine somewhat, though we did have one fine afternoon on the beuatiful 'Traeth Tywyn' nr. Tudweiliog, an old favourite of Jills family, and succeeded in 'encouraging' Miriam (12) and 'Layla' (ci) to the top of 'Yr Wyddfa' and 'Cadair Idris', both 'yn yr heulwen'.

This years enrolement evening takes place on Wed 23rd of September at Wirral Grammar School for Girls (advert in last weeks globe). Classes start the following week. Year 1 is on Wednesdays, and year 2 on Tuesdays. If you can't make the enrolement evening you can always call the Language College office to put your name down. I look forward to seeing you there...

Hwyl, Neil