#middle welsh

[quidam-sirenae]

working middle welsh vocabulary

Basically, I'm combing through a bunch of sources to try and make a vocab list of middle Welsh words since there's not a comprehensive online one. So let me know if you have sources or better ideas or anything. I started this a half hour ago.

Middle Welsh vocabulary

[llyfrenfys]

Just had the thought when I hit send on my last post - I'm aware 1632 isn't Middle Welsh - I was adding an aside that I wish I was more proficient at MW. 1632 is firmly in the Early Modern period

[wuuthering]

busted! lol

[isabelofwraithmarsh]

An In-Depth Guide To Middle Welsh Orthography

If it begins with a g, check to see if it’s spelled with a k. 

If it begins with a vowel, check to see if it’s spelled with a g. 

If it begins with a d, check to see if it’s spelled with a t. 

If it’s spelled with a “v”, check to see if it’s a “u”. 

If it isn’t spelled with a “u” check to see if it’s spelled with a “w”. 

If it isn’t spelled with a “w”, check to see if it’s spelled with a “m”. 

If it isn’t spelled with a “m”, check to see if it’s spelled with a “b”.

If it isn’t any of them, go to the online Welsh dictionary and pray. 

[feralscribe]

join the Middle Welsh dark side

[svenson777]

In the morning of Saturday there was a great battle, From when the sun rose till when it set. Fflamdwyn marched in four hosts, To wage was against Godeu and Rheged. He came from Argoed to Arfynyd. They were not suffered to remain for that one day. Fflamdwyn of great bluster exclaimed: “Would they give hostages, are they ready?” To him answered Owain, eager for the fray: “They would not give hostages, they are not ready. And Ceneu, son of Coel, would have suffered torture, Stoutly, ere he would cede anyone as hostage.” Urien, Lord of Yrechwyd, exclaimed: “If it must be an encounter for kith and kin, Let us raise our lines above the mountain, And let us hold up our faces above the edge, And let us raise our spears above his men’s heads, And let us attack Fflamdwyn in his hosts, And let us kill both him and his company.” And before Llwyfein Wood there was many a corpse, Ravens were red with the blood of men, And the men who charged the minstrel shall sing, For many a year the song of their victory.

• Gweith Argoet LLwyfein • The Battle of Argoet LLwyfein

A poem by TALIESIN

In: Llyfr Taliesin (Book of Taliesin) 14th century (various texts probably much earlier)

>>

English translation of “Gweith Argoet LLwyfein” by Taliesin, one of Britain’s most ancient poems, originally composed in the early Welsh language dialect of Cumbric then spoken throughout the north of Britain.

Taliesin was a bard (court poet) who is recorded as having lived in the late 6th century. The majority of his surviving works that can be claimed as authentic, are praise poems to a north British king, Urien of Rheged.

The Book of Taliesin (Welsh: Llyfr Taliesin) is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before.

The volume contains some of the oldest poems in Welsh, possibly but not certainly dating back to the sixth century and to a real poet called Taliesin (though these, if genuine, would have been composed in the Cumbric dialect of Brittonic-speaking early medieval north Britain, being adapted to the Welsh dialect of Brittonic in the course of their transmission in Wales).

[isabelofwraithmarsh]

Something I love about Middle Welsh is that, while Old Irish is there like “We ONLY use personal pronouns when ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY - If it’s 1st or 2nd person, it goes INTO the verb” (the modern pronouns that you see: mé, sé, sí, etc. were either not in use or were only used in specific circumstances), Middle Welsh is there like “And then going I made I to the court”, as if it wants you to be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that it’s FIRST PERSON and is going to beat you around the head with it. 

[isabelofwraithmarsh]

A neat Middle Welsh thing: The word “eneit”, which literally means “soul”, is also a word that you can use to describe a friend (also the origin for the modern name “Enid”). 

So, for example: 

“Dioer, eneit,” heb Teirnon, “nyt awn ninheu.”

Could translate out to (if I was going to be absolutely literal):  “God knows, soul,” said Teirnon, “Not going we.” 

Or, more accurately to the context:  “God knows, friend,” said Teirnon, “We are not going.”