#welsh grammar

[vielsprachig]

Arrived today. 😊

[welsh-n-stuff]

                                             Present Tense

• There is only one present tense in Welsh. E.g. I play/am playing/do play are all conjugated as shown below • Present tense is conjugated in “long form” = bod (conj.) + subj. + yn/’n + verbnoun • The focus of this and all my grammar posts is spoken (particularly southern) Welsh • Conjugations in brackets are most likely to be encountered in formal writing

Word order = bod (conj.) + subject + yn/’n + verbnoun                     e.g. Dw + i + ‘n + cysgu = dwi’n cysgu                            This can mean “I sleep”, “I am sleeping” and “I do sleep”

Affirmative - Someone/thing does/is

I am/do                                (ry)dw i*                       You are/do (inf.)                   (rwyt) ti You are/do (pol.)                  (ry)dych chi* He/she/Tom is/does             mae (f)e/hi/Tom The sing. noun is/does        mae’r sing. noun (e.g. plentyn) We are/do                           (ry)dyn ni* You are/do (pl.)                   (ry)dych chi*                  They are/do                         maen nhw The pl. noun are/do             mae’r pl. noun (e.g. plant)

* May also be heard with “d” omitted (where y becomes ŷ) in speech: e.g. wi/ŷch   chi/ŷn ni

Examples - Bethan is singing = Mae Bethan yn canu                    The child stands = Mae’r plentyn yn sefyll                    We wait =  Ŷn ni’n aros

Negative - Someone/thing doesn’t/isn’t

I am not/don’t                              (dy)dw i ddim*                       You aren’t/don’t (inf.)                   (dwyt) ti ddim You aren’t/don’t (pol.)                  (dy)dych chi ddim* He/she isn’t/doesn’t*                   (dydy)/dyw (f)e/hi ddim The sing. noun isn’t/doesn’t        (dydy)/dyw’r sing. noun ddim We aren’t/don’t                            (dy)dyn ni ddim* You aren’t/don’t (pl.)                    (dy)dych chi ddim*                 They aren’t/don’t                          (dy)dyn nhw ddim* The pl. noun aren’t/don’t              (dydy)/dyw’r pl. noun ddim

Examples - I don’t sit = Dw i ddim yn eistedd                    She doesn’t go = Dydy/Dyw hi ddim yn mynd                    The child isn’t running = Dyw’r plentyn ddim yn rhedeg

Interrogative - Are/Does...?                                       (No)/Yes

Am/do I                                    (y)dw i?                       (nac) wyt(inf.)/ydych(pol.) Are/do you (inf.)                       wyt ti?                         (nac) ydw Are/do you (pol.)                      (y)dych chi?*               (nac) ydw Is/does he/she                         (y)dy (f)e/hi?**             (nac) ydy                         Is/does the sing. noun             (y)dy’r sing. noun?**    (nac) ydy Is/do we                                   (y)dyn ni?*                   (nac) ydyn/ydych     Are/do you (pl.)                        (y)dych chi?*               (nac) ydyn Are/do they                              (y)dyn nhw?*               (nac) ydyn Are/do the pl. noun                  (y)dy’r pl. noun?**       (nac) ydyn

**”yw” instead of “(y)dy” is also heard in speech

Examples - Are you ready? = Wyt ti’n barod?                    No, I’m not = Nac ydw                     Am I doing it well? = Ydw i’n ei gwneud e’n dda?

Note: - “Nac ydw” is often shortened to “nagw” in speech and all ‘no’ forms can             also just be said “na”          - The ‘(No)/Yes’ column gives the reply to the question to its left. So “(nac)            wyt” means “(No) you are/do(n’t). It doesn’t mean “I am/do(n’t)”.

Is there/there is mae - there is/are           e.g. mae llawer o bobl                  mae rhaid i fi/mi fynd  oes? - is/are there?            e.g. oes llawer o bobl?                   oes rhaid i ti fynd? nag/nac oes - no [there isn’t/aren’t]                        e.g. nag oes, does dim llawer o bobl                               nac oes, does dim rhaid i fi/mi fynd does dim (or “sdim”) - there isn’t/aren’t                                     e.g. does dim gyda ni plant OR does dim plant gyda ni                                                  

[coto524]

bore da! Me again. Is there a trick to remembering soft mutations? I asked my mum who grew up in Colwyn Bay but she only ever responds by saying this rhyme really fast that I /assume/ is the names of letters in Welsh but refuses to explain further. Mae'n ddrwg gen i

it’ll sound a bit trite if i say that the letters become softer, but that is basically what’s happening. here’s a more detailed breakdown:

p, t and c all become voiced - i.e. b, d and g. which is easy enough. so mutated you should be able to feel your vocal cords vibrating when you say the letter if you have your fingers on your throat. also note that they become the next set of letters in a mutations table

with the rest the trick is that your lips/teeth/tongue are making less contact than for the unmutated letter. so b becomes f because the lips still touch, but not quite as much - similar thing with d and dd. g disappearing is a little odd but it’s the same deal

and then again with m becoming f (because like b, the lips don’t touch as much), and for the last two it’s easy to see how the sound becomes simpler: ll becomes l and rh becomes r.

so, to demonstrate with some feminine nouns:

pêl - y bêltref - y drefcath - y gathbrenhines - y frenhinesdafad - y ddafadgardd - yr ardd*

merch - y ferchllaeth - potel o laeth**rhaglen - lot o raglenni**

* notice how you have to switch from y to yr when the g disappears.** ll and rh are weird bc nouns beginning with them don’t mutate after the article - but they do in other contexts, e.g. after prepositions. adjectives behave as normal

[mi-danartha]

Mutations in Welsh! (Part 1)

I’m bored waiting for my challah to rise, so why not make a grammar post!  One of the things that messes me up sometimes when I work on Welsh (or any Celtic language really) is the mutation system, and I know a lot of other people have issues with it too, so I thought I may as well make a post about it!

I decided to make this a part 1 as this was getting pretty long- part 2 will be about the rules of the SM and the words that cause it.

  More under the cut!

For those of you who are new to Celtic languages, mutations are a grammatical phenomenon where the (usually first) consonant of a word changes either because of the word before it or because it serves some kind of function in the structure of the sentence.

There are three common forms of mutations in Welsh, the Soft Mutation (SM), the Nasal Mutation (NM) and the Aspirite Mutation (AM).  The SM is by far the most common of all these, and would be the one you would want to learn first.  An important thing to remember is that not all consonants can mutate, and once it has been mutated, it can’t be mutated again.

The original, non-mutated form of a consonant is called the radical.  The mutations chart is shown below:

[aeolianblues]

Tumblr is unfortunately becoming something of a Welsh notebook for me in that I seldom take notes but I come and talk about whatever I'm learning here... so be it.

I'm just pasting this link here for now, I'll summarise it a little later when I have the time but it's about the usage of the negative particle "nid" and how present-day spoken forms of negation in Welsh kinda come from it (eg. nid ydyw e ... -> dydy e/o ... (N) or dyw e ... (S), so we kinda stole the 'd', dropped the rest of nid and ran with it. Interesting.)

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/52309683

For now though, another 14 kids' assignments have to be checked by tonight, and some of their code is not being very nice to me