A fun thing that me and my fellow queer pal at work like to do is point at bits of fruit unexpectedly and say “that’s you.” Currently she’s winning because there was an Actual Lemon Tree in the props department and she went “Oh look, that’s you over there!” so sincerely that for a moment I was like… fuck, is it me over there?

What are your fav Welsh words?

Short answer: môr (sea) is my favourite!

Long answer:

Plus there’s a very lovely folk song called Ar Lan Y Môr (By the Sea) which you should listen to!

disgustinganimals:

pigeonaday:

Pigeon 215

Cleanse yourself of your sins.

australian of welsh descent from new south wales here, until I saw your post just now I never knew that Eisteddfods were a welsh thing! I just thought that was what performance contests were called! I'm happy to learn this, thank you!

They are indeed Welsh in origin! ‘Eistedd’ is ‘to sit’ in Welsh, and ‘fod’ is a conjugation of ‘bod’, which is ‘to be’, so Eisteddfod most likely means ‘to be sitting together’ / ‘to come and sit together’. The two biggest ones we have are the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol (the National Eisteddfod), which takes place over 8 days and is held entirely in the Welsh language, and the Eisteddfod yr Urdd (the Youth Eisteddfod), where schools across the country compete and there are also competitions for Welsh learners. Both are televised on S4C these days.

The most important part of an eisteddfod here is the ceremony Cadeirio’r Bardd (the chairing of the Bard.) Honestly I’d need a whole separate post just to explain this, but in a nutshell, you write a poem called an awdl, which is written in strict cynghanedd, a Welsh poetic form which, again, I’d need to do a whole post to explain, under a pen name. At the chairing ceremony, they’ll announce the pen name of the winner, who’ll then stand up, go up on stage, and be presented with a very fancy specially carved chair, which is made specially every year for the ceremony. There’s a whole load of ceremonial stuff to accompany it, too; you can watch one of them on YouTube, if you’re so inclined. This person is now the bard, and although the most prestigious of these bards is obviously the one who wins at the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, schools who hold eisteddfodau will chair a bard, too.

The Eisteddfod Genedlaethol also has a ceremony called Coroni’r Bardd (the crowning of the Bard) which is similar to the Cadeirio’r Bardd, except the poems are in free verse and the winner gets a crown, not a chair; in theory you can win both the chair and the crown, but I think it’s only happened a couple of times. Most smaller eisteddfodau will often amalgamate the two ceremonies into one poetry competition, usually the chairing of the bard.

And yes. Yes, you are looking at a twice-chaired bard, years 2010 and 2003. Just sayin’. (I did not write in cynghanedd because both my schools held English medium eisteddfodau, but I did write in iambic pentameter, so I like to think that counts. My pen name was Gwenhwyfar. Let it never be said that I am not immensely pretentious.)

If anyone wants to know more about cynghanedd or indeed about famous eisteddfodau, like the year when all the poems were crap and they refused to chair a bard, or the famous Gadair Ddu of Hedd Wyn, then do let me know!

(And if, if, I was once on television, coming third place in the group poetry recitation for Welsh learners at the Eisteddfod yr Urdd with a truly scorching performance of a poem about the failed referendum of 1979, in which my whole group wore black to symbolise the lost chance for independence… you’ll never know.)

i just saw 2 consecutive posts about welsh on my dash by you so i'm hoping you can answer this question - what's the state of gender neutral pronouns in welsh? are there any gaining popularity you know of?

HOO BOY, I’m so glad you asked, because the answer is super duper interesting!

So, to answer this, I just need to give you some context super quickly. Welsh doesn’t use pronouns in quite the same way as English. In English, ‘his’, ‘her’ and ‘their’ (and then any neopronouns) are the way we would differentiate the gender of the person being talked about, e.g. we’d say ‘her cat’, ‘his cat’, ‘their cat’, and that’s it. The pronoun does all the heavy lifting.

Welsh, however, uses the same possessive pronoun for ‘his’ and 'her’, which is 'ei’, and then differentiates whether it’s 'his’ or 'her’ by the mutation that follows. I have a bit about mutations here, but in a nutshell, depending on the context and the word itself, the first letter of a word can change, either in order to clarify the function of the word, to make it easier to say, or just for lols (it’s more complex than that but we dont have the time or space to do a deep dive!) Possessive pronouns are one of the things that will trigger a mutation.

Generally speaking, mutation can either be soft, aspirate, or nasal. In the case of ‘ei’, which, remember, isn’t a specifically gendered pronoun in and of itself, the masculine form will trigger a soft mutation, and the feminine form will trigger an aspirate mutation.

For example:

Cath = a cat

Ei gath = his cat (soft mutation). Can also be written as ‘ei gath e’, as ‘e’ is the masculine subject pronoun (or ‘o’ in North Walian Welsh, because it’s a thriving and bustling language.)

Ei chath = her cat (aspirate mutation). Can also be written as ‘ei chath hi’, as ‘hi’ is the feminine subject pronoun.

So, that’s an example of a soft and an aspirate mutation, triggered by ‘his’ and ‘her’, which serves to differentiate the gender of the subject.

The other kind of mutation found in Welsh is nasal. This doesn’t usually come into play with third person possessive pronouns, but it does show up with first person possessive pronouns:

Fy nghath = my cat (aspirate mutation). Can also be written as ‘fy nghath i’ as ‘i’ is the first person subject pronoun.

So, with that in mind, there are a number of cool things that you can do in Welsh, focusing on the mutation triggered by the pronoun as well as the actual pronouns themselves, to create a gender neutral pronoun:

1. Some will make a gender neutral third person possessive pronoun by applying a nasal mutation, and then an optional gender neutral neopronoun. By that, I mean that you would never usually see ‘ei nghath’, because ‘ei’ doesn’t trigger a nasal mutation in the case of his/her, but in this case:
   Ei nghath = their / xyr cat
   I know a couple of people who use this construction themselves, so I’m not just talking out of my bum here, but equally I’ve seen a couple of rants from Welsh speakers about how it completely destroys the fabric of the language, so I don’t know how widespread this one is. No language is free of prescriptivism, alas.
2. Some will choose to use no mutation at all:
   Ei cath = their / xyr cat
   A helpful bit of context for this one: the plural version of ‘their cat’ would be ‘eu cath’ or ‘eu cath nhw’, with no mutation, as ‘eu’ doesn’t trigger one. ‘Eu’ and ‘ei’ are pronounced pretty much identically, so this unmutated singular ‘ei’ sounds more fluid to some Welsh speakers, although the commensurate downside is that it can get trickier in context because of the fact that ‘ei cath’ and ‘eu cath’ sound the same.
3. Some will do one of the above, and then follow it with a gender neutral neopronoun. ‘ŵ’ and ‘hw’ are the two I’ve seen used most often, but there are a few floating around:
   Ei nghath ŵ / ei cath ŵ
   Ei nghath hw / ei cath hw

I hope that makes some semblance of sense! Mutations are a tricky thing to explain.

teashoesandhair:

merchymynydd:

Every time this bloomin’ video crops up (which is, strangely, frequent at the moment, obviously Tumblr is trying to learn me sumthin’) it reminds me how much of a trip languages are.

How just the slight variation in pronunciation can tell you where someone lives or was raised.

Accents.

What a blast.

And I know in media the Welsh get to be the one dimensional comic relief with a broad general accent (that usually heavily relies on the suggestion that the Welsh are not intelligent) but the variety of accents and dialects in the Welsh language is magic to me.

Like, this is a language that predates most European languages, old old old, which suggests stagnant, rigid, out of touch. But its so lively, and its so full of variety that having a conversation with someone from two towns over can be like speaking to somone from another country.

I went on a hen weekend with some girls from another area and honestly, we needed subtitles for each other.

Straight off the bat with “gwlad” in this video, sounds so different to me.

Same for môr and pêl and meysydd and llyfr. And yes maybe some of that is down to the speaker being second language but isn’t that also fun? Like having to work through your first language accent into another language like whaaaat?

teashoesandhair:

I DID MY BEST please forgive me for having to work out Ceinewydd on the fly!!

And yes I know having regional accents and dialects is the same for all languages, but just let me with my little Welsh accent fanclub right now.

I love this addition, not least because you are so lovely about me being second language, but also because it’s so interesting! I love how different the various Welsh accents can be; I’m a big fan of the very very North Walian ones.

angiethewitch:

teashoesandhair:

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

teashoesandhair:

henrywasnthereaskanyone:

teashoesandhair:

luritto:

teashoesandhair:

HELLO EVERYONE today is St David’s Day and that’s just SO RAD because Wales is the BEST PLACE ON EARTH and therefore you are all Welsh now, just for today. I don’t make the rules.

I think I’m legally excluded from being Welsh on account of being English

NOT TODAY

You gotta watch out for the Welsh. They shag sheep.

You’re about as funny as a polyp in the nostril, and half as pleasant. If I had a mere penny for every time I’ve seen someone tell that highly original joke, I’d have a sack of coins heavy enough to wallop you into the sun, where, for one glorious, shining moment, you’d actually be quite bright. I’ve seen more original witticisms from spambots advertising sunglasses, and I’d much rather converse with one of them; I feel like it would be vastly more stimulating on both an emotional and intellectual level. Frankly I’d rather be stuck in a broken lift with three sacks of manure, a record player which only plays The Wheels on the Bus on repeat, and the vengeful spirit of Ted Bundy than someone who thinks that ‘hurhurhur the Welsh shag sheep!’ is the peak of comedy in the Year of Our Lord 2021, but there you go. We can’t all be funny.

They literally did not even phrase it in a funny way. Like… how fucking clunky is “You gotta watch out for the Welsh. They shag sheep.” just… Imagine thinking that was going to be a killer joke.

Right? Like, “hahaha sheep shagging” is just objectively a bad, unoriginal joke, but even with that caveat, so much of comedy is in the timing! The phrasing! The pay-off! They could have raised a reluctant chuckle, perhaps an ironic little smirk, had they only had any natural sense of comedy; subverted the stale format, or even just taken a more obvious road into the punchline, rather than going the long way round and stopping at the petrol station on the way. Alas, ‘twas not to be.

@henrywasnthereaskanyone English people have like 2 jokes and think everyone is splitting their sides whenever they tell them. embarrassing behaviour

English folk are like “hey, the Welsh shag sheep and the Scottish only eat haggis, hahahahaha!” and then whinge about ‘anti-English prejudice’ and ‘respecting the union’ when people from those countries campaign for independence.

australian of welsh descent from new south wales here, until I saw your post just now I never knew that Eisteddfods were a welsh thing! I just thought that was what performance contests were called! I'm happy to learn this, thank you!

They are indeed Welsh in origin! ‘Eistedd’ is ‘to sit’ in Welsh, and ‘fod’ is a conjugation of ‘bod’, which is ‘to be’, so Eisteddfod most likely means ‘to be sitting together’ / ‘to come and sit together’. The two biggest ones we have are the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol (the National Eisteddfod), which takes place over 8 days and is held entirely in the Welsh language, and the Eisteddfod yr Urdd (the Youth Eisteddfod), where schools across the country compete and there are also competitions for Welsh learners. Both are televised on S4C these days.

The most important part of an eisteddfod here is the ceremony Cadeirio’r Bardd (the chairing of the Bard.) Honestly I’d need a whole separate post just to explain this, but in a nutshell, you write a poem called an awdl, which is written in strict cynghanedd, a Welsh poetic form which, again, I’d need to do a whole post to explain, under a pen name. At the chairing ceremony, they’ll announce the pen name of the winner, who’ll then stand up, go up on stage, and be presented with a very fancy specially carved chair, which is made specially every year for the ceremony. There’s a whole load of ceremonial stuff to accompany it, too; you can watch one of them on YouTube, if you’re so inclined. This person is now the bard, and although the most prestigious of these bards is obviously the one who wins at the Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, schools who hold eisteddfodau will chair a bard, too.

The Eisteddfod Genedlaethol also has a ceremony called Coroni’r Bardd (the crowning of the Bard) which is similar to the Cadeirio’r Bardd, except the poems are in free verse and the winner gets a crown, not a chair; in theory you can win both the chair and the crown, but I think it’s only happened a couple of times. Most smaller eisteddfodau will often amalgamate the two ceremonies into one poetry competition, usually the chairing of the bard.

And yes. Yes, you are looking at a twice-chaired bard, years 2010 and 2003. Just sayin’. (I did not write in cynghanedd because both my schools held English medium eisteddfodau, but I did write in iambic pentameter, so I like to think that counts. My pen name was Gwenhwyfar. Let it never be said that I am not immensely pretentious.)

If anyone wants to know more about cynghanedd or indeed about famous eisteddfodau, like the year when all the poems were crap and they refused to chair a bard, or the famous Gadair Ddu of Hedd Wyn, then do let me know!

(And if, if, I was once on television, coming third place in the group poetry recitation for Welsh learners at the Eisteddfod yr Urdd with a truly scorching performance of a poem about the failed referendum of 1979, in which my whole group wore black to symbolise the lost chance for independence… you’ll never know.)

what's st david's day? wikipedia says women wear traditional welsh dresses on this day, are you wearing a pretty dress? is this like, welsh independence day?

WE WISH! There isn’t a Welsh Independence Day because we’re not independent, alas. St David’s Day is the feast day of our patron saint, who is, unsurprisingly, St David.

In non-Covid times, we celebrate it by eating Welsh food, having fancy parades and cultural events, and schools will usually have an eisteddfod (a sort of day-long competition of poetry, art, music, dance, and sometimes school subjects like Maths and Science.) It’s not a bank holiday, even though something like 90% of Wales supports it being one and the Senedd voted unanimously for it. Westminster said ‘no lol’, but some schools opt to give pupils a half day.

And yes, some people do decide to dress like this:

but honestly, only schoolkids and people who are taking part in any sort of cultural event on the day. You (probably) wouldn’t just rock up to the office wearing it. And neither would most women before about the 1800s, because it’s a fairly recent little costume, as far as national dress goes.

We do tend to go a bit mad on St David’s Day, but in our defence, England has historically celebrated it quite differently, with Samuel Pepys writing in his diary on March 1st 1667:

[…] in the streets, in Mark Lane, I do observe, it being St. David’s day, the picture of a man dressed like a Welchman [sic], hanging by the neck upon one of the poles that stand out at the top of one of the merchants’ houses, in full proportion, and very handsomely done; which is one of the oddest sights I have seen a good while, for it was so like a man that one would have thought it was indeed a man.

So, while that’s one of the traditions that I think we can all agree is best consigned to the past, I think a lot of people view St David’s Day as a bit of a FUCK YOU to Westminster and anti-Welsh sentiment in general.

May I ask what your accent is? Because ofc your bio says you're living in Wales and you're Welsh and you're talking about Welsh things but your accent sounds English to me. Am I mistaken or...?

You are not mistaken! Despite having been born here and having lived here for 28 years, I do indeed speak like a Victorian school ma’am from Bath. My maternal grandparents are from London and Portsmouth, so I assume I’ve picked up their accent along the way!

Yo I'm just gonna call you Anwen Tân bc that was a burn

Brb changing my name by deed poll

English people: haha Welsh place names are so funny, what even is Ynysybwl? Can anyone even pronounce Llanbradach? What the hell is Aberystwyth?

Also English people: I live in Worcestershire but I was born in Slough and used to work In Frome and on weekends I visit my parents and we take a walk through Nutcombe Bottom

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

teashoesandhair:

henrywasnthereaskanyone:

teashoesandhair:

luritto:

teashoesandhair:

HELLO EVERYONE today is St David’s Day and that’s just SO RAD because Wales is the BEST PLACE ON EARTH and therefore you are all Welsh now, just for today. I don’t make the rules.

I think I’m legally excluded from being Welsh on account of being English

NOT TODAY

You gotta watch out for the Welsh. They shag sheep.

You’re about as funny as a polyp in the nostril, and half as pleasant. If I had a mere penny for every time I’ve seen someone tell that highly original joke, I’d have a sack of coins heavy enough to wallop you into the sun, where, for one glorious, shining moment, you’d actually be quite bright. I’ve seen more original witticisms from spambots advertising sunglasses, and I’d much rather converse with one of them; I feel like it would be vastly more stimulating on both an emotional and intellectual level. Frankly I’d rather be stuck in a broken lift with three sacks of manure, a record player which only plays The Wheels on the Bus on repeat, and the vengeful spirit of Ted Bundy than someone who thinks that ‘hurhurhur the Welsh shag sheep!’ is the peak of comedy in the Year of Our Lord 2021, but there you go. We can’t all be funny.

They literally did not even phrase it in a funny way. Like… how fucking clunky is “You gotta watch out for the Welsh. They shag sheep.” just… Imagine thinking that was going to be a killer joke.

Right? Like, “hahaha sheep shagging” is just objectively a bad, unoriginal joke, but even with that caveat, so much of comedy is in the timing! The phrasing! The pay-off! They could have raised a reluctant chuckle, perhaps an ironic little smirk, had they only had any natural sense of comedy; subverted the stale format, or even just taken a more obvious road into the punchline, rather than going the long way round and stopping at the petrol station on the way. Alas, ‘twas not to be.

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

5hit-5torm:

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

5hit-5torm:

teashoesandhair:

teashoesandhair:

This is a ghost slug, a relatively uncommonly seen new species of slug first discovered in Brecon in 2004, categorised as a new species in 2008 in Cardiff, and still mostly observed in South Wales with very few exceptions. It is believed to have been introduced from Crimea, possibly in an errant plant pot. It breathes through a hole near its arse. It is a predatory slug with no eyes and it kills earthworms in the dead of night and slurps them through its razor sharp teeth like linguini and it can suck its own head inside out for flexibility. Happy Thursday.

In honour of St David’s Day, please enjoy the ghost slug. Its scientific name is selenochlamys ysbryda, with ysbryda coming from ‘ysbryd’, which is ‘ghost’ in Welsh. I personally think it should probably be our mascot.

This is what inspired me to make welsh pokemon. It was the first one I ever drew. Mainly because slugs creep me out so I didn’t want to look at any pictures of them again.

I absolutely INSIST you show me the Pokemon

😂

This is MAGNIFICENT

Absolutely the best possible addition to this post. Diolch o galon.

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

Yes, the jellyfish is real

No, we can’t stop naming butterflies

Ah, the good ol’ cont y môr. No idea why people go bananas over ‘pysgod wibli wobli’ when the alternative is so much better.

How do you pronounce hiraeth?

Imagine being able to do a nice little post about Welsh stuff without even one fucko being like ‘hahahaha you shag sheep’… imagine

henrywasnthereaskanyone:

teashoesandhair:

luritto:

teashoesandhair:

HELLO EVERYONE today is St David’s Day and that’s just SO RAD because Wales is the BEST PLACE ON EARTH and therefore you are all Welsh now, just for today. I don’t make the rules.

I think I’m legally excluded from being Welsh on account of being English

NOT TODAY

You gotta watch out for the Welsh. They shag sheep.

You’re about as funny as a polyp in the nostril, and half as pleasant. If I had a mere penny for every time I’ve seen someone tell that highly original joke, I’d have a sack of coins heavy enough to wallop you into the sun, where, for one glorious, shining moment, you’d actually be quite bright. I’ve seen more original witticisms from spambots advertising sunglasses, and I’d much rather converse with one of them; I feel like it would be vastly more stimulating on both an emotional and intellectual level. Frankly I’d rather be stuck in a broken lift with three sacks of manure, a record player which only plays The Wheels on the Bus on repeat, and the vengeful spirit of Ted Bundy than someone who thinks that ‘hurhurhur the Welsh shag sheep!’ is the peak of comedy in the Year of Our Lord 2021, but there you go. We can’t all be funny.