The first step to being able to
look words up in a Welsh-English dictionary is to know the Welsh alphabet. Here
it is: [1]
Letter Welsh English
spelling spelling
A a+ aah
B bi+ bee
C e\c eck
CH e\ch /ex/ ech (gutteral "ch") [2]
D di+ dee
DD e\dd /eth2/ edd ("th" as in "the")
E e+ ay (as in "day" but without being a diphthong)
F e\f ev
FF e\ff eff
G e\g egg
NG e\ng eng [2]
H a+ets high-tsh
I i+ ee
J je+ jay
L e\l el
LL e\ll /ell/ [2]
M e\m em
N e\n en
O o+ oh (without being a diphthong)
P pi+ pee
PH ffi+ phee
R e\r air (trilled)
RH rhi, rho air-hee [2]
S e\s ess
T ti+ tee
TH e\th eth ("th" as in "think")
U u+ /ee/ [2]
W w+ oo
Y y uh
Notice that there are many cases where something that would be two letters
in English is a single digraph in Welsh.
This means, for example, that words beginning with "CH" are not alphabetized
between any words that might begin with "CG" and words beginning with "CI"; they
are alphabetized as a separate letter after all the "C"'s are done. To
complicate matters further, "NG" is not always a single letter; sometimes it
really does mean the letter "N" followed by a "G" (actually, it's pronounced
more like the letter "NG" followed by a "G"), for example in the town "Ban.gor"
(the period is not part of the spelling of the word, but is there to indicate
that the "N" and "G" are separate letters). Likewise, "RH" is sometimes "R"
followed by "H" as in "ar.holiad".
It is helpful in looking words
up in the dictionary that there are many "gotchas" that will frustrate
the learner. Many of the words you will read do not appear in any dictionaries,
for several reasons:
- They could be mutated forms.
See Section
A.6 for back-transforming mutations to give you a list of possible words
to look up.
- Loan words from English tend
not to be in dictionaries.
- Inflected and irregular
forms of verbs (e.g., "tyrd") do not appear.
- Adjectives sometimes have
feminine and plural forms, or change their final consonant when making the equative,
comparative,
or superlative.
- Spoken Welsh (and written
transcription of spoken Welsh) sometimes drops the first syllable of words
and otherwise alters words in a way that makes things difficult for
learners. It took me a long time to figure out what "tawn" meant
(it means "buaswn", which is also not in the dictionary; see point
3).
- Internal vowels often change
if the stress changes in making a different form of the same word (e.g.,
making the plural).
- The letter "h" can
appear and disappear internally with stress shifts.
- Many times, the plural form
of the noun is what is listed in the dictionary. This phenomenon occurs when
the common form of the word is the plural (e.g. "pys" -- peas) and
the singular is formed by adding "-en" or "-yn" to the
plural form.
Even if the word is in the
dictionary, it can be hard to find at times. The digraph
"ng" is alphabetized after "g", for example; likewise with
"ch" after "c" and so on, as mentioned in Section
D.1.
So, here is a step-by-step way
of looking up words in the dictionary. Of course, you stop at the first step
that produces the answer.
- Look up the plain word as
you find it.
- Check all the possible
back-mutations of the word as listed in Section
A.6. Check to see if putting a "g" before the word results in
a word that is in the dictionary. If the word begins with an "h",
check to see if dropping the "h" results in a word in the
dictionary.
- Check to see if the word has
one of the endings found in Section
C.2; if so, your word has the form X.E, where E is the
ending and X is what is left over after the ending has been
removed. Try looking up words of the form X.E', where E'
is an ending used to form a verb-noun
(common values of E' are null, -(i)o, -i, -u;
the complete list is the above plus -(a)el, -ach, -aeth,
-ofain, -fan, -ain, -ad, -ed, -yd,
-eg, -w+yn, -ain, -(i)an, -ial,
-(h)a, -yll, -as, and sach) [Williams80]
using all of the techniques from (1) and (2). Furthermore, if the last vowel
in X is "e" and E is one of -ir, -id,
-ais, -aist, -i, -wch, or -ych,
try substituting "a" for the "e". For example, lleddaist
has X = lledd, E = aist, and the form in
the dictionary is lladd.
- Check to see if the word is
a form of one of the irregular verbs found in Section
C.3.
- While you're at it, the word
may be an adjective or a preposition with an ending. You can check the
endings appropriate for adjectives and prepositions in Section
C.4 and Section
C.5, respectively. Adjectives ending in "g", "d", or
"b" (possibly with another consonant after them, such as
"l" or "r") may have that consonant "hardened"
to "c", "t", or "p", respectively, when adding
an ending. For example, tecach is the comparative of teg
and butred is the equative of budr. There may also be a
vowel change of the final vowel (see (7) below) such as o<-aw or y<-w.
For example, huotlach is the comparative of huawdl,
showing both the hardening and the vowel change.
You can find the irregular prepositions in Section
C.6.
- If the word has the form s.X
where X begins with a consonant like "b", "g",
or "t", chances are, it is missing an initial vowel. Try looking
up (in this order) ys.X, es.X, and as.X. For
example, stafell can be found under ystafell, sgidiau
can be found under esgidiau (actually under esgid, since
it's a plural), and sglodion under asglodion (or asglodyn,
depending on the dictionary). If you still don't find it, it's probably a
loan word from English.
- Many times a word will
undergo a change in the vowel of its next-to-last syllable or penult
if it adds syllables to the end, such as making a plural
(for nouns), conjugating (for verbs) or comparing (for adjectives). A fairly
complete list of changes is: a<-ai, ai<-a, e<-a,
ei<-a, ei<-ai, eu<-au, o<-aw, y<-w.
See Examples of Vowel Shifts below.
- Additionally, some
adjectives have feminine or more rarely plural forms that result in changing
the last vowel. The most common changes are o<-w and e<-y
for feminine forms. Since plural forms add syllables, see case (7) for the
possible vowel shifts. Furthermore, feminine forms of adjectives almost always
occur in a context that undergoes a soft
mutation (exercise for advanced students: think of a context where the
soft mutation won't occur). Thus, drom is the form you're most
likely to see for trwm and lem for llym.
- If the penult
begins with an "h", try dropping the last syllable and either
dropping the "h" or replacing the "h" with the consonant
that immediately precedes it. For example, cynhesach is the
comparative of cynnes, cynhaliaf is a conjugated form of cynnal
and anghenion is the plural of angen.
- Rack your brain to think if
this word (or a back-mutated version of the same) could possibly be a loan
word from English.
- Sometimes (especially on the
WELSH-L list), people transliterate English words into Welsh as in "bei
ddy we+" -- "by the way". So try pronouncing the Welsh
letters and see if some English word pops out the other end.
- Send mail to WELSH-L asking
for help.
- Examples
of Vowel Shifts
-
- gwragedd is the
plural of gwraig
- brain is the plural
of bran
- ffermydd is the
plural of ffarm
- beirdd is the
plural of bardd
- breintiau is the
plural of braint
- euraidd is the
adjectival form of aur
- brodyr is the
plural of brawd
- cyrsiau is the
plural of cwrs
It is not uncommon to have two
changes:
- bechgyn is the
plural of bachgen
- cerrig is the
plural of carreg
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