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Re: CHAT: silly names

From:D Tse <exponent@...>
Date:Saturday, March 17, 2001, 9:02
> >The official name consists of the first 20 letters." > > Namely: Llanfairpwllgwyngyll > > Yep - that's what it's normally called in Welsh, when it's not shortened > simply to _Llanfair_. But as there are so very many places called > _Llanfair_ ("Mary church"), one normally has to add a bit extra. > > Llan = church, parish, village (<-- Old Brit. _landa_ ultimately connected > with Germanic _land_ & French _lande_) > Mair = Mary. In a compound noun the second noun undergoes 'soft mutation' > so: llanfair = "Marychurch", "Maryvillage". > > pwll = 'pool' or 'pit'. Here it means 'pool' > gwyn = 'white', and is one of the few adjectives placed before the noun > rather than after it. Such adjectives always cause the following noun to > undergo soft mutation. > > =========================================
... etc Can someone tell me if such agglutinations are meant to be common in Welsh? Imperative

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Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>