Re: CHAT: silly names

At 10:05 am -0800 16/3/01, Frank George Valoczy wrote:
>> >
>> >But then, there's Wales...how the hell does that one go? All I can
>> >remember is Llanfairpwll...gogogoch, I can't remember the middle.
>>
>> Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
>
>Oh yeah I had forgotten about the 4 l's in a row... =)
Yep - but {ll} counts as a single letter in Welsh (as also in Spanish, tho
the sound is different), so it's only two letters  ;)

>> Usually written _LlanfairPG_ & pronounced /KanvaIrpidzi/ with fairly even
>> stress on all four syllables.
>>
>
>How the devil did they get that pronunciation? In my language it'll be
>/taunwifbladelangne:m/ =)
I'm using SAMPA convention, so /K/ is the voiceless velar fricative,
spelled {ll} in Welsh.  Herman Miller IIRC suggested that /$/ would be
better symbol as it looks a bit like a mix of /S/ and /l/ and I agree;
certainly the sound is very much like saying /S/ and /l/ at the same time.
I remember when I lived in Wales someone telling me that Welsh _pwll_ (pit)
was like saying 'pull' & 'push' at the same time!

So _llanfair_ = /$anvair/ since {f} is /v/ in Welsh spelling.

Then PG are just given their names, i.e. /pidZi/, hence /$anvaIrpidZi/.
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At 8:52 pm +1100 16/3/01, D Tse wrote:
[snip]
>
>This book also cites a name for a railway station near Barmouth, Gwynedd:
>
>Gorsafawddachaidraigddanheddogleddollonpenrhynareurdraethceredigion of 67
>letters but emphasises that this was a commercially motivated creation to be
>placed on a station board.
True, and IIRC a fairly modern invention, to entice tourists, for the
station on the Fairbourne narrow-gauge railway at its terminus on the
opposite side of the Mawddach estuary from Barmouth.

But there seems to be a  the name.  The last bit must surely be:
Penrhyndeudraeth, Ceredigion

Penrhyndeudraeth ('headland [with] two beaches [sand - not trees!]) is a
place name and Ceredigion (once called 'Cardigan' in English) is the name
of the county.  This distinguishes it from the more well known
Penrhyndeudraeth further north in Gwynedd.

_gorsaf_ or, colloquially, _gorsa_ = station; and Fawddach is the soft
mutated form of Mawddach, the name of the river.  Thus _Gorsafawddach_ =
Mawddach station - which, I assume, was the original name.

To this seems to have been added: â'i draig ddanheddog = with its jagged
dragon.
(â'i chraig ddanheddog 'with its jagged rock' - might seem more likely; but
I doubt that _d_ has appeared as a typo for _ch_ and, I guess, if we're
attracting tourists, dragons have a greater appeal than rocks.)

But the next bit puzzles me.  _leddollon_ I can figure out. I'm wondering
if, in fact, we don't have earlier: â'i draig ddannedd ogledd... with its
dragons teeth, north....

_ogledd_ is the soft mutation of _gogledd_ = north (tho quite why its used
here is not clear to me); but that still leaves _ddollon_ unexplained.

>It also states that Llanfairpwll...gogogoch was a name "used for the
>reopened village railway station in Anglesey, Gwynedd ... was coined by a
>local bard as a hoax.
Whether it was a local bard or not, I'm not sure.  But there can be no
doubt that it was deliberately coined by the Great Western Railway as they
pushed into north Wales in the 19th century in order to help the tourist
trade!

>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.

gyll <-- cyll = hazels (singular: collen).

Therefore: "The white hazels pool Mary-church" (not one of the other
Mary-churches).

As for the GWR additions:
  go     ger   y  chwyrn drobwll
somewhat near the rapid  whirlpool

Tysilio - is the name of an early Welsh saint.  This time, however, it does
not make a compound noun with the preceeding _llan_ but stands in the
genitive relationship.  This is expressed quite simply in Welsh, e.g. llyfr
Siân = Sian's book; thus _lllan Tysilio_ = Tysilio's church.

The comes the final, almost notorious, gogo goch.
_gogo_ is a colloquial form of a north Walian dialect _gogof_ for standard
Welsh _ogof_ = cave. It's feminine, so _coch_ (red) becomes _goch_.

Thus, in case the 'white hazels pool' wasn't clear enough to distinguish
this LLanfair from all the others, the GWR thoughtfully added, with an eye
to the tourists:
fairly near the rapid whirlpool of red cave St. Tysilio's church [mustn't
get the wrong St. Tysilio's church!]

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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