Re: USAGE: Question about Welsh.

Ray Brown wrote:

> On Thursday, June 24, 2004, at 11:02 , Joe wrote:
>
>> I'm going to Snowdonia tomorrow.  I hope to be able to excercise some
>> Welsh there, but I have a question:
>
>
> I have a feeling this might reach you too late - tho, of course, north
> Wales is quite civilized & has Internet connexions  :)
>
>> How do you decide whether a <y> is [i] or [@]?
>
>
> That's easy. |y| is normally 'obscure', i.e. [@], except:
> 1. when the final syllable of polysyllabic words;
> 2. normally in words one syllable, also.
>
> The only exceptions to (2) are the words: y(r)(= ['the' - also in certain
> contexts, a preverbal particle], 'yn'/'ym'/'yng' (= "in"), 'fy' (= 'my')
> and in a few borrowed words like 'nyrs' (= 'nurse').
>
> BTW the pronunciation of 'clear' |y| as [i] is south Walian. In the
> north,
>  it and |u| are high _mid_ unrounded vowels (SAMPA [1]).

I had an idea it was something like that.  Thanks.

>
>> And, for that matter,
>> how do you tell if a vowel is long or short(besides the circumflex)?
>
>
> A little more complicate  :)
>
> In words of one syllable, vowels are short:
> (a) when they stand alone in words of just one vowel;

You mean like 'i' and 'o', right?

> (b) when they are followed by -c, -p, -t, -m or -ng (this does not,
> however, apply to -n);
> (c) when they are followed by a cluster of two or more consonants;
> (d) when |a|, |e|, |o|, |w| or |y| (but *not* |i| or |u|) are followed by
> -n, -l or -r and have no circumflex  - with the exceptions of 'hen' (old)
> and 'dyn' (man) where the vowels are long.
>
> In words of one syllable, vowels are long:
> (a) when they occur in unblocked syllables;
> (b) when they are followed by -g, -b, -d, -f, -dd, -ff, -th, -ch or -s.
> (c) |i| and |u| are long before -n -l, or -r - with the exception of
> 'prin'
> (rare, scarce) and a few borrowed words like 'pin' (pin).
> (All other vowels take a circumflex if long before -n, -l, or -r, except
> 'hen' and 'dyn' which I noted above).
>
> In words of more than one syllable:
> - unstressed vowels are always short;
> - vowels in the stressed syllable (penultimate) follow in the main the
> rules for monosyllabic words above, but where monosyllabics have long
> vowels, polysyllabics have medium length vowels, cf.
> ceg [ke:g] = 'mouth'
> cegin ['ke·gIn] = 'kitchen'   [Hope the 'middle dot' doesn't get mangled
> in cyberspace]
>
> Hope this helps & that it reaches Joe in time  :)
>
It has.  Diolch yn fawr!

> Pob hwyl!
>
> Ray
> ===============================================
> http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
> ray.brown@freeuk.com    (home)
> raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk   (work)
> ===============================================
> "A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
> interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760
>
>

Reply