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Re: Lico, leicio, licio, hoffi, coffi. Was: Okay, so it *didn't* work

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Tuesday, January 8, 2002, 3:35
----- Original Message -----
From: Elliott Lash <AL260@...>

> I guess I never encountered that dialect. I've been looking at General
Northern and General Southern, since that's what my book (an exellent huge book: Reference Grammar of Welsh), looks at. A fine source indeed!
> The book goes into dialectal forms, and disregards totally the
prescriptivist traditionalism of the Welsh that is taught in schools. The table for the present of the verb Bod therefore, is HUGE, since it shows dialectal variation as well as interogative etc. forms (and of course no stupid "yr wyf i" lol)
> > > > But Welsh also retains the original Celtic word: Hoffi "to like", for
use
> > in some circumstances. > > > > And I remember the Welsh of Swansea sneering at it as a > > northern convention, and a "rhyme" all the traditional school > > books use: Yr wyf i'n hoffi coffi! "I like coffee! Ha ha ha ha!" > > > I'd say "dw i'n hoffi coffi" (lol) at least if I said that at all.
I've also heard "Rydw i'n hoffi coffi" -- as you say, HUGE table for dialectical variations on Bod.
>You're probably right that it's not much used, but I'm sure the Reference
Grammar said somewhere that there's a specific
> construction where Hoffi is needed. oh well.
Well, there probably is, Elliot. My friends and teachers scoffed at the particular expression "yn hoffi coffi," mostly because of the stupid, and very prevalent "Teach Yourself Welsh" book that some of us newbies fell into using until we were educated. There the "correct" (and completely stiff and old-fashioned) form was insisted upon: "Yr wyf-i yn hoffi coffi," pronounced, so they told us, "ruin hoffee coffee," was offered as the educated way to speak and write Welsh. And it probably is. But the Swansea Wlpan was intent on keeping us "cool." And away from the Gogs. <LOL> That was a difficult year: I was starting my dissertation on the cynfeirdd, learning and speaking Wlpan Swansea Welsh, translating Middle Welsh, and reading learned contemporary Welsh. Ye gods. I wish I had had the same training in Irish. I'd like to go back and do it if only I had the time. And you forget it if you don't use it. Speak, Speak, Speak! Pedo pedo pedo! janef, janef, janef, janef!! Habla habla habla blah blah blah. Do you think blah blah blah comes from "habla"? I ought to know that. Sal gal : >