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

----- 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 : >