Re: USAGE: Pronouncing Welsh

John Cowan wrote:
>
> Off-topic for conlang, but this is where the experts I know are:
>
> I'm currently engaged in reading the entire Brother Cadfael series
> out loud. Should the Welsh place and personal names and occasional
> legal terms like "dadanhudd" and "galanas" be pronounced in Modern Welsh
> fashion, or as mediaeval Welsh?  And if the latter, where can I
> find a guide to same?
There's not that much difference in pronunciation... only spelling.  The
Middle Welsh spellings tended to give a little less information, and to
show an uncertainty (or a different concept) of where a word ended and
the new mutated word began, e.g.  vyg kalon   instead of fy nghalon.
But
as far as I know, these were pronounced almost exactly the same.  It's
grammar, sentence order, and vocabulary that has largely changed with
middle Welsh, as well as a phonetic alphabet (f for the /v/ sound, ff
for
the /f/ sound; likewise with d and dd /D/ etc.  But for a good lowdown
on phonology, I still recommend the old and true _Grammar of Middle
Welsh_
by  D. Simon Evans.  Dense, but compact, and published by the Dublin
Institute of Advanced Studies.  Shouldn't at all be hard to get; Pat
Ford, at Harvard, runs a Celtic book distributor called Ford and Bailie
and
academics routinely order from him.  Don't have the address and phone
number at hand... that's at school.  But you should be able to get this
in any good library.

Hope this helps.
Sally

Post script:  dadanhudd is, in modern Welsh, dadannudd, presumably with
penultimate stress as usual:  /da'daniD/.  A "claim" to property.  I
think the author is giving you the archaic spelling, which differs
little
from the modern.  Galanas is in the Geiriadur Mawr (modern)
just as you spell it. Compensation for murder.  The best dictionary is
of course the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru which I think is still
unfinished.
That's an expensive brat, but it will give you more information about
a word and it has a short concordance for each of item going back as
far as the 13th century.






> --
> John Cowan                                      cowan@ccil.org
>                 e'osai ko sarji la lojban.