0886e Gwefan Cymru-Catalonia (Wales-Catalonia Website). Welsh Course. The formation of the plural noun in Welsh - in this first part we look at the use of -au and -iau. peth = thing, pethau = things; llanc = lad, llanciau = lads. The usual colloquial pronunciation of -au is 'e'. A famous example is a bookshop in Aberystwyth called 'Siop y Pethe'.

http://www.theuniversityofjoandeserrallonga.com/kimro/amryw/1_cwrs/cwrs_0021_ENG_enwau_lluosog_au_iau_0886e.htm

 

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The plural of nouns in Welsh (-au, -iau)


(delw 4666)

 

1273e “An Elementary Welsh Grammar” by John Morris-Jones (1864-1929), professor of Welsh at Coleg y Brifysgol (University College), Bangor. Published in 1921 (when he was aged 56 / 57). “This grammar deals with Modern Literary Welsh only. It follows the lines of my Welsh Grammar Historical and Compararive, 1913, so far as that treats of the modern language; but the matter has been largely re-written, and is in some respects more detailed.” 


1) There are two main ways of forming the plural - either by changing the vowels within a word
(car = car, ceir = cars); or by adding an ending (peth = thing, pethau = things).


2) There are a variety of endings (-au, -iau, -ydd, -i, -oedd, etc)


3) The most common way of forming a plural noun is by adding the ending -au and -iau; we'll examine these two and the rest we shall look at later.


The ending -au is pronounced [ai] in literary Welsh. But in natural spoken Welsh it is never pronounced in this way. The most usual pronunciation is -e [e].


QUESTION: If it is pronounced -e, why isn't it written -e?


ANSWER: In dialect writing, where an author tries to reproduce spoken forms as closely as possible, it is used. In the 1800s there were calls to use -e instead of -au in formal Welsh writing too. However, there is also a pronunciation -a in the north-west and the south-east. So -au has been retained because it is the literary form. The idea is that if you can also interpret it as 'e' or 'a' according to the local dialect.


For example, pethau = things


In reading a literary text, you'd say [pe· thai]


In speaking standard colloquial Welsh, you'd say [pe· the]


In speaking the colloquial Welsh of the south-west, central and north-east Wales you'd say [pe· the]


In speaking the colloquial Welsh of the south-eastern corner, and the north-western corner, you'd say [pe· tha]


Some speakers who have learnt Welsh as adults use this [ai] pronunciation in normal everyday conversation because they have been led to believe that 'literary' is correct and 'colloquial' is incorrect. It is noticeable too with many who have learnt Welsh in Welsh-language primary and secondary schools. If you are delivering a sermon or reading the news on TV, it is correct; if not, it is totally out of context and wrong!


A famous Welsh-language bookshop in Aberystwyth in the county of Ceredigion is called Siop y Pethe, rather than Siop y Pethau.


(the shop of the 'things' - which means in Welsh the 'things' which make up Welsh culture - poetry, music, literature, religion)


Place names generally use the literary forms - Caerau [kei rai] (ramparts), part of Caer-dydd / Cardiff, is (or was) locally [kei ra]. In South Wales tonnau (literay pronunciaiton [to nai] ) means 'meadows'. But a village of this name in the county of Castell-nedd Aberafan is unusually spelt according to the local pronunciation Tonna [to na]


The ending -iau is pronounced [yai] in literary Welsh. In the South though the semi-consonant 'y' is generally lost (though not always). We can represent the resulting forms by imagining that Wales is a square. Roughly speaking, there are two main dialects in Welsh - northern and southern. And each has a western and eastern variant. So we can divide the square into four.
·····

NORTH-WEST
WALES
[-ya]
 

NORTH-EAST
WALES
[-ye]

SOUTH-WEST
WALES
[-e], some words [-ye]

SOUTH-WEST
WALES
[-a], some words [-ya]

·····

Let's look at some examples.

The accented syllable in Welsh is the one before last (called the 'goben' in Welsh).

If the word is a monosyllable, then the plural form is still accented on the monosyllable root.
peth, pethau

If it is a polysyllable, then the accent will shift to the new syllable before last
adran (= department), adrannau

If a vowel is long in the singular form, it becomes half-long in the plural before -au.
peth [peeth], pethau [pe· the].

In the South-east, however, it often sounds as though the long vowel has been maintained [pee tha]

But before -iau it becomes short - two consonants together in Welsh usually indicate the the vowel before is short
Sul [siil] = Sunday, Suliau [sil ye] = Sundays

Some vowels change in length; but others change in quality. and diphthongs may also change in quality
y [i] becomes y [ø]
aw > o
ai > ei
âi (spelt ae) > ei (also spelt ae)
ûi (spelt wy) > ui (also spelt wy)

dydd [diidh] = day, dyddiau [dødh ye] = days
gwyl [gûil] = festival; day's holiday, gwyliau [guil ye] = festivals, holidays
bìl [bil] = bill, biliau [bil-ye] = bills
tad [taad] = father, tadau [ta· de] = fathers
mam [mam] = mother [ma me] = mothers
tân [taan] = fore, tanau [ta· ne] = fires
gwaith [gwaith] = work; factory, gweithiau [gweith ye] = factories
llawr [lhaur] = floor, lloriau [lhor ye] = floors
Sul [siil] = Sunday, Suliau [sil ye] = Sundays
dôl [dool] = meadow, dolau [do· le] = meadows
llain [lhain] = strip of land, lleiniau [lhein ye] = strips
llun [lhiin] = picture, lluniau [lhin ye] = pictures
caer [kâir] = rampart, fort; caerau [kei re] = ramparts
bryn [brin] = hill, bryniau [brøn ye] = hills
blaen [blâin] = top; blaenau [blei ne] = tops


mynydd [ nidh] = mountain, hill; mynyddau[mødhe] = mountains
(this is the historical plural form and one which survives in colloquial Welsh; in the literary language the spurious 'mynyddoedd' has ousted it)


traeth [trâith] = beach; traethau [trei the] = beaches
côt (North) [koot], cot (South) [kot] = coat; cotiau [kot ye] = coats
cloc [klok] = clock; clociau [klok ye] = clocks
taith [taith] = trip, journey; teithiau [teith ye] = trips
cath [kaath] = cat; cathau (South) [ka· the] = cats
In the North and in the literary language, it takes the ending -od, often used with animals - cathod.
saeth [sâith] = arrow; saethau [sei the] = arrows
twyn [tûin] = hill; twynau [tui ne] = hills (twyn is a Southern Welsh word)


ffynnon [ non] = well; ffynhonau[fø nho ne] = wells
(where a word historically has -nt-, we see this as -nn- in the singular and -nh- in the plural. The word ffynnon is from Latin fontâna)

An 'n' or 'r' may be toubled in the plural, although they are pronounced the same as the single 'n' or 'r'. Such double letters indicate that the vowel is short.
rhan [hran] = part, rhannau [hra ne] = parts
glan [glan] = bank, coast [gla ne] = banks, coasts
man [man] = place, mannau [ma ne] = places

Sometimes nt > nn
tant [tant] (string of an instrument such as a harp), tannau [ta ne] strings
Another example is the old plural of nant [nant] (valley, stream) found in the place name Nannau [na ne]

As we have seen above, in the South -iau can become -au. There seems to be a tendency among younger southern speakers to adapt the language towards the retention of 'i' since the forms without 'i' are felt by these speakers to be substandard (this is their perception of its use; it is however in no way at all substandard).

However, the use of 'i'-less forms continues to be common.

Cot = coat, cotiau > cota [ko te]>= coats

Gwaith is 'work', a masculine word; in fixed expressions it survives as a feminine word, meaning 'time, occasion'. And the plural 'gweithiau' literally 'times', but meaning 'sometimes' is used in standard Welsh as 'weithiau' (the soft mutation of the initial consonant,


gweithiau > (ghweithiau) > weithiau


is common with adverbs.


Weithiau in th south becomes "wiithe" [wi· the]. (It is typical in the south for ei to become a half-long i in the syllable before last - here we represent it by "ii" in dialectal spelling).

There are farms in the south-east, and also an ex-mining village, called Brynnau [brø na]. Brynnau is the southern form of bryniau = hills.

 

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