Useful phrases for you

[Gob]

Cr

Hŵre!


The Welsh government has said it wants to increase the number of Welsh speakers to a million by 2050. The plans irritated some anti-Welsh detractors, who seem to believe the language is only spoken when English people walk into a Welsh pub. With our help, you, too, can scare monoglots in your area! Here are some Welsh words and phrases (with pronunciation) that you might find useful.

Shw’mae (shoo my)
Starting strong, a simple: “Hello, how are you doing?”

Croeso i Gymru (croy-soh ee Gum-ree)
“Welcome to Wales!” Never let it be said the Welsh aren’t welcoming. A favourite on novelty tea towels.

Dros ben llestri (dr-oss behn thl-ess-tree)
Its literal meaning is “over the dishes”, but it means over the top. You know, like when someone gets really angry about bilingual Welsh road signs.

Ych-a-fi (uh-ch ah vee)
“Yuck!” Use it when your Tinder date tells you all Welsh people are stupid.

Chwyrligwgan (choo-url-ee-goo-gan)
The Welshest word on the planet. It means “whirling” or “merry-go-round”. Use it when told for the umpteenth time that Welsh has no vowels – then point out it has more vowels than English does.

Meicrodon (meik-ro-don)
Let’s put an end to this once and for all: “popty ping” is not microwave in Welsh. It is not a thing. It is a joke. If you do need to heat up some traditional cawl, be sure to put it in your meicrodon.

Iechyd da (yeah-ch-id dah)
“Cheers!” A good thing to say just before downing your fifth pint of Brains when England wins the rugby.

Smwddio (smooth-eeo)
Some Welsh words just make more sense – such as smwddio, which means “ironing”. Because what do you do when you iron clothes? You SMOOTH them – just as it sounds.

Hiraeth (heer-eye-th)
A word with no direct English translation. It means a longing for a home, or a time that felt like home. This isn’t homesickness, it’s a deep yearning for somewhere that may not quite exist as you remember it. Remind us again why English is supposedly superior?

Cer i grafu (cehr ee grah-vee)
The perfect phrase to deploy the next time someone tells you Welsh is a made-up language. It pretty much means: “My good fellow, you are clearly an idiot, but I wish you good day. Oh, and by the way, all languages are technically made up.”

Another few interesting facts about Welsh:

-It predates English by 600 years
-120,000 people speak it in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland
- It used to have k and v in the alphabet, but when the printing press came to Wales, it used an English typeset and k and v were used far more frequently than in English, so they had to be replaced with c and f, which made things more complicated.
- It has three words for internet, four for butterfly, and four for highlighter.
- Welsh has never had more than 850,000 speakers
- It has single words for 'the day after tomorrow', 'the day before yesterday' and 'three days from now'. And interestingly, 'female suicide bomber'.
- It still, for some reason, seems to annoy monoglot English speakers that it exists.
- Jellyfish in Welsh is 'cont y môr'.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I spent three happy years in Wales at Coleg Prifysgol Abertawe. I learned very little Welsh except 'dim parcio' (no parking) and the sign over the entrance to the Physics building was 'ffiseg". I am guessing that was a borrowing.

[BoSoxGal]

I learned that word Hiraeth recently; it is now my favorite word in any language, I think it's the most beautiful word in existence.

eta: Is it proper to capitalize it mid-sentence, or not?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Remind us again why English is supposedly superior?

The Welsh government has said it wants to increase the number of Welsh speakers to a million

We can estimate that there are definitely above 1.5 billion speakers of English globally. In 2015, out of the total 195 countries in the world, 67 nations have English as the primary language of 'official status'. Plus there are also 27 countries where English is spoken as a secondary 'official' language.

[dales]

We can estimate that there are definitely above 1.5 billion speakers of English globally. In 2015, out of the total 195 countries in the world, 67 nations have English as the primary language of 'official status'. Plus there are also 27 countries where English is spoken as a secondary 'official' language.

Would that include the United States?

[Big RR]

You have to love language that makes w a vowel. I had a teacher in early elementary school (1st grade) who used to say w was sometimes a vowel, just as y was. I thought it was because wh gave a very different sound (at least the way she spoke--whipped was pronounced hwipped), but when I was older I saw written Welsh in a book and understood. I don't know if she was Welsh (her name was Mrs. Sullivan but I don't know her maiden name), but I would think she had some Welsh in her family.

[MajGenl.Meade]

You have to love language that makes w a vowel....I would think she had some Welsh in her family.

That's also true of many double ewes

[Scooter]

We can estimate that there are definitely above 1.5 billion speakers of English globally. In 2015, out of the total 195 countries in the world, 67 nations have English as the primary language of 'official status'. Plus there are also 27 countries where English is spoken as a secondary 'official' language.

Would that include the United States?

I am not sure I would call what is spoken in the United States "English".

[dales]

We speak "American".

[Sue U]

You have to love language that makes w a vowel....I would think she had some Welsh in her family.

That's also true of many double ewes

Ewes have Welsh in their families? I wouldn't have thought it possible, but maybe given enough attempts?

[Big RR]

[rubato]

Old Welsh proverb:

dafad da yw dafad shaggy

[Long Run]

You have to love language that makes w a vowel....I would think she had some Welsh in her family.

That's also true of many double ewes

I'll give that the post of the week; I'd go further back if I weren't so lazy.

[Gob]

I learned that word Hiraeth recently; it is now my favorite word in any language, I think it's the most beautiful word in existence.

eta: Is it proper to capitalize it mid-sentence, or not?

Nope, small "h" mid sentence.


It's something I have suffered for teh last 5 years, but am now making plans to cure it.

[Gob]

You have to love language that makes w a vowel....I would think she had some Welsh in her family.

That's also true of many double ewes

Ewes have Welsh in their families? I wouldn't have thought it possible, but maybe given enough attempts?

Many ewes have had the welsh in them

[BoSoxGal]

I learned that word Hiraeth recently; it is now my favorite word in any language, I think it's the most beautiful word in existence.

eta: Is it proper to capitalize it mid-sentence, or not?

Nope, small "h" mid sentence.


It's something I have suffered for teh last 5 years, but am now making plans to cure it.

I'm 'home' again finally, but home is no longer what it once was. What I love most about the word is that it captures that, and also the yearning for a 'home' that never was. Brilliant! You Welsh are quite something!