"Heddiw"
Translation:Today
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The double d sounds like /th/. Is this normal? Is it like the Icelandic ð?
What is the etymology behind this? It sounds verly likely to be of Germanic origin, in German it is "heute", coming from "hiudagu" which is instrumental case "by this day". Is there a link?
You would think so, but actually, it's Celtic in origin. I was reading up on this, and it comes from the Proto-Celtic for "this day": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/heddiw
I also read somewhere this morning that Welsh was one of a few languages that had the initial 's' change into an 'h' though I tried to find the reference and now I can't. Does anyone have an idea if that's actually true, or just something my brain cooked up? :-D
I was wondering about this too - the Latin word is "hodie", which I have always supposed to be a contraction of "hoc die" = "this day" (in ablative). I suppose the word is of Indo-European origin in all three languages, then (or at least the two components)
1309
I don't know about Welsh specifically, but I DO know of that same sound change appearing somewhere else. Proto-Indo-European initial *s would become Ancient Greek /h/, hence the cognate to English "six" being ἕξ /heks/.
I don't have my Gateway to Sindarin on me at the moment, but (for what it's worth) I believe in the internal history of Tolkien's Welsh-inspired Sindarin langauge the OPPOSITE happened, hence the soft mutation of initial Sindarin s- being h-.
The "day" parts are certainly related by common Indo-European origin. I'm not so sure about initial h-.
does anyone know if double "D" in Welsh makes a 'th' sound because thats what I heard.
Yes, and it's considered its own letter. There are two 'th' sounds (voiceless and voiced dental fricatives), and "dd" makes the voiced version, just like the 'th' in "that", "there", etc.
Yes, and it's the version that makes your throat vibrate (it's voiced). 'th' in welsh is the same as the version of English 'th' that doesn't (unvoiced/voiceless).
If W is pronounced like U in English (in the northern dialects, like the English I (i) in southern dialects), then shouldn't this word be pronounced "Hethiu"?
Wiktionary says it's /ˈhɛðɪu̯/. I think it is just hard for you to hear the i because the sounds mix together when spoken.
Thank you for responding! Diolch yn fawr! Merci! Ich danke Ihnen für Ihre Antwort! Tusen takk! Gracias!
Why it's very close to Esperanto word hodiaŭ? Esperanto got that word from Latin, now my question is that Latin got the word from Celtic languages or Celtic languages like welsh got it as a loan word?
Neither. Welsh "heddiw" and Latin "hodie" (whence comes Esperanto "hodiaŭ") are cognates but not borrowings from each other. The Welsh word comes from Proto-Celtic and eventually Proto-Indo-European (PIE), which is the common ancestor of the Latin word. They evolved separately.
