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- Topic: Welsh >
- "Petryal"
13 Comments
1893
The TTS sounds odd to me for this particular word. Anyone else think so? It seems to almost halt in the middle.
Update: it seems OK now, here (above) at least. I have no idea as to its accuracy though.
This word is, to my eyes, odd, so I went on to have a look at pronunciation of this and came across this thread: http://www.forumwales.com/fwforum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=8268
People there suggested "pet-REE-al", which makes sense when it seems that at various points in history it has also been written as 'pedrual' or 'petrual', among other things.
Caution - geeky rambling to follow: However, there actually seem to be many other ways of translating 'rectangle'. At least three dictionaries from between 1770-1860 seem to go with 'union-ongl', but this seems to apply to a possible old meaning of rectangle as 'right angle' (I'm thinking of the German 'recht'). I've also come across the rather more recent 'hirsgwâr' (long square - very apt!) on Y Geiriadur Bangor. It seems that the origin of the decidedly weird 'petryal' is a corruption of the Middle Welsh and Early Modern Welsh 'pedryfal' (which has various uses between the 13th century right up to the start of the 19th - see Y Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru - including the Red Book of Hergest and the Black Book of Carmarthen).
Lots of words sound odd in Duolingo Welsh. I wonder if it is a good thing to use an artificial voice. Why not have an authentic native speaker? Or better still at least two native speakers from different regions?
I find the Welsh robot quite good, and it almost sounds like a real person. It's far better than DL Russian. Perhaps it's actually a dragon?
- 1893
I agree; normally it seems very good. It was just odd with this specific word. I now realise I didn't make that clear with my initial remark. I'll edit it.
Actually, my GF is a Russian native speaker and she says that the Russian course, which I'm doing, provides with quite a good reflection of what the Russian pronunciation and accents are all about. :P
On the other hand, she said that Ukrainian is quite bad here.
There seems to be some uncertainty about the meaning of the word "petryal." Y Geiriadur Bach translates it as "square". So does the Modern Welsh Dictionary/Geiriadur Cymraeg Cyfoes (Oxfrd University Press), which is generally considered to be a very good dictionary. Both these dictionaries gives it as a masculine noun and as an adjective. "Rectangle" is translated by "pedrongl", plural "pedronglau", feminine. Neither of these dictionaries includes "pedrongl" in the Welsh-to-English section. This would seem to indicate that this is a word which is uncommon in day-to-day speech and is mainly restricted to the language of geometry. Is Duolingo's translation of "petryal" as "rectangle" a mistake? Or is this word commonly used to mean "rectangle"?
The authors of Y Termiadur Addysg, an authoritative set of Welsh-language terms for use in Welsh educational establishments, plumped for petryal for oblong/rectangle (and for oblong/rectangular). (http://www.termiaduraddysg.org)
Sort of weird to be taught geometrical shapes that early in the course, before e.g. possession, which is the next skill. I don't even know in how many languages I know the word "rectangle", but it's not in many for sure ^_^
Yes, unfortunately this is one of the TTS with partly wrong pronunciation.
It should be PET-REE-AL
