13 Comments
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I got this one as a question in my b&b in Porthmadog a couple of months ago - or rather the keeper's version of it: "Dach chi isio llefrith rŵan?" Not asking for a change, just giving the same line in some kind of northwestern version for those interested in dialects.
Is it possible to be clear which vocabulary is particular to the Northern and Southern dialects?
No, because there is not just one Northern and one Southern dialect, but quite a few more than that; and some people use "southern" words in the north or "northern" words in the south so it's not as clear-cut as that anyway.
The N/S thing is more of a tendency, rather than having a sharp dividing line above which you'll only hear northern forms and below which only southern ones.
That's interesting, and I agree that things like this are never clear cut, thank you! I live in North Wales and am told by the locals that certain words and grammar structures are consistently different from the 'southern' dialect. I don't think they're too offended when I use the 'wrong' word though :)
Well, as mizinamo says, it's not clear-cut. But from the point of view of someone living in the Northwest, I'd say Llefrith/Laeth = N/S, rŵan/nawr = N/S.
I'm not a Native-speaker so I'm a bit stumped by the Dach/Dych aspect because I assumed Dach was a kind of Eye Dialect thing as (at least where I live) unstressed vowels have a tendency to end up sounding like 'a', chwarel (quarry) becomes chwaral, capel (chapel) becomes capal, chwarae (play) becomes chwara. As I say, I assumed this was an Eye Dialect thing and not standard so not sure why it would be there. Like I would say isio instead of eisiau but I wouldn't expect to see it on a course because, as I understand it, it's Cofi dialect.
Having said that, a real Welsh person is probably about to say I'm talking absolute rubbish.
Also, I find Welsh people are just chuffed you're trying, even if you're using the wrong dialect or getting things a bit garbled.
I was taught 'isio' when I had welsh lessons via the WLPAN course years ago when I was living on Anglesey.
Interesting. From speaking to people on here it seems there's no real Standard Welsh as there is Standard English so I think it's hard to draw the line on things like that. At any rate, a lot of the English used on these courses isn't really 'Standard' enough for me, let alone the Welsh.
isio is definitely used a lot around here (Anglesey) but I think I did read that it's Cofi but I may be misremembering.
There is standard literal, written Welsh, but the Duolingo course tries, as best as it can, to teach "standard" spoken Welsh :)
PaCa826187, yes, sorry - wrote the above message quickly and meant to type 'literary'. Literary Welsh can differ greatly from the Welsh spoken on the street, and even the same idea can look like a different language when you put the two side-by-side; Duo teaches street Welsh - the Welsh you'll hear spoken between friends and on television programmes.
Do you mean literary or am I thinking of the wrong thing? I'm not sure there's a standard spoken version of any language.
He means the normal, average Welsh. Like, they aren't teaching "hill-billy" Welsh, if that's a thing.
You could try googling it. I'm hoping they'll list the differences in the notes.
