"Medden nhw"
Translation:They said
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This is an archaic verb and the only forms that remain are used for reported speech in a story or report.
eg "It was wet yesterday," she said
"Roedd hi'n wlyb ddoe," meddai hi
The full forms are:
Meddwn i - I said Meddet ti - you said Meddai hi - she said Meddai fe/fo - he said Medden ni - we said Meddech chi - you said Medden nhw - they said
905
It is intriguing that several languages I know have a defective verb with only this form. In Gaelic we have arsa which works exactly the same way as medden etc. When I looked it up in a 1911 dictionary I found it translated as a defective, if archaic verb in English, quoth.
Dwelly also points out that the subject never goes before the verb, even when it is a relative pronoun, so, to give an equivalent example in Welsh,
* _Y fenyw a meddai "Roedd hi'n wlyb ddoe"
The woman who said "It was wet yesterday"
would be wrong. Is this the case in Welsh?
Even weirder, this applies in English too, a language where you normally put the subject first,
"It was wet yesterday," she quoth : wrong
"It was wet yesterday," quoth she : right
In Shakespeare we have
'Tis dinner-time,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he;
'Your meat doth burn,' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he:
'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'
'The pig,' quoth I, 'is burn'd;' 'My gold!' quoth he:
'My mistress, sir' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress!
I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress!' (Comedy of Errors [II, 1])
But even at the head of the sentence, we still have the verb first,
Quoth she, 'Before you tumbled me, You promis'd me to wed.' (Hamlet [IV, 5])
D
Yes, it can do. Both the following are valid for ""We'd like to come," they said":
"Hoffen ni ddod," medden nhw
"Hoffen ni ddod," dwedon nhw
So when Dafydd Iwan sings "Saesneg yn esensial meddan nhw", meddan is a form you wouldn't use in colloquial Welsh?
'Meddan nhw' is a North Wales variant, where 'a' tends to replace the 'e' or the 'y' in standard Welsh.
The song is referring to the effects of 'Brad y Llyfrau Gleision' on imposing English only education on mostly Welsh speaking Wales in the 19th century.