goferu

[goferu]

Sooo curious now! What are all those words for borage?

wrth gwrs, anything for you anon:

If anyone doesn't know: Borage is a star-shaped blue (edible) flower that I would share a photo of but I can't find any with a listed photographer to credit.

Trafod yr Ych is the term I mostly hear. Which would mean 'Ox Tongue' or something like that. It's also sometimes called Tafod y Buwch which would be 'Cow tongue' instead. This is probably referencing the leaves to be like cow/ox tongues in shape and texture

Bara Gwenyn - beebread which is also an English colloquial term for borage since borage attracts a lot of bees (which is a good reason to plant some)

Blodau Baill - Pollen flowers (there's a reason bees like borage)

Bronwerth - which I'm pretty sure means 'nearly worth' as opposed to 'breast worth' but maybe I'm wrong. It's a hard term to find any history on unfortunately .

Didrist - un-sad. Borage was used historically to ward off sorrow hence 'un-sad'. I can't find any evidence that borage would help with distress except in the sense that it's anti-inflammatory.

Lawenlys - Merry herb. '-lys'/'-llys' in this case is quite an old affix similar to the English '-wort' that comes at the end of some herbs and plants. Reasoning for this name is the same as above.

Glesyn Cyffredin - as I said in my previous post - common blue (same as the butterfly). It's a pretty blue flower so why not I suppose?

If you know any regional information on welsh terms for borage and which ones you would use, please tell me.

I am a big fan of freezing borage in ice cubes to use in iced drinks in the summer. But they also add plenty of pretty as a garnish in salads as well.

[goferu]

OOH! if you could: One of my favourite butterflies: Plebejus argus

They're pretty rare in Wales now but I know you can find them here so I'm hoping there's a welsh common name

Wrth gwrs, I most certainly can! So the common English name you may know is Silver-Studded Blue. Just gonna make sure I have the right ones now: here are some photographs taken by Iain Leach

(Male on the left and Female on the right)

In Welsh these butterflies are called Glesyn Serennog

'Glesyn' essentially means 'blue' but as a noun so more like 'blue one'. It may be old enough to also mean 'green one' but I'm not certain on that and I'm working on figuring out how old this term is still. 'Glesyn' is also used to refer to plants so it's not butterfly exclusive. Like Borage which in welsh may be called 'glesyn cyffredin' (which is also welsh for the 'common blue' Polyommatus icarus) but Borage has many other colloquial names.

now 'Serennog' means 'starry'. 'Seren' is star and '-nog' is an adjectival ending.

Plebejus argus: Glesyn Serennog (starry blue one)

[goferu]

I have slowly been working on something exciting for perhaps me and only me but I'm gonna share a little about it.

I have been compiling the Welsh Common names of as many butterflies as I can. Focusing on common butterflies in Wales and then looking at the meanings and origins of these common names.

So far I have 41 common names for butterfly species. So if you're Welsh or a welsh learner and want to know your favourite common welsh butterfly species in welsh, then feel free to ask me. (it's easiest if you give me Scientific names than English common names but I can work with both)