#source: dictionary

[meddwlyngymraeg]

Vocabulary - to want

A few different ways (that I know) to express wishes and desires.

eisiau - to want. One of the standard ways of saying you want something, all across Wales. In truth, it’s not actually a verbnoun like many others, it’s really a noun. That’s why you don’t need the ‘yn’ before it ad you would for any other verbnoun: ‘yn mynd’, ‘Dwi’n mynd’. ‘Dyn ni’n aros.’ Etc.

‘Dwi eisiau cysgu.’ I want to sleep.

I believe the reason for this is an older construction that is used in literary Welsh, but that got shortened and dropped off over time in colloquial Welsh. ‘bod ... ar [rhywun]’ was the construction used, roughly meaning to have ‘a want upon you’ (very roughly).

Double checking this with Wiktionary (beloved), they do have a credible literary source demonstrating this: the Welsh bible (which thanks to a frenzied linguistics and orthography-fuelled spiral down Wikipedia, and oddly enough, the Welsh comedian and radio broadcaster Elis James (unrelatedly), I know was first translated in the 1500s and directly led to the loss of the letter ‘k’ from the Welsh alphabet).

‘Yr Arglwydd yw fy Mugail; ni bydd eisiau arnaf.’ The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Close enough to colloquial Welsh to understand, that's using ‘eisiau arna (i)’. Over time, colloquial Welsh has dropped the ‘ar’. The example sentence above could've been 'Dwi eisiau cysgu [arna i]'.

A note. Some people have a misconception that eisiau should cause a soft mutation in the word following it, because it is an exceptional case of an action (of sorts) that doesn’t need an ‘yn’, and so must follow a pattern similar to a few other conjugations out there like ‘dylu’ (should).

‘Dylet ti ddweud rhywbeth’ (You should say something), ‘Galla i wneud rhywbeth amdano fe’ (I can do something about it), ‘Ga i rywbeth?’ (Can I have something?), the past tenses of gwneud, ‘wnaethon ni ddysgu Cymraeg’, ‘Mae rhaid iddyn nhw dduhino’n gynnar!’ (They must wake up early!)

And so on. This isn’t the case, as eisiau is not a conjugated verb. It’s just a noun for desire! (*not exactly. I’m trying to explain this as best I can)

There is a south Walian usage of ‘eisiau’ that makes this idea clearer.

In some southern dialects, the construction ‘mae eisiau i…’ is used to mean that someone needs something. E.g. ‘Mae eisiau i ti fwyta’ means ‘you need to eat’. What it literally means is ‘there is a need for you to eat’, and so you can see the noun eisiau (a need) in use.

North Walian Welsh uses the same structure, but with the noun angen instead. ‘Mae angen i ti fwyta.’ ‘Mae angen iddyn nhw sosban’, literally, ‘they are in need of a saucepan’.

Speaking of dialect differences, especially in north Wales Welsh, you might come across spelling variants of eisiau: ‘isio’, ‘isia’, (N) ‘isie’ (S), ‘isho’, etc. Perks of a phonetic language are that nothing’s a misspelling really if it sounds alright when said out loud. I did raise an eyebrow at the last one a little, ‘sh’ isn’t the English ‘sh’ in Welsh, is it? (Is that Wenglish?)

Other forms!

moyn - to want. Used pretty much only in the south and valleys, but this one is a regular verbnoun. ‘Dwi’n moyn cwpla fy ngwaith gytre’n fuan’ (I want to finish my homework soon)

(Just realised there are a Lot of dialect words in that sentence! Cwpla -> gorffen, gytre -> cartef)

It seems simpler than the exceptional eisiau construction, why isn’t it more widely accepted?, you ask. (Most people I’ve said it to say it immediately places you geographically to them because they never hear anyone else say it.) It derives from an older verb, ymofyn, which itself comes from the word gofyn (to ask), ‘ym’ + ‘gofyn’ = ‘ymofyn’, which sort of goes away from the original idea of wanting, and into one of asking. Still, language evolves, and so you will still hear moyn in South Wales. In fact, the Say Something In Welsh course teaches it (which is how I know it. Probably worth giving a disclaimer that I’m simply mad about linguistics and Welsh alternative bands, before anyone starts to think I live in Wales just because I occasionally write long grammar posts!)

Awydd - a desire. Used similarly to eisiau, no ‘yn’ precedes it. The whole point of making this post was that I just came across this sentence: ‘Ti awydd mynd i Gastell Caerfili?’ Meaning, do you want to go to Caerphilly Castle?

And those are the ones I know!

[shakespearesdaughters]

[muffinlance]

That moment when you have to completely stop using Google docs for your writing because the AI spellchecker is actively, insistently wrong, when it catches things at all

Anyway here's me crawling back to LibreOffice and Scrivener like the disloyal hussy I am

[gringolet]

do you understand .

[yyprompts]

🌙💙🤍

Unique English words for writing 3:

Miasma (n.) - A disgusting or unpleasant scent or odor

Selenolatry (n.) - The worship of the moon

Psithurism (n.) - The sound of the wind going through trees/leaves

Sough (v.) - (Usually of the wind) to make a sound like a sigh/rustling

Supernal (adj.) - Heavenly, divine / came from the sky or above

Spectral (adj.) - Resembling a ghost

Tintinnabulation (n.) - The sound/ringing of bells

Irenic (adj.) - Promoting peace

Amebean (adj.) - Resembling amoebas

Phial (n.) - A vial usually used for storing injectable substances

Biwinter (v.) - To make like winter

Spirable (adj.) - Capable of being inhaled / respirable

Autogamy (n.) - Self-fertilization

Shoal (n.) - A group of fish from different species

Bed (n.) - A group of eels huddled together in one area

[great-and-small]

One of the more esoteric things that I am really really into is reptile eponyms, and since it’s a topic that most people aren’t very familiar with, I want to share just a couple with you:

The skink species Lerista amicorum was discovered and named by a pair of Australian zoologists who are also best friends. The species name is Latin for “of the friends” in honor of their friendship and discovery together

The gecko species Lepidodactylus buleli was named in an article describing the new species in 2006, but nobody knows what the species name “bulel” is referencing. The etymology states “The specific epithet buleli is given by the author as a reference to a personal and private story and has no particular signification related to the species, its characteristics, geographical origin, or biology.” Some sort of scientist inside joke I guess you had to be there

There is a species of death adder with the proposed* name Acanthophis crotalusei which is in honor of the author’s pet dog, Crotalus. In case you didn’t know, Crotalus is the name of a completely different genus of snake, so using it for a death adder is unforgivably confusing. (*There is some very complicated herpetology drama behind this story)

The Martin Garcia least gecko Sphaerodactylus ladae is named in honor of the discoverers rental car, a Russian LADA.

[baked-bread]

recently, i've been thinking about the concept of posting in multiple languages because it would annoy my friends and mutuals.

最近、僕を思ってが概念のブログに投稿するに複数の言語、だって友達と仲間を騒がす。

récemment, je pense sur le concept de publier sur internet dans multiple de langues, parce que c'est énervant pour mon amis et connaisances.

[starryeyed-seer]

So "tiger" was a 1800s slang for a manservant, a varient of which is "a gentleman's tiger". I like to think there's a tiger butler out there somewhere playing the Jeeves to some poor Wooster

[thoughtportal]

Other cool wiki things

Wikisource – The Free Library – is a Wikimedia Foundation project to create a growing free content online library of source texts, as well as translations of source texts in any language.

Welcome to Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit.

Wiktionary has grown beyond a standard dictionary and now includes a thesaurus, a rhyme guide, phrase books, language statistics and extensive appendices. We aim to include not only the definition of a word, but also enough information to really understand it. Thus etymologies, pronunciations, sample quotations, synonyms, antonyms and translations are included.

[meddwlyngymraeg]

Vocabulary

Geirfa (ar hap): Random vocabulary I've picked up this week.

hap -> random (n) artaith -> torture (verb, noun) gwaddoli -> to endow (v)

Cyfeirio [at rhwybeth] -> to address something, to refer [to smth] (v) Cyfeiriad -> a reference/referral, direction (n) Cyfeilio -> to accompany (musically or otherwise) (v) Cyfeiliant -> accompaniment, backing (n) Cynnau -> to light, ignite, switch on (v)

Coch -> red Cwch -> a boat, raft, etc. (n) Cwch (/cychod) gwenyn -> beehive(s). Cute that a hive is basically a boat for bees!

llond -> -full/filled (adj) yr holl -> all (of something) (adj)

bwydlen -> menu (literally 'food sheet') llen -> sheet (in the sense of paper, a curtain, ice, etc.) (n)

dychmygu -> to imagine (v) credu/coelio -> to believe (v) teimlo -> to feel (v) enaid -> a soul (n) rhyddid -> freedom (n)

bloedd(iaudau) -> a shout, whoop bloeddio -> to shout

hyn a hyn -> from time to time/now and again

yn barod -> already

[textpostmemespksp]

Meme #356

(Image description in ALT text, original images below the cut!) 

[gothicmatter]

[kata4a]

@max1461 I seek to consult the ancient texts:

[kukekakuningaskris]

i bring you my medieval recreation of the crash fic (thanks to the bayeux tapestry website thingy)

[vulptalia]

Guys I’m gonna be riding this high forever

[incorrectjackboxquotes]

Cookie: "I only found out recently that Mickey Mouse has a child as well."

Dictionary Keeper: "WHAT?!?!"

Cookie: "You didn't know this?" *laughing*

Dictionary Keeper: "HUH???"

Cookie: "Let me find his name as well, it's so funny."

Dictionary Keeper: "Oh my God, this is just as bad as when I found out Hello Kitty has a BOYFRIEND!"

Cookie: "HELLO KITTY HAS A BOYFRIEND?!?!"

Dictionary Keeper: "SHE HAS A BOYFRIEND!!!!"