Today, our Welsh word of the day is uchel. This is an adjective which means both high and loud. Its antonyms are isel (low) and tawel (quiet), respectively.
Uchel means high in a physical sense, like a mynydd (mountain), and high in the sense of status and rank, like a brenin (king), but it also means high in a musical sense, like a nodyn uchel (high note). Since it also means loud, I remember this often being quite confusing in high-school cerddoriaeth (music) lessons!
uchel
loud / high
The root of the word is *ouxselos in proto-Celtic, which meant high or elevated.
In most places where you hear or see the word high in English, the word uchel can be used in Welsh. They’re very close equivalents, even across many of the non-literal uses of the word.
For example, uchel can refer to something or someplace which is high as in tal (tall) and far up, to someone with a high rank or who is considered pwysig (important), to someone who is trahaus (arrogant), to something which is mawr (big) in number, amount, or degree, and to traw (pitch).
Words for trahaus that are built on uchel include ffroenuchel (literally high-nostril), trwynuchel (literally high-nose), uchelfryd (literally high-mind), and penuchel (literally high-head).
Roedd o’n llefain yn uchel ac yn sychu ei lygaid.
He was crying loudly and wiping his eyes.
And there are various contexts which don’t fit into any of these categories neatly but in which uchel is used for high, possibly as a result of English influence, or as an extension of one of the main categories.
An example would be uchel frad for high treason. It is probably rendered like this in Welsh as a calque from the English, but the reason the English term developed originally is because high treason refers to an attempt to kill the brenin or brenhines (queen), so the person whose rank is most uchel in all of society.
But there are some exceptions – here are a few notable ones.
- ysgol uwchradd = high school, literally higher-ranked school
- y bywyd bras / y bywyd moethus = the high life, literally the large life / the luxurious life
- y cefnfor = the high seas, literally the back-sea
- manwl gywirdeb = high fidelity, literally precise accuracy
- hen bryd = high time, literally old time
- hwyl dda = high spirits, literally good spirits
- gwynt mawr = high wind, literally big wind
- stryd fawr = high street, literally big street
As you can see in those last two expressions, the word mawr (big) and its comparative forms commonly appear in idiomatic phrases where English speakers might expect uchel. You can read more about this in our article on mawr itself.
Wel, dyna bris uchel. Mae’n rhy ddrud i mi.
Well, that’s a high price. It’s too expensive for me.
And when high is included in a job title to refer to a degree of authority, we would often translate this as prif (first) in Welsh.
Lastly, we don’t use uchel to refer to someone having taken cyffuriau (drugs)! Sometimes words for drunk are appropriated here such as wedi meddwi or brwysg, sometimes the word penysgafn (light-headed / dizzy) is used, sometimes people say ar gyffuriau / ar ddrygiau (literally on drugs), and sometimes the English word high will simply be borrowed.
The same is largely true for loud – uchel is by far the most frequently used way to say this. Cryf (strong) is possible as an alternative, though it’s getting less common.
As I mentioned earlier, the two meanings do rub up against each, especially when discussing cerddoriaeth. They can also become confused when describing the quality of someone’s llais (voice), so in this case in Welsh if you wanted to describe someone as having a high voice, it would be clearer to say llais main (a shrill voice) rather than llais uchel, which would likely be misunderstood as a loud voice.
Another example of the crossover is the phrase meddwl yn uchel. This can mean both to think highly (as in, of someone), and to think aloud.
Oherwydd yr uchder, mae llai o ocsigen ar gael.
Because of the altitude, there is less oxygen available.
Translating height is an interesting one. For height as either a general concept, or the height of a specific thing, uchder is the preferred choice, although taldra literally meaning tallness and the alternative form uchelder are both heard too. The latter can also refer to a height as in a high place or the peak of something, but here uchafbwynt is the most common word.
Uchafbwynt is built from the combination of pwynt (a point, soft mutated here because it’s second in a compound word) and uchaf, which means highest. Uchaf is one of the comparative forms of uchel along with cyfuwch (as high) and uwch (more high).
This last term, uwch, shows up in the word uwchradd, which we saw earlier in the term ysgol uwchradd, as well as the also very important word uwchben (above, literally higher-head / higher-top). Plus, being an advanced learner of Welsh means you can take courses marked Safon Uwch (Higher Standard).
I’ll leave you with a list of some common terms in which uchel appears. Notice that in a couple of them, uchel actually comes before the noun rather than after it, as is most common for Welsh adjectives. When an adjective comes before the noun it usually causes a mutation to the noun.
- sodlau uchel = high heels
- y naid uchel = the high jump
- cadair uchel = high-chair
- foltedd uchel = high voltage
- uchel lanw = high tide
- uchel lys = high court
- sŵn uchel = a loud noise (can also be sŵn mawr)
- gwaedd uchel = a loud cry
- uchel ei gloch = of a person, loud-mouthed (literally loud his bell)
