Welsh Word of the Day: Symud (to move)

The Welsh word meaning to move is symud, although as you’ll see, it’s not really as broad as its English equivalent. Read on to discover when to use it and when to symud i ffwrdd (move away) from this simple word!

The above clip is me pronouncing symud in my mid-Wales accent. If you’ve been studying your phonetics, you’ll notice that I’m saying it just as I would say symid. But if I were from North Wales, there’d be a difference in how I pronounce these words.

This is because the two letters i and u in Welsh are identical in South Wales but not in the North. In mid-Wales and along the coast, there’s a lot of variation as to whether people take on the more Southern or more Northern style. For me they’re the same, and I call them i-dot (dotted ‘ee’) and u-bedol (horseshoe ‘ee’) to differentiate them, which is very common.

Northerners pronounce the u sound a bit like the i but with the tongue placed further back in the mouth.

Symud comes from the Middle Welsh *symut, which was likely borrowed into the language from the Latin word submuto. Both parts of this word may be familiar to English-speakers. Sub is a prefix meaning under, which shows up in words like subscribe and submarine. Muto is the origin of mutate.

Since our first letter here is an s, there’s no need to worry about mutations. That’s a relief! But we do need to worry about related terms, as there are quite a few to contend with here. First to consider is that move in English is not just a noun but also a verb, being a synonym of movement.

Movement in Welsh is symudiad, a masculine term with the plural symudiadau. We’d use this too for a move in a board game, for example.

And although the word symudiadol, which means moving, has fallen out of fashion, it’s not impossible to hear the derived term ysmudiadol when talking about a moving experience or emotion.

Motion would be translated as symudiad, mudiant or just symud, depending on context. Something that is in motion is yn symud (think of this as is moving being used as an adverb). Symud is also the choice for motion in an abstract sense.

But symudiad is what you’d use for a specific motion, and mudiant is usually the right choice for something technical or mechanical, for example in ffiseg (physics) or cerddoriaeth (music).

Another confusing one is mobility, which can be translated with a variety of options, all based on the root symud. Pick between symudoldeb, symudedd, symudoledd and mudoledd. Luckily the correct choice is based more on what comes to mind first than any tricky semantic rules!

Symudol can either mean moving as in in motion or it can mean portable – for example, a ffôn symudol is a mobile phone. Symudadwy used to be a synonym but it’s no longer really used at all.

The last one to be aware of is a bit less important on a day-to-day basis, but it’s one to keep in your back pocket if you ever feel like writing some Welsh poetry, as it’s really evocative. Symudliw means iridescent, literally moving colours. It’s a synonym of seithliw (seven-coloured) and enfysliw (rainbow-coloured).

You might have noticed that in derived terms, symud often loses its first syllable and becomes just mud. This is useful to bear in mind when we’re thinking about synonyms, too, as symud often becomes mudo or the mutated ymfudo in the North, particularly when talking about moving house. In Carmarthenshire, the regional form is smudyd.

Apart from that, there aren’t really any other words you could insert in the place of symud. There is the very literary and old-fashioned syflyd, which means more to shift, referring only to very small symudiadau, but you won’t hear it in conversation.

And one very fun word that’s a bit more specific is ysgogi, which really means to begin to move, often translated as to stir. It reflects a sense of stimulation and isn’t really an equivalent to any one single English word. It’s certainly not a direct synonym of or replacement for symud – just one more reason why you need to add both to your Welsh vocabulary arsenal!

In Welsh, symud is not typically used to mean to move X emotionally. Instead, try one of the below phrases, substituting rhywun (someone) for the object of the sentence.

• gwylltio rhywun = to move someone to anger (literally “to anger someone”)
• gwneud i rywun chwerthin = to move someone to laughter (literally “to make someone laugh”)
• peri i rywun chwerthin = to move someone to laughter (literally “to make someone laugh”)
• cynhyrfu rhywun = to move someone (literally “to excite someone”)
• cyffwrdd rhywun hyd at ddagrau = to move someone to tears (literally “to touch someone up to tears”)
• dwyn dagrau i lygaid rhywun = to move someone to tears (literally “to bring tears to someone’s eyes”)

And we also don’t often use symud as a command. It’s not impossible, but it’s not the most natural thing at all. To say keep moving you might want to use the phrase ymlaen â chi / ymlaen â ti. For don’t move you could say dim symud (no moving), but my go to would be byddwch yn llonydd / bydda’n llonydd (be still).

But don’t get the idea that there’s no use in this word at all! Symud is a really versatile word that you’ll need to use all the time when sgwrsio (chatting) or sgwennu (writing) in Welsh. Here are some things you might have cause to symud fairly often in your life:

• symud cadair = to move a chair
• symud dy bethau / symud eich pethau = move your things
• symud y car = to move the car
• symud y dodrefn = to move the furniture
• symud dy gorff / symud eich corff = to move your body
• symud bocsys = to move boxes
• symud ber = to move a muscle

The latter, of course, would be most likely to turn up in the phrase paid â symud ber! (don’t move a muscle!) Interestingly, ber doesn’t mean muscle, it’s an old-fashioned word for coes (leg) that only now shoes up in idiomatic phrases. Muscle is cyhyr.

One key noun which technically shouldn’t be used along with symud is actually tŷ (house). The phrase symud tŷ has been adopted into the Welsh language from the English, so these days you will see and hear it used, but more ‘authentic’ options include just symud on its own, newid tŷ (changing house), or newid aelwyd (changing hearth / changing address). As I mentioned earlier, mudo and ymfudo are common in the North.

Another oddity is that in Welsh you can’t really move in with someone. Instead, you have to mynd i fyw (go to live) with them. And the word you use for with also will vary.

Traditionally and formally, we’d actually say mynd i fyw at rhywun (go to live at someone), and this is the option that dictionaries like Geiriadur yr Academi list. But these days a lot of people will just use the direct translation of with, which is gyda in the South and efo in the North.

Of course, all this is always a matter of opinion. Should Welsh speakers fight to keep every scrap of idiomatic phrasing and reject English borrowings, or should we ‘move with the times’ and do whatever’s necessary to preserve the language in its original form?

Personally, I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. There’s no need to be prescriptivist about how we speak and write, but it’s still worth celebrating everything that makes our language unique, and doing our best to keep it intact. That’s just me, but I’d be interested to hear your opinion!