People often joke that modern life is full of biwrocratiaeth (bureaucracy). Whether it’s paying your trethi (taxes) or getting your trwydded yrru (driver’s license), everything seems to take a lot of gwaith papur (paperwork)!
At an Eisteddfod when I was about ten, I remember the cerdd (poem) picked for the recitation competition was all about how much the writer hated ffurflennau (forms). But there’s perhaps no single thing more essential to the maintenance of all this gweinyddiaeth (admin) than the humble rhestr (list).
This Welsh word is a feminine noun, with the plural lists being rhestri, or less commonly rhestrau.
rhestr
list
Rhestr comes from the very cool-sounding proto-Celtic *rexstrom. This was likely a combination of two other proto-Celtic words. One would have been something like *rek and meant to arrange, and the other along the lines of *strom, a suffix that allows the creation of instrumental nouns.
It’s often very difficult for learners to pronounce words like rhestr, with only one vowel and a long string of consonants at the end. Clearly, it’s not the easiest for us Welsh either, because you’ll often hear Southerners pronounce it like this:
Now, there’s a really important variant of rhestr that is useful to know. This is cofrestr, meaning register or record.
In cofrestr, the word rhestr has taken a soft mutation, which is very common in compound words. A soft mutation is the only one which applies to rhestr.
Soft mutation
restr
Nasal mutation
N/A
Aspirate mutation
N/A
The context I most associate with cofrestr is from primary school, when the register was taken! We’d have our names called out, respond with yma (here), and then add either cinio (school dinner) or bocs bwyd (lunchbox), so the teacher could record whether we were having a hot meal from the bwyty (cafeteria) or not.
Cofrestr and rhestr can both be turned into verbs. Cofrestr turns into cofrestru, meaning to register, and rhestr turns into rhestru, meaning to list.
Bydd yr ymgeiswyr yn cylchredeg rhestrau o’u polisïau arfaethedig.
The candidates will circulate lists of their proposed policies.
Here’s a rhestr of a few more useful rhestr-based terms:
- rhestr aros = waiting list
- rhestr fer = shortlist
- rhestr dderbynwyr = mailing list
- rhestr siopa = shopping list
- rhestr ddu = blacklist
- rhestr pethau i’w gwneud = to-do list
- rhestr dymuniadau = wishlist
- rhestr gyflogi = payroll
- y Rhestr Sifil = The Civil List
And of course rhestri can be a good way of learning, too, especially a iaith (language) where there are often a lot of rheolau (rules) and geirfa (vocabulary) to learn. We do have quite a few rhestr-style erthyglau (articles) on this website if that’s a form of dysgu (learning) that suits you – from rhestri of super-useful everyday phrases to ones that deal with confusing grammatical phenomena.
Cofia gadw restr o bawb a anfonodd anrhegion, er mwyn dweud diolch.
Remember to keep a list of everyone who sent presents, so as to say thanks.
I’m one of those type-A people who likes to trefnu (organise) everything with rhestri. Be it ryseitiau (recipes) or llyfrau (books), things to cofio (remember) or things to prynu (buy), wedi rhifo (numbered) or with pwyntiau bwledi (bullet points). You name it, I’ve got a list for it.
Mine are generally stored on my ffôn symudol (mobile phone) but that’s not to say I don’t have loads on papur (paper) lying around the house, too! Somehow, all these rhestri still don’t seem to stop me from anghofio pethau (forgetting things)…
