Nia is an aspiring writer from Powys, Wales. She attended Welsh-medium primary and secondary school, and is passionate about preserving the beautiful Welsh language and culture. She speaks some French, and is currently learning Arabic.
The Welsh adjective euog usually means guilty or blameworthy, although it can also be used as a translation for deceitful, or simply wicked. euog guilty The initial eu diphthong has a heavier, fuller sound in the Northern Welsh than in the Southern pronunciation. Euog is actually an altered form of another adjective, gau, which means …
There’s many a cute little bwthyn (cottage) to be found in Wales, whether it’s the colourful houses of the seaside town Aberaeron, or the gorgeous half-timbered farm buildings that can be spotted throughout Mid- and North Wales. The plural of bwthyn is bythynnod. bwthyn cottage Bwthyn originates from the older word bwth (hut), combined with …
The Welsh word for the number one is the straightforward un, but tracing all the words and expressions that have evolved from it is anything but simple. un one Un comes from the proto-Celtic *oinos, and probably, before that, from the Old Latin oinos. This would explain why the word for one is similar in …
Pant is a Welsh geographical term that refers to a hollow in the ground, or a small valley. It’s a masculine noun. Its plural form is pantiau, and there is a diminutive term pantyn that refers to a particularly small pant. In modern spoken Welsh, we mostly encounter it in place names. pant small valley …
Magu is a Welsh word that means to bring up or to raise, specifically in the context of raising children or animals. magu to raise There is a very, very slight difference in pronunciation for this word between North and South. Above I’ve given an example of the Southern pronunciation, with a long ‘ah’ sound …
Cymraeg (Welsh) is a Brythonic Celtic language, meaning it shares less of its vocabulary with English than you’d imagine for two countries right next to each other. However, there are some exceptions to this, like the borrowing clyfar, meaning clever. clyfar clever Obviously, clyfar is a loanword from English, probably borrowed in the mid-1700s. The …
Schools are one of the foundational building blocks of communities and societies. You could see them as ladders, on which children and young people progress in their learning and development step by step. It’s quite intuitive, then, that the Welsh word for school and ladder is the same: ysgol. Ysgol is a feminine singular noun, …
House in Welsh is tŷ, and the plural form is tai. There is a special plural form for referring to only two houses, which is teiau. tŷ house Tŷ comes from the proto-Celtic *tegesa, also meaning house or dwelling. It’s a homophone of the Welsh words ti (informal singular you) and tu, a noun meaning …
Compared to other kinds of exercise, I actually do quite a lot of running. Unfortunately, this is usually when I’m late to catch a bus! To run in Welsh is rhedeg. rhedeg to run Rhedeg has evolved from Middle Welsh redec, which itself is derived from the proto-Celtic *reteti. There are similar words in the …
Many people see snakes as a symbol of evil or danger, an image that traces its origin all the way back to the Bible, with the demon that tempted Eve often represented as a snake. In more modern popular culture, the snake is the chosen pet of Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. The Welsh …
