Our Welsh word of the day today is a verb – dianc. This is the standard way of saying to escape or escaping in Welsh, though ffoi (to flee) is a common alternative.
dianc
to escape
Here is how dianc mutates:
Soft mutation
ddianc
Nasal mutation
nianc
Aspirate mutation
N/A
The nasal mutation, although technically possible, is unlikely to ever be used. It’s good to be aware of the pattern though, as it could apply to other words that have developed from dianc. One example of this is the noun form, dihangfa (an escape).
Because dianc also shows up in middle Breton, we know that it almost certainly comes from a common root, and has been used in multiple Brittonic languages for some time. It may in part originate ultimately from the proto-Indo-European root *hnek (to reach) – but exactly how this word travelled through proto-Celtic and proto-Brittonic to reach Welsh is murkier.
What we do know is that the range of forms in which dianc appears in old Welsh texts is huge and various. That’s probably why there are some quite unique dialectical variations of dianc in North Wales, such as dengid and denig.
One archaic form of dianc that recurs very often is dihangu. This explains the perhaps otherwise slightly confusing way in which the word conjugates in modern Welsh:
| Future | Conditional | Past | |
| First person singular | Dihanga(f) i I will escape | Dihangwn i I would escape | Dihangais i I escaped |
| First person plural | Dihangwn ni We will escape | Dihangen ni We would escape | Dihangon ni We escaped |
| Second person singular / informal | Dihangi di You will escape | Dihanget ti You would escape | Dihangaist ti You escaped |
| Second person plural / formal | Dihangwch chi You will escape | Dihangech chi You would escape | Dihangoch chi You escaped |
| Third person singular | Dihangith o/e/hi He/she will escape | Dihangai fo/fe/hi He/she would escape | Dihangodd o/e/hi He/she escaped |
| Third person plural | Dihangan nhw They will escape | Dihangen nhw They would escape | Dihangon nhw They escaped |
Luckily, much of the time, you can osgoi (avoid / evade) this problem by using periphrastic conjugation. This means leaving dianc unconjugated and expressing the tense of the sentence through additional verbs. For example, you might say wnaeth hi ddianc (she escaped, literally she did escape) rather than dihangodd hi. This is common in various dialects and with all different levels of speakers and learners.
Wnes i ddianc â chroen fy nannedd.
I escaped by the skin of my teeth.
While we discussed this I sneakily introduced a new word that’s relevant to dianc, which is osgoi.
It’s relevant because the word dianc is normally used with a preposition following it – sometimes rhag and sometimes o. These constructions, dianc rhag and dianc o, mean escape from. The former is about escaping from a perygl (danger), something that hadn’t happened yet, whereas the latter is about dod yn rhydd (becoming free) from a situation which had already come about.
But in English we don’t always say escape from (e.g. escape from prison), we sometimes just leave it as escape (e.g. escape arrest). In the latter cases, osgoi is often the more idiomatic choice of translation, so she escaped arrest would be wnaeth hi osgoi restiad. You can use dianc here, but you’d need to include it in the full form dianc rhag, whereas in English a following preposition wouldn’t be needed.
Despite being eschewed for osgoi in certain cases, dianc is still an important word to know. After all, sometimes you will need to talk about, or understand someone else talking about, escaping prison! She escaped from prison would be wnaeth hi dianc o garchar, by the way.
Other places someone might need to dianc from include:
- dianc o gell = to escape from a cell
- dianc o adeilad = to escape from a building
- dianc o drap = to escape from a trap
- dianc o berthynas ddifrïol = to escape from an abusive relationship
- dianc o dlodi = to escape from poverty
The last example is an interesting one because here dianc o dlodi and dianc rhag tlodi would actually mean different things. The former would imply that someone was in poverty and was able to get out of poverty, whereas the latter suggests that the person was able to prevent themselves from falling into poverty. So the dianc o versus dianc rhag distinction actually provides us with opportunities to create subtle shades of meaning.
Mi ddihangon nhw rhag yr heddlu yng nghar Twm.
They escaped from the police in Twm’s car.
There’s a third preposition you could pair with dianc as well. When planning a dihangfa (escape) you’ll need an eventual destination. You know where you’re dianc o (escaping from), but what are you dianc i (escaping to)? So dianc is used in this context, too. Maybe after getting out of prison, the protagonist of this story is dianc i Ffrainc (escaping to France) 😉
Note that while dianc i and dianc o cause soft mutation to the nouns following them, dianc rhag does not.
And dianc has one more usage which you might not expect – it can be used to mean rescue, though this is quite literary.
