Welsh Word of the Day: Llawen (joyful)

Today’s Welsh word of the day is llawen, a festive adjective that I normally translate as joyful, but that you could also read as merry or jolly. It’s most familiar in the expression Nadolig Llawen, which is the Welsh way of saying Merry Christmas.

Sometimes in North Wales, you’ll hear it pronounced like this:

This follows a really common pattern in North Walian speech of altering the vowel in the final syllable of a word to ‘a’ from ‘e’. It happens to countless other words (though not all of them!) – rhedag for rhedeg, rhaglan for rhaglen, and sioclad for siocled are just a few examples.

Llawen has a long history in the Brittonic languages. It comes from the proto-Celtic root *lowenos, itself a descendant of proto-Indo-European *lehw- (to gain), making llawen a distant cousin of lucrative!

*Lowenos doesn’t seem to have survived in the Goidelic Celtic languages, but it produced laouen in Breton and lowen in Cornish, both meaning happy.

The only reason llawen isn’t the most common translation for happy in Welsh, too, is that Welsh has been more heavily influenced by English. The loan word hapus, borrowed in the 15^th century, has become very widely used in the language and is the default translation for just happy. That doesn’t mean that llawen isn’t widely used too, though – it just sounds a little bit more poetic and stronger in meaning, hence joyful being a better translation.

Llawen sounds pretty similar to llon, which is an exact synonym (though it’s even more literary sounding). However, they’re actually not from the same root; the exact origin of llon is unclear, but it followed its own etymological path and is very unlikely to have come from *lowenos.

Llawen, llon, and hapus sit in a whole family of geiriau llawen (jolly vocabulary):

• gorlawen = very joyful / very merry
• gorfoleddus = jubilant
• gorawenus = jubilant
• siriol = cheerful
• balch = glad / proud
• hwyliog = merry / fun

The noun, joy, is llawenydd, although you could also say llonder or simply hapusrwydd (happiness). And there are also verbal forms – llawenychu and llawenhau, which mean to rejoice. They sound quite formal and literary, much as rejoice does in English.

So how do we actually use llawen? You could theoretically use it to speak about how you feel, just as you’d say dw i’n hapus (I’m happy) or dw i’n drist (I’m sad), but this is quite flowery. It’s more common for it to describe circumstances, reactions, or an event, as in dathliad llawen (a joyful celebration) or newyddion llawen (joyful news).

What this reflects is that llawen can either be used to describe someone or something who feels joyful, but also something that causes someone to feel joyful. And of course the two often come together.

Notice that if you use llawen after the linking word yn, it doesn’t actually mutate. Normally, adjectives and nouns take a soft mutation after yn, but this doesn’t apply to words that start with the letter ll.

This same exception applies when you’re using llawen adverbially – for example if you’re saying that a group of people were dawnsio’n llawen (dancing merrily). This leads me on to merry as a euphemism for meddw (drunk). In Welsh this isn’t a traditional usage of the word llawen, but I’ve heard it employed in this way before and people will certainly understand what you mean.

As an adverb, yn llawen can also mean willingly; it’s a bit like when someone asks you to do something in English and you respond with pleasure.

But overall, a lot of the typical uses of llawen (and llon) occur in set phrases.

• Lloegr Lawen = Merrie England
• llanciau llon Robin Hwd = Robin Hood’s merry men
• noson lawen = an evening of socialising and entertainment, literally merry night
• mor llawen â’r gog / mor llon â’r gog = as happy as the cuckoo
• byddwch lawen = St David’s command to be joyful

And then of course there’s Nadolig Llawen, or Merry Christmas. This is sometimes replaced by the simpler Nadolig Hapus (Happy Christmas) – personally I always say the traditional phrase in both English and Welsh, I love how unique it is.

You can see the use of both llawen and llawenydd (joy) in the song Dymunwn Nadolig Llawen (We Wish You a Merry Christmas), popular in both English and Welsh:

As you can see in geiriau’r gân (the lyrics of the song), to wish someone a Happy New Year in Welsh, you say Blwyddyn Newydd Dda (literally Good New Year).

It is also possible to use llawen to wish someone a happy penblwydd (birthday) or penblwydd priodas (wedding anniversary), but hapus is overall more common in these situations.

Whatever you’re up to this gaeaf (winter), I hope the tymor (season) is filled with llawenydd for you and yours. ❤️