Welsh Word of the Day: Penblwydd (birthday)

Whether your aim in learning Welsh is complete fluency, professional ability, or simply to impress friends and show courtesy, some of the most useful words to know are those that appear in greetings and set phrases.

Today’s isn’t one you’ll use every day of the year – but when you do need to use it, you’ll be very glad to know it! I’m talking of course about penblwydd (birthday or anniversary), the plural of which is penblwyddi.

Penblwydd is a masculine noun, and it mutates like this:

That means your birthday is dy benblwydd, his birthday is ei benblwydd, my birthday is fy mhenblwydd, and her birthday is ei phenblwydd.

In dictionaries, you will often see it written pen-blwydd or pen blwydd. Or, sometimes, one of the two words for day, which are diwrnod and dydd, is inserted before the phrase. But in this article, I will be writing the word as penblwydd – simply put, this is because it’s how I personally would write the word, as well as being what I most often see on items like cardiau penblwydd (birthday cards).

You may be wondering, “Wouldn’t adding diwrnod or dydd to the start make it birthday day?” No, it wouldn’t! Penblwydd is not a literal translation or calque of birthday – it has its own etymology. Pen means head, top, or main part, and blwydd means year.

So as you can see it doesn’t involve day to begin with, or birth either. The latter fact means that this is the same word for any kind of anniversary, such as a wedding anniversary, or penblwydd priodas.

• penblwydd priodas arian = silver wedding anniversary
• penblwydd priodas rhuddem = ruby wedding anniversary
• penblwydd priodas aur = gold wedding anniversary
• penblwydd priodas deimwnt = diamond wedding anniversary
• penblwydd priodas platinuwm = platinum wedding anniversary

Wishing someone a happy anniversary no matter the number of blwyddi (years) is simple. You simply say penblwydd priodas hapus. Do remember to include the priodas or you’re just saying happy birthday!

Yes, as you might have guessed, happy birthday is penblwydd hapus. And you can actually sing this birthday greeting to the exact same tune and rhythm as its English translation. For example:

Some people sing annwyl (dear) instead of i in the third verse, thus mirroring the English more literally, but this works less well rhythmically.

What you present after singing this cân (song) will be called either a teisen or a cacen (cake) depending where you are in the country. The person whose penblwydd it is makes a dymuniad (wish) while diffodd y canhwyllau (blowing out the candles) and torri tafell / torri sleisen (cutting a slice).

Of course, not everyone has a big parti (party) for their penblwydd with teulu (family) and ffrindiau (friends). Many prefer to dathlu (celebrate) in a more laid-back style. Some people don’t even care if they don’t get any anrhegion (birthdays)!

Oedau (ages) that are seen as marking a big shift do tend to get more of a dathliad (celebration), like when someone turns un ar hugain / dau ddeg un (twenty-one) or hanner can / pum deg (fifty).

Traditionally in Welsh, you wouldn’t say someone’s deunawfed penblwydd (eighteenth birthday). It is more idiomatic to say penblwydd yn ddeunaw oed (literally birthday that is eighteen age). Due to the influence of English, some people do use the former construction, but as a learner it’s probably best to familiarise yourself with the latter as a first port of call.

The last important piece of information you need to discuss penblwyddi in Welsh is how to give the dyddiad (date) of yours.

These are the months of the year:

• mis Ionawr = January
• mis Chwefror = February
• mis Mawrth = March
• mis Ebrill = April
• mis Mai = May
• mis Mehefin = June
• mis Gorffennaf =July
• mis Awst = August
• mis Medi = September
• mis Hydref = October
• mis Tachwedd = November
• mis Rhagfyr = December

Then to express a dyddiad, you just use ordinal numbers as in English. For example, yr ugeinfed o Ragfyr, or just yr 20fed o Ragfyr. Here, yr means the, ugeinfed / 20fed means twentieth, o means of, and Ragfyr is the soft mutated form (the mutation is caused by the preposition) of Rhagfyr.

And to make talking about dyddiadau (dates) easier, it’ll be useful to learn the corresponding ordinal along with each Welsh rhif (number) as you go.

I’ll leave you with a fun fact: did you know that some people in North Wales call the day on which spring-cleaning is done penblwydd y cythraul (the devil’s birthday)?!