The very useful sawl plays a double role in the Welsh language. It’s both a pronoun, in which case it translates roughly to the English how many, and an adverb, in which case it means several or many. Read on to discover how to use it correctly in both of these contexts.
sawl
how many / several
Now, its usage has definitely evolved over time – and, having existed in Welsh since the 12th century, it’s had plenty of time to do so. It appears in forms as various as sol, seul, seilla, and ssaul in old texts in all three of the Brittonic languages, which are Welsh, Breton, and Cornish, and may have been originally borrowed from the Latin talis (such).
In many of the oldest recordings of sawl in Welsh, the word works as a pronoun, meaning the one whom or the ones whom. Over time, it evolved to have a more numeric connotation. When we use it, we’re either asking how many of something there is, or expressing how many of something there is – albeit in a rather indefinite way, since it just means several rather than referring to a particular number.
Using sawl to ask a question is simple. Simply place it before the noun whose quantity you want to ask about. So, how many boys? is sawl bachgen? It can then, of course, be paired with additional contextual information to make it clear exactly what you’re asking about – perhaps you want to know sawl bachgen sydd yno? (how many boys are there?) for example.
Historically, people said pa sawl here rather than just sawl. Today this is almost obsolete.
Sawl anifail anwes sydd gan eich teulu?
How many pets does your family have?
Notice that bachgen is in the singular form. Literally, we are asking how many boy? This is just like when we are counting nouns in Welsh; we leave them in the singular. Tri bachgen (three boys) is literally three boy. Also notice that sawl doesn’t cause any mutation to bachgen, nor would it to any other noun.
There is another way of asking how many in Welsh. This is faint o (how many), and, in contrast to sawl, it is paired with the plural form of the noun you are asking about, soft mutated – so faint o fechgyn? (how many boys?)
Both are correct. Sawl is perhaps simpler because you don’t have to worry about plurals of mutation, but faint has the added benefit of also meaning how much.
Using sawl as a determiner works in a similar way. It is followed by the singular of a noun, not mutated. So, you could theoretically answer the question sawl bachgen? with the answer sawl bachgen (several boys). Arguably this wouldn’t be very helpful to the person who asked you, but it would be grammatically correct!
Mae sawl rhywogaeth o forfilod mewn perygl.
Many species of whales are endangered.
Building on this, the phrase sawl un (literally several ones) works well in places where several in English is used as a noun. So instead of answering the sawl bachgen? question with sawl bachgen you could make it even simpler and say sawl un (several). Unfortunately, this response still won’t make you very popular with the asker…
I am translating sawl mostly as several, or sometimes many, but the truth is that it doesn’t map directly onto any one English word. You’ll have to get out there and practise using it to get a sense of when it works well! In general, it is used to express an indeterminate number of things, more than just un (one) or dau / ddwy (two), but perhaps not quite as many as llawer o (lots of / very many).
The expression nifer o (a number of) is similar. You can see nifer o as working more like the statement version of faint o, because it’s also followed by a soft-mutated version of the plural form of the noun. These two different translations of the same exchange illustrate the two equally valid styles:
Dwedodd hi, “Roedd sawl coeden yn yr ardd.” Gofynnais i, “Sawl coeden?“
She said, “There were several trees in the garden.” I asked, “How many trees?“
Dwedodd hi, “Roedd nifer o goed yn yr ardd.” Gofynnais i, “Faint o goed?“
She said, “There were several trees in the garden.” I asked, “How many trees?“
But of course, in real life, the different ways of making the statement and of answering the question could be mixed and matched – and indeed likely would be, because different people have different go-to ways of expressing themselves.
In both the question and the statement usages of sawl, it can be combined with the noun gwaith (work, or an act) to produce a specific use case. This is sawl gwaith? (how many times?) or sawl gwaith (several times).
This comes up a lot, and it’s useful to know because in English, we’d say time instead – so it may not be how you’d expect to say this if you didn’t grow up with the language.
A similar construction which is also common is sawl tro (several times / many times). The noun here is tro (a turn / a journey).
Mae ‘mudo ‘mennydd‘ yn broblem ddifrifol i sawl gwlad.
‘Brain drain’ is a serious problem for many countries.
But un, gwaith, and tro are just the beginning. You can prefix any countable noun with sawl but a few more examples that you might see could include sawl ffordd (several ways), sawl math (many kinds), sawl plentyn (several children), or sawl iaith (several languages).
Hopefully, sawl un (several people) are reading this article, and will be looking forward to employing this word in sawl ffordd in the future!
