For today’s word of the day, I want to sôn about the word sôn. This is a really useful Welsh word that in various contexts could be translated as to tell, to talk, to say, or to mention. It’s included in loads of common colloquial phrases.
sôn
to tell
Sôn actually used to be spelt son in Middle Welsh, without the acen (accent). It came from the Proto-Brythonic son, ancestor also of Breton soun and Cornish son, both meaning sound. As you may be able to guess, all these words originate from the same root as the word sound itself, which is the Latin sonus.
The addition of accents to many Welsh words happened relatively recently, which may be surprising as they’re such a key part of Welsh spelling. But in fact, historically, Welsh spelling was very irregular.
Acennau (accents) were added as an attempt to standardise the language and make it more phonetic – a very successful project since modern Welsh is one of the most phonetically regular languages there is!
In this case, the use of ô rather than o tells us that sôn is pronounced with a long vowel sound. The long o in Welsh sounds more similar to the English roar than rock, so sôn is a bit like the first syllable of English sauna.
Ges i gi bach ar gyfer y Nadolig. Sôn am lwc!
I got a puppy for Christmas. Talk about lucky!
Although the various meanings of sôn can overlap a lot, I’d say it can be separated into three main categories. One is to say, usually to tell someone about something.
In this case, it should generally be paired with wrth, as in sôn wrtho fo (to tell him, to say to him). However, you can also use i instead of wrth, which makes it a more direct translation of to talk to – sôn iddi hi (to tell her, to say to her). Remember that with both wrth and i, you need to use the inflected forms that match the personal pronoun of whoever you’re speaking to.
If you want to say to say in an abstract sense, you should use the word dweud. You can actually dweud wrth rywun (say to someone), but sôn is a more natural-sounding choice, especially in informal settings.
The second usage I would translate as to talk about, and in this case you pair it with am. So, sôn am dractorau is to talk about tractors. (Am has caused a soft mutation here to tractorau). If you are talking about a person, then am needs to inflect, just like wrth and i. To talk about us is sôn amdanon ni.
And the word for just to talk rather than to talk about is of course siarad. As with dweud, siarad too can be used in the way that sôn would be used (siarad am rywbeth, to talk about something), but sôn adds variety to your vocabulary – and also makes you sound more like a native speaker, if that’s one of your language-learning goals.
Lastly, sôn can also be used for inanimate objects, and can simply describe making a sound. This is a bit more old-fashioned as seinio would be the first choice today.
Paid sôn am ‘ny, rwyt ti’n codi cywilydd arna i.
Don’t talk about that, you’re embarrassing me.
Since this is such a common and useful word, you may be wondering how it conjugates. However, in my experience, sôn is almost always used in the infinitive, so it’s best to focus on getting comfortable with the different inflections of wrth, i and am that you’re likely to end up using with it. I think the only conjugation that you really need to remember is soniais i, which is the first-person past tense.
Most of the most common expressions just use sôn as the simple three letter word it is. One example is peidiwch â sôn (don’t mention it), which is used in response to diolch (thanks). In parts of the South, this is interchangeable with tewch â sôn, which is sometimes used to mean something more like you don’t say. The informal forms of these phrases respectively are paid sôn and tewa sôn.
A sôn am hynny (speaking of which), another really useful phrase is heb sôn am. This literally means without mentioning and is pretty much equivalent to the English not to mention and let alone. This, too, has a slightly less common Southern alternative, which is llai sôn am.
These aren’t used in all parts of the South and are generally falling out of use, as South Wales is sadly far more anglicised than the North and West.
If you want to crybwyll (mention) that you’ve heard of something, clywed sôn bod literally means to hear tell that.
If you want to be careful, you could qualify your statement with the phrase yn ôl y sôn (allegedly), as what you’ve found about might be simple clecs (gossip). Though it could also be entirely gwir (true)… in which case you’ll be more sure of yourself and possibly use the more emphatic yn ôl pob sôn, which is also used to mean allegedly, but feels stronger since it literally translates to according to all talk instead of just according to the talk.
Either way, someone has been creu sôn amdano’i / amdani’i hun (getting himself / herself talked about)!
Mae’n sôn wrthon ni am ei wyliau.
He’s telling us about his holidays.
As you might have guessed from some of the above phrases, sôn can also be used as a noun. It generally means sound / noise but is usually used more specifically to mean rumour, or tell / word in the particular context of hearsay.
One of my favourite idioms describing gossip in Welsh is trin ceffyl pobl eraill (caring for other people’s horses). But there are some fun phrases using the word sôn itself, like sôn am Awst wyliau Nadolig (speaking about August in the Christmas holidays), which means speaking about something which isn’t relevant for that time of year.
Another is sonier am y diawl (speak of the devil), which is just an equivalent of the same proverb in English. But there is a slight variation that is popular amongst older Welsh people, which is sonier am ddiawl, fe ymddengys y cythraul (speak about demons and the devil will appear). I think that one’s even scarier than the original!
