Inspired by the cyri (curry) that I’m very excited to eat later, our Welsh word of the day today is swper (supper). This is a noun with the plural swperau (suppers). It’s occasionally spelt and pronounced swpar.
swper
supper
swperau
suppers
Swper was borrowed from Middle English a very long time ago; there are records of it being used in Welsh texts as early as the 14th century. The word it was taken from was a Middle English ancestor of modern English’s supper, which itself was a loan word from Old French.
And get this – the Old French word in question, soper, originally came from sope (soup).
I definitely agree that cawl (soup, also used in English to refer to a specific Welsh soup dish) is a great choice for a hwyrbryd (very formal term for an evening meal), especially when enjoyed with a hefty tocyn (chunk) of bara menyn (buttered bread). Still, I wouldn’t have expected the whole pryd o fwyd (meal) to be named after it!
Swper in Welsh is treated as a feminine noun in North Wales and a masculine noun in the South.
Because this word is pronounced with more of an ‘oo’ sound rather than a ‘uh’ sound (though it’s not as long as ‘oo’ would be in English), it’s easy to confuse it with the English word super, too. But super isn’t a word that has been borrowed into Welsh – though of course, anything goes when it comes to Wenglish! You are more likely to hear words like gwych (great) or ardderchog (excellent) instead.
It can be a bit confusing talking about different prydau (meals) in any language, because preferences surrounding bwyd (food) are just so dependent on individual people and families.
Swper, like supper in English, generally refers to an evening pryd (meal). That seems easy enough, but the confusion comes when you get cinio involved. Cinio is often translated as lunch, and this isn’t wrong, but many people also use cinio to refer to an evening pryd.
Ges i ginio mawr, felly dw i’n mynd i gael swper fach.
I had a big lunch, so I’m going to have a smaller supper.
I think the best way to describe this word is that it refers to your biggest pryd of the day, whatever time of day you have it, so it’s actually quite similar to the English word dinner.
The reason it’s generally associated with a pryd eaten at hanner dydd (midday) is simply that that’s when most ordinary Welsh people historically would have eaten their main pryd. Then they’d have had a smaller pryd or byrbryd (snack) in the noswaith (evening). Though this has changed throughout time: workers in glofeydd (mines) and chwareli (quarries) would have been less able to eat while gweithio (working), hence the existence of historical terms like swper chwarel (a large evening meal eaten by quarrymen).
This confusion about cinio has a knock-on effect on the use of swper. Growing up, I used cinio to refer to both lunch and dinner. Amser swper (suppertime) was just before gwely (bed), and was for a byrbryd of tost (toast) and ffrwythau (fruit).
A lot of Welsh families, though, would instead use swper for the main evening meal and cinio for lunch.
It even feeds into what you call the dodrefn (furniture) in your tŷ (house): is it a bwrdd cinio (dinner table), a bwrdd swper (supper table), or even a bwrdd brecwast (breakfast table)?
In reality, the ‘traditional’ three pryd structure isn’t universal at all. In lots of cultures it’s common to have two prydau rather than three.
There’s also the question of te (tea), which in Welsh as in English can refer either to the diod (drink) or to a kind of pryd. Some people use it to mean a byrbryd eaten in the prynhawn (afternoon) served with te, and for others it’s their go-to word for the evening meal, instead of cinio or swper. Another in-between meal is brecinio (brunch).
Plus, the difference between a proper pryd and a byrbryd isn’t exactly clear either. I actually find Welsh more convenient than English for describing the size and significance of different amserau bwyd (mealtimes) – I use pryd to refer to main meals and to larger snacks, and tamaid (literally: a morsel, kind of like a bite to eat) to smaller snacks.
Dydy hi ddim yn hoffi ei swper achos bod pysgod ynddi.
She doesn’t like her supper because there is fish in it.
Whether your swper is the biggest pryd of the day or closer to a bedtime byrbryd, the verbs you’re most likely to pair with it when using it in a sentence are the same.
- paratoi swper = to prepare supper
- coginio swper = to cook supper
- hwylio swper = an older Northern way of saying to prepare supper / to cook supper
- eisiau swper = to want supper
- bwyta swper = to eat supper
- cael swper = to have supper
Cael is a very tricksy Welsh word that can mean to have or to get depending on the context. We have a specific article on this to help you get to grips with it, but in this particular phrase you can treat it as if it means have.
But this isn’t the only way to talk about having supper with someone – it’s likely easier and just as acceptable to simply say bwyta gyda rhywun (eating with someone), and there is actually a verbal form of swper itself, swperu (to sup / to have supper), although this sounds quite formal.
Mae swper yn barod heblaw am y tatws.
Supper is ready except for the potatoes.
Lastly, not all swperau are the everyday kind. There’s also the kind you have at bigger events like a swper priodas / swper neithior (wedding breakfast), sometimes now called a gwledd briodas (literally wedding feast). Or, on an even less everyday level, y Swper Olaf (the Last Summer), which Cristnogion (Christians) today commemorate with the practice of y Cymun / Swper yr Arglwydd (Communion / the Lord’s Supper).
Do you use the word supper for one of your daily prydau? Or are you more likely to refer to your evening pryd as cinio or te? And most importantly… what are you planning to have for swper tonight? 😉
