Welsh Word of the Day: Ymyl (edge)

Although the Welsh alphabet is incredibly phonetic, there is a very small number of letters and diphthongs that can make different sounds depending on the context. The most famous of these is y, which generally makes an uh sound but often makes an ih sound if it’s in the very last syllable of the world.

A good example of this is the word ymyl, meaning edge. In the singular it’s pronounced uh-mill. But when it pluralises, to ymylon, the second y now has an uh sound too because it’s no longer the final syllable of the word. It’s crazy how native speakers of a language obey so many interesting and complicated rules without even knowing it!

Some people pluralise it as ymylau rather than ymylon – it’s less common overall but still considered acceptable. The same pronunciation change applies in the second syllable.

Ymyl is a noun of ambiguous gender which can refer to various kinds of edge, margin, or boundary.

It has existed in Welsh since at least as far back as the 12^th century. It’s probably a cognate of the word imeall in Irish, which has the same meaning – coming from a shared proto-Celtic ancestor.

Prepositions often work quite differently in Welsh to their English equivalents, not to mention that their meanings do not always correspond exactly to each other.

The way ymyl is used is a good example of this. You will often hear ymyl in the construction wrth ymyl, which is a very common way to say near or besides. This utilises the multi-faceted word wrth, which has a huge range of meanings including by, while, at, from and against. Phew! At least you know now how to use it in this specific context.

There’s also ar ymyl, which means on the edge of, hyd yr ymyl, which means up to the edge, and yn ymyl, which is a (much) less common way to say wrth ymyl.

Plus, ymyl can be refashioned into the verb form ymylu (to border). You wouldn’t use this to say that two gwladoedd (countries) bordered each other, but instead in phrases like ymylu ar gyfeillgarwch (to border on friendship) or ymylu ar fod yn wirion (to border on being stupid). It can also mean to border as in to put a border on something, though just rhoi ymyl is also fine here.

Of course, the word can also be used simply to talk about the edge of a specific thing, like ymyl cwpan (rim of a cup), ymyl ffordd (roadside), or ymyl ‘dalen (margin of a page). A llyfr (book) with gilt edges has ymylon euraidd, and the cutting edge of a cyllell (knife) is yr ymyl torri.

Historically, it’s likely that ymyl was used in Welsh to refer to shore or the bank of an afon (river) or the môr (sea). Today we call this a glan, but we know this use of ymyl existed because it survived in proverbs – like tynnu’r cwch i’r ymyl from Ceredigion, which literally means pulling the boat to the shore and refers to finishing up a project, or the less positive boddi wrth ymyl y lan, which literally means drowning by the edge of the shore and refers to falling at the last hurdle.

(In the above example sentence I’ve written y cwpan for the cup. In North Wales many people would say y gwpan. You can read about why that is here – but the long and short of it is that either is fine.)

The fact that ymyl has largely been superseded by glan brings me to my last point, which is all the different words that we have today for different kinds of borders and edges!

There’s terfyn and ffin, both of which mean a border in a political or geographic sense.

There’s min, a synonym of ymyl which often refers to the edge or point of a cyllell, and which shows up in the expression ar fin (on the edge), as in ar fin ‘neud rhywbeth (on the brink of doing something). It’s also an old-fashioned alternative of gwefus (lip).

The last one I’ll cover today is ochr. This means side and is used really widely, from the ochrau (sides) of a geometrical siâp (shape) to looking on yr ochr orau (the bright side, literally the best side).

I hope you’re feeling confident to try using ymyl in your next Welsh conversation!