#cymblr

[fishmirrors]

hhhngh welsh miku…

[b1odeuwed]

the brazilian miku trend is awesome so i hit miku with the welsh beam

[llyfrenfys]

Hey, I’m doing a design project based around the Welsh language as was wondering if you knew if there was any word for ‘welsh person’. Like Welshman being Cymro and Welshwoman being Cymraes. Do you know if there’s (even if not official) any gender neutral version?

Apologies for only just answering this ask!

You're probably already aware of Cymry (Welsh people) the plural of Cymro - which is unfortunately plural and not singular. But Cymro/Cymry are interesting in that they aren't suffixed with an -o or a -y - they're both derived from kömroɣ* - the (reconstructed) Common Brittonic word for compatriot. Whereas Cymraes takes Cymro and swaps in-aes/-es, the feminine suffix. Similarly, you have athro (male teacher) and athrawes (female teacher), brenin (king) and brenhines (queen), actor (male actor) and actores (female actor), Norwyad (Norwegian man), Norwyes (Norwegian woman) etc. Each time, the masculine form is treated as the default and only modified with a feminine ending -es/aes when a woman is being referred to. Which is a feature shared with many other gendered European languages *sigh*. It's frustrating but it leaves us with 2 choices:

Simply adopt the masculine form as the sole term and use it for everyone, regardless of gender. E.g. many women refuse to use athrawes for themselves and will say athro to refer to a female teacher. Ditto actor instead of actores (a similar process has occurred in English with many gendered words such as actress and waitress being phased out in favour of simply using actor, waiter for everyone regardless of gender).

Use an additional suffix which denotes gender neutrality. I am a (very rusty) Spanish speaker and there is a movement in Spanish to use gender neutral -e in places where masculine -o or feminine -a are used. E.g. Latine instead of Latino/Latina. There have been attempts to do this in Welsh but they haven't had much traction (I know of attempts dating back at least a decade. But there isn't a consensus on what a suitable gender neutral suffix might be (a problem also shared with Spanish speakers, some of whom have used -x instead of -o/-a, e.g. Latinx. The use of -x has been more controversial than -e, however). In Welsh, I have only seen propositions for gender neutral pronouns, rather than suffixes. Which have not yet been addressed.

On solution 2., there are issues which haven't really been worked out (hence why I think the first gender neutral movement in Welsh (largely online) ran out of steam). But mayhaps this ask is a springboard to opening this discussion up to other Welsh speakers.

My 2 cents are that we're going to need a sound - ideally a vowel which isn't already in use as a suffix denoting something specific. My gut instinct is to go to -y, but we cannot use -y due to Cymry already existing. -W sounds great in theory but is clunky on its own when attempting to form neologisms with it. E.g. Cymrw, Athrw, Norwyw etc. If -es is taken by the feminine, that leaves -a, and -i to play with - both of which already exist as suffixes in other contexts (but that isn't a complete dealbreaker).

Theoretically one could take a leaf out of the book of the feminine suffix -es and add an 's'. Which might lead to things like -ws to help with flow. -Ws already exists but is very colloquial and low frequency, which could be a goer (no promises - I'm a descriptivist not a prscriptivist!). E.g. you could have Cymrws, Athrws, Norwyws (greater development needed imo). which helps with the flow.

"Ydy'r athrawes wedi mynd? (Has the (female) teacher gone?) -> "Ydy'r athrws wedi mynd?" (Has the teacher (gender neutral) gone?).

Buuuuut the problem with -ws is that depending on accent, it might get mistaken as -es/aes in speech, particularly fast speech.

Another alternative might be -a or -i. E.g. Cymra, Athra, Norwya (though -a is often gendered feminine in other European languages and may be misleading on that front). Or Cymri, Athri, Norwyi (has immediate problems due to similarity in sound to Cymry and clunkiness with other words).

Cymraes differs to most other words suffixed with -es (for complicated historical reasons [See section § 65 in A Welsh Grammar, Historical and Comparative (1913)]. In principle, -es becomes -aes in only this case. Which is why we have Norwyes (or Eidales, Ffrances etc.) and Cymraes rather that Cymres. Based on this, for any neologism to work, it has to mimic this sound change in a way which seems natural, despite being a new addition to the language. "ae" is a dipthong in Welsh and for historical reasons,-es -> -aes in this case. Therefore a gender neutral replacement for -aes must also include a dipthong to preserve flow as best as possible and resemble the sound changes which Cymraes went through to get to where it is now. In other words we're getting into queer space-time territory because we have to be present in both the past and the present (linguistically speaking) simultaneously. In effect, we're conlanging for gender neutrality in a living language. Because the stem we're using (Cymr-) is so old (roughly 2500 years old but I am simplifying things here for brevity), we have to play by the old rules if that makes sense? Or it won't look or sound right. Ergo, I think using a dipthong containing "w" would be the best bet. E.g. Cymruws (Cymr- + -uw- + s).

But this is all conjecture and theorising from one person (me) so huge pinch of salt this is my 2 cents and nothing more. But, having said that I'd appreciate any other Welsh speakers weighing in with opinions (even if it's to say certain words sound clunky etc.).

[official-wales]

Is there an official Welsh word of the year? Like the Oxford word of the year (but better).

only for you anon

[flagwars]

Y Ddraig Goch Flag Wars: Round 1, Bracket 8

[crynwr-drwg]

Desperately want to know what the verb "to fag" could mean

[chaosintheavenue]

Psst... does anyone on the Welsh side of Tumblr happen to have any Welsh music recs?

(Welsh language is preferred, but absolutely not necessary)

[creatrixcymraes]

How do you say period (like to have your period) yn gymraeg? Mine driving me crazy makes it occur to me that it's an important word to know, and not one I'm likely to learn on an app! 💗💗💗

That is a good question! The Welsh word for menstruation is "mislif" or "fisglwyf", which translates literally as "month-wound" haha

I actually don't know whether that's the most commonly used word among first-language Welsh speakers, so I'd love to hear any additional input from people that know more than me 💖

[siaradwast]

goddd one of those "pretty words i just found out about" tiktoks came up on my pinterest and one of the words was.... hiraeth. and the definition given was something like "an intense homesickness for a home you cannot return to". and im just. how like. difficult is it to actually find the proper cultural context of a word & how the definition relates to that. i don't think i would mind the common usage of hiraeth on the Internet so much if there was any sort of reference to wales/welsh/welsh context of the word included .... but there never is !!!!

[03josten]

does anyone have any welsh language tv shows recommendations????? the few i've tried in the past have absolutely bored me but i need the practice

[temporalteardrop]

dydd gŵyl dewi hapus pawb!

[eternal-moss]

Oh yeah question for cymblr, I was asking my dad this and he didn’t know, I was wondering if it was well known or not- I think most saints are called ‘Sant []’, but Saint David always seems to be ‘Dewi Sant’, is there a reason for it being the other way around? Is this way more common than just him bc I can’t think of any besides him. If anyone knows the answer I’d be interested :)

[llyfrenfys]

I have made some Welsh LGBTQ+ Prints!

P'nawn da! Today is the day I'm finally launching my Welsh LGBTQ+ prints for sale (find them here). Like with my dissertation, they're pay as you feel (min. £2 plus postage) and I can post them to the UK, US, EU and Canada! Designs include the 2017 Gilbert Baker flag with the stripe meanings in Welsh and English, the map of Wales featuring my pride redesigns of the historic county flags of Wales, lesbian redesign of the Cardiff flag and a brand new design featuring 12 pride flags with the names of each in Welsh and English. I have 5 of each print in stock!

If you're new here or didn't know, unfortunately I experienced several major life changes this year which have really affected my finances (hospitalisation, long term relationship ended, emergency house move, job loss due to employer discrimination and a family member diagnosed with a terminal illness. For more details see this post). In order to help support myself I'm offering these prints for sale while I search for a new part time job. At the time of writing, I only have enough money in savings to cover 2 more months of rent and bills (not including food), so anything you can spare will help me afford food and keep doing what I love. I also have a patreon if you want to support me there.

I have also got my 47-page undergraduate dissertation on the development of Welsh-language terminology between 1972 and 2022 available here as pay as you feel (even £1!). Any support is hugely, hugely appreciated.

[official-wales]

Hi! Random question, where would you recommend I start if I want to learn Welsh? (A specific youtuber, a course, etc)

SHWMAE!! I made a post that might be useful to you recently. I'll put it here.

If I had to paraphrase some of the useful things from that post, I'd say definitely check out learnwelsh.cymru. It has loads of different course options suited to how you want to learn, as well as loads of other cool resources at different levels.

Definitely recommend Doctor Cymraeg. He's like everyone's high school second language Welsh teacher, but if the teacher taught exclusively while walking through the local park.

Another good youtube account is Welsh With Us. I haven't watched a lot, but it's pretty good if you want to really get to grips with grammar and pronunciation.

Let me know if I can be of any more help! And if anyone else could recommend me some good resources to give out, that would be great too

Diolch and have fun learning!!! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

[flagwars]

Y Ddraig Goch Flag Wars: Round 2, Bracket 3

[crynwr-drwg]

PROTEST in PONTYPRIDD on Wednesday thr 26th!!! No time has been set yet, as people are trying to find out still what time these fucks rock up