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| 20 new of 69 responses total. |
srw
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response 50 of 69:
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Dec 15 23:54 UTC 1996 |
Perhaps the web page you were looking for is
http://www.notam.uio.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/Irish_Gaelic.html
I know no Irish/Gelic, but I know how to do a web search.
I just asked altavista to find neamhshuim and it did. Enjoy.
Also check out this crossword site
http://tarbh.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/gaeilge/corpus/crosfhocail/crosfhocal_0
5.html
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kamenr
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response 51 of 69:
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Dec 16 12:33 UTC 1996 |
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kami
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response 52 of 69:
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Dec 17 02:57 UTC 1996 |
That is waaaay to long a url. And Tarbh means "bull". Wonder if it has
the same slang association as in this country...;) (actually, I don't
think so, but it's a bit amusing).
Thanks, Steve.
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cormac
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response 53 of 69:
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Dec 23 02:07 UTC 1996 |
Way to go steve! What a fine mind you have! I wish I had thought of that
elegant little solution before I spent the week looking through every gaelic
page I could find. (Unsuccessfully I might add). Yep. That was the page
alright. :).
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sjones
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response 54 of 69:
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Nov 1 14:15 UTC 1998 |
oh dear - as far as i can see, this item has rather died the death...
but just in case i'm wrong, re: #32, Nobody has spoken
Cornish natively in centuries; - very much not the case! although
cornish *did* die out in the nineteenth century, scholars have been at
work on reviving it since about the middle of this century, and so
successful have they been that it is now available as a 16+ and 18+ age
group public examination, as well as being spoken fluently by an
increasing number of people, many of whom belong to the cornish
nationalist group 'mebyon kernow', sons of cornwall. the nephews of a
friend of mine are growing up bilingual cornish/english - and it is not
far short of mutually comprehensible with welsh - i'm welsh, and i
thought the kids were trying to speak welsh to me at first... anyway,
must be off... what a shame your concepts of gaelic over there across
the water all seem to tend so much towards the irish...
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kami
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response 55 of 69:
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Nov 4 20:56 UTC 1998 |
That's really cool! I hate the loss of native cultures and languages. Do
you feel that it's the old language, or like Hebrew, a modern variant? Do
you think it'll be retained and spoken, in the long run?
Well, I do know folks who are Welsh traditionalists. I'm more inclined toward
the Irish, myself, although I do tell some stories from the Mabinogion as
well. Some of it might be availability, I'm not sure.
Glad to have you with us, Simon.
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sjones
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response 56 of 69:
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Nov 5 14:19 UTC 1998 |
and thank*you* for the welcome! i think there are bound to be
differences between modern cornish and the language that died last
century, but of a minor nature only on the whole. one thing they've
done particularly well at is retranslating modern idiom from its roots
to avoid becoming anglicised - television gets translated into the
cornish for distant and seeing (which for the life of me i can't
remember at the moment!) whereas in welsh it's teledu, basically just a
corruption... i think the long term prospects for cornish are very
healthy, although the numbers will never be that great, since there
aren't many cornish anyway... but it's in all the schools, and mebyon
kernow are very passionate, and stronger links are being formed with the
other major celtic countries - cornwall are always at the celtic games,
and the various pan-celtic eisteddfodau...
i expect you're right about the availability thing - apart from
patagonia, wherever the welsh have gone we seem to have made less noise
than the scots and the irish - but plenty of us did go to america -
perhaps we're just inherently more shy and reserved... [implausible in
the extreme...)]
but lovely that you know some of the mabinogi - my mother was called
Rhiannon after pwyll's wife, but fortunately i was never kidnapped by
any monsters... well, fortunately for *me*...
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coyote
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response 57 of 69:
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Nov 7 04:22 UTC 1998 |
Welcome, Simon! It's great to have you here. As of sometime last year I've
been taking Welsh lessons (well, until partway through the Summer, that is
-- I haven't resumed them yet, as I've been terribly busy), but it's great
to have somebody from Wales here on Grex. What part of Wales are you from?
My teacher is from a small town outside of Swansea where he grew up speaking
Welsh, while his wife was actually from the city and all she can speak she
learned from him. The communities are only 20 or 30 miles apart, and yet
there's such a difference culturally. Are you yourself from an area where
you grew up speaking it? Interesting about the Cornish: I didn't know it was
going through such a revival.
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kami
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response 58 of 69:
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Nov 8 07:01 UTC 1998 |
>perhaps we're just inherently more shy and reserved... [implausible in
Oh, <giggle>
>and the various pan-celtic eisteddfodau...
Pan- Celtic? Cool!
> Rhiannon after pwyll's wife, but fortunately i was never kidnapped by
I named my ferret (long dead now. I miss her.) Kigva, after Rhiannon's
daughter-in-law; the ferret's mother was named Rhiannon, and of course
Rhiannon has no daughters, so this was as close as I could come. Then, when
she had her first litter, I went to the next branch or so- 3 males; Math,
Manawyddan and Matholwch, and 2 females; one was Bronwyn and the other, since
I needed a random female name for the little sable, was Morvydd.
My favorite stories from the Mabinogion are how Pwyll won Rhiannon, and the
story of Bronwyn (although it's sad.)
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sjones
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response 59 of 69:
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Nov 9 14:59 UTC 1998 |
wel nawr! bore da i chi gyd!
mabinogi ferrets - i never heard such a thing! unfeasibly brilliant!
and welsh learners in america (if i'm right to presume that) - how
marvellous. llongyfarchiadau!
i'm from aberystwyth, half-way up cardigan bay, and i would have grown
up what we call 'cymro cymraeg', ie first language speaker, if i had
ever actually really lived there - but my parents were wanderers, so
i've grown up in various different far-flung spots - with the result
that my welsh only really works when i'm at home, surrounded by my
welsh-speaking friends. at the moment, i'm in the UAE, and working so
hard on my arabic that my welsh is distictly rusty... what inspired you
to take up welsh, coyote?
and pan-celtic is an increasingly big thing - now there's a parliament
in scotland, and an assembly at home, some kind of proper conference of
celtic states looks ever more likely... we've all got something
different to offer - the scots have economic strength, the irish the
experience of self-government, the welsh probably the best language
policies...
and i just *love* the thought of those ferrets! everyone back home'll
be delighted at them...) {we'd say branwen, by the way - our last dog
was a branwen} and your random name, morfydd, is an important name in
welsh poetry - morfydd was the great unachievable love of Dafydd ap
Gwilym, the greatest welsh mediaeval poet (c.1340), who is still studied
in european universities, and was a whole load better than chaucer! he
wrote brilliant self-mocking poems about going to church to look at the
pretty girls, and how they'd all just laugh at him... and morfydd
reckoned she was too good for him, and probably was, and then went and
married an ugly hunchback (well, according to dafydd!), so he had to
settle for leaping into bed with dyddgu while her husband was away...)
ah, you've made my evening - this far from home, to discover there are
welsh learners and welsh ferrets in america! thankyou both...)
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rcurl
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response 60 of 69:
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Nov 9 17:05 UTC 1998 |
sjones narrative brings back memories of days I spent in Wales. When I
lived in London I had digs with the Griffith family. Mr. Griffith was
Welsh and spoke the language, though his family did not. They had a
cottage just above Beddgelert in the North Wales area called Snowdonia
(because it surrounds Mt. Snowdon). I climbed Snowdon and adjacent peaks
with the Univ. of London Climbing Club (have you been across Crib Goch,
Simon?). There are also a lot of caves in South Wales, which I visited
with one of the London 'potholing' clubs. One result of this was that I
learned to at least stumbingly pronounce Welsh place names. On one trip I
bought the drop-case wall clock that was hanging on the wall in a pub near
Builth (the dial has the name C. Stewart - Builth lettered on it) which
hangs in my home office.
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sjones
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response 61 of 69:
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Nov 10 13:23 UTC 1998 |
beddgelert is lovely, isn't it? do you all know the story of llewelyn
and his hound gelert?
er... my brother's a big climber... i've been up to crib goch from the
pyg, had a look at what was required, and gone straight back down the
way i came up, stomach churning... <general memo: rcurl does *not*
suffer from vertigo...)> my brother waltzes across it merrily, curse
him...
i'm glad you enjoyed wales - and getting the hang of the place names is
no mean feat...
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rcurl
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response 62 of 69:
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Nov 10 17:47 UTC 1998 |
The cottage at Beddgelert was an old crofters cottage made of stone,
way up on the moor, on which sheep wandered. It was indeed lovely.
I *did* know about Llewelyn and Gelert, but the memory is now vague.
Another amusing memory is going out the first time to climb with the
U. London climbing club. We got to their hut, and t he next morning
it was raining hard. I sort of assumed (from California climbing
experience) they would wait for the rain to stop. The rain doesn't
stop in Wales. So, up we went.
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sjones
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response 63 of 69:
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Nov 10 19:37 UTC 1998 |
hey, i distinctly remember it stopping! it wasn't for very long,
though, and i *was* young at the time...)
llewelyn went out hunting one day, and gelert, strangely, refused to
come with him, so the day's hunt was far less enjoyable than usual -
gelert was the best hound. when llewelyn returned, gelert greeted him
covered in blood, and llewelyn rushed in to where he had left his young
son. the room was in turmoil, and the child nowhere to be seen -
realising what the blood on gelert meant, he drew his sword and killed
the dog. gelert's death groan was answered by the sound of a child
beneath a table, and when llewelyn looked under the table, there was his
son - and the dead body of a gigantic wolf, which gelert had slain to
save the life of the boy. llewelyn felt, reputedly, somewhat on the
guilty side, and the place has been called bedd-gelert (lit. gelert's
grave) ever since. the story almost definitely originates in the
nineteenth century as an early form of the tourist trap...) either that,
or it was just something to do while it kept on raining...)
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rcurl
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response 64 of 69:
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Nov 11 03:24 UTC 1998 |
Yes, I recall that story. I think something like it is found in practically
all folklores, too.
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sjones
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response 65 of 69:
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Nov 14 06:11 UTC 1998 |
really? i've never come across it anywhere else, or maybe if i have
i've just subconsciously skimmed over it because it's not gelert - it's
always been a particular favourite of mine because it made me, as a
child, walk through beddgelert almost on tiptoes, feeling v. upset!
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coyote
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response 66 of 69:
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Nov 14 16:06 UTC 1998 |
Re 59:
Bore da i chi, hefyd!
Well, I don't have any particularly strong reason for learning Welsh
(I don't have any Welsh heritage as far as I can tell, although I do have
Scots and Irish). What I had read about Wales and the many stories that are
based in Welsh mythology interested me, so I decided to try to learn the
language. Plus, I had been interested in learning a Celtic language anyways,
so why not Welsh?
Re 61 and 63:
My teacher let me borrow a picture book of "Stori Gelert" so I
could try to read it. I couldn't. *blush* It was above my capabilities.
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rcurl
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response 67 of 69:
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Nov 14 16:44 UTC 1998 |
The gelert story is a metaphor of unjust retribution. There is the story
of the kings daughter that was cast out because he thought she did not
love him enough when she said she loved him as "meat loves salt", though
she really loved him best of all. The king got his come-uppance later, of
course. But there is a closer metaphor that I just can't bring to mind...
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sjones
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response 68 of 69:
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Nov 15 21:01 UTC 1998 |
oh, fair enough, see what you mean, as far as metaphorical
interpretations go... your example starts to sounds very much like King
Lear, doesn't it? now, shakespeare on celts, there's another story
altogether - cheeky sod he was. we seem quite keen on unjust
retribution, don't we? thinking now of rhiannon having to give everyone
piggybacks...
a s'mae unwaith eto i ti, coyote! sounds like a fine set of reasons to
me - and of course welsh has the benefit of being the celtic tongue
you're most likely to find alive and kicking in real communities... and
as for picture books, well, i'm sure these kids use bloody complicated
language, because i'm having precious little joy with my various baby
arabic books!
and just to go off on a brief tangent, but a subject that is *the* hot
topic in the whole of wales right now - we had a *stupendous* match
against the springboks (south africa's rugby team) on saturday, leading
right up until three minutes to go, and everyone had written us off
beforehand, so it was a great day for national pride! looks as though
we might have the beginnings of a revival on our hands...
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kami
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response 69 of 69:
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Nov 16 01:58 UTC 1998 |
I think Rhiannon is more than just about unfairness. Her patience and
tolerance, as folks are given to believe she killed her baby, and are
encouraged to treat her as a beast, is a lovely Christian message. But take
it back a step; odd for a goddess, or at least an otherworld woman, to
tolerate such treatment. But if part of her nature is as a horse-goddess (and
that fact that marriage with her allows Pwyll to keep the kingship might make
her a sovereignty goddess) then in a way, she is reverting to a more primitive
part of her nature, a more basic one perhaps, for that time. And at the end,
when Pryderi is brought back- along with a colt...- her delayed fertility is
finally brought to fruition. I guess it's a fine metaphore for a planting
myth, too- like John Barleycorn; "rape" the earth, "kill" and bury the grain,
and leave it for dead. Eventually, it pops up and forgives/blesses us all
with sustenance. Or am I stretching too hard for this explanation?
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