Comments on: The Whole Welsh Works of Winston

Comments on: The Whole Welsh Works of Winston http://localhost:8080/churchill-welsh-works Senior Fellow, Hillsdale College Churchill Project, Writer and Historian Fri, 07 Apr 2023 14:44:42 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Richard Munro http://localhost:8080/churchill-welsh-works#comment-27372 Fri, 15 Mar 2019 03:58:20 +0000 https://richardlangworth.com/?p=8006#comment-27372 I only know a little Welsh (I do know Scottish Gaelic and can read Irish Gaelic) but I do know that Welsh song is very beautiful and I have numerous recordings of Welsh. Mairi Macinnes the great Highland singer has recorded “This Feeling Inside” in English, Gaelic and Welsh three of the native languages of the Isles. I always remember my grandfather, who was from the North ( a Highlander) that the Welsh were the true Britons and that King Arthur was not English but a Briton (and his enemy was the English!!!).

I heard recently a recording of Anthem from Chess in Welsh. “Môr o gân yw Cymru i gyd” is a quote, I recall that Andrew Roberts has in his most recent biography; Cymru I know is Wales or Cambria. Mor is Sea like the Spanish “Mar” or Gaelic “Muir” “Gan” (song) reminds me of Gairm (call or shout). But Gaelic is Q-Celtic (a Western dialect) and Welsh is P-Celtic which was an Eastern dialect like Gaulish or Galatian. So despite having a common ancestor, Welsh is quite removed from Scottish or Irish Gaelic which curiously are closer to Latin, Spanish or Punjabi that they are to English! Welsh is phonetic along its own lines:
(This is English spelling in the Welsh style)
so “Yw” is pronounced like “you”. yw Cymru (is Wales) It’s grammar is very formidable and unlike Gaelic or Spanish (which have a lot of Latin cognates) Welsh uses native terms the way German does. So I think it is the most difficult of the Celtic languages. Here is a little fun quote I found:

Ai hop ddat yw can ryd ddys and ddat yt meiks sens tw yw. Iff yw can ryd ddys, dden yw sawnd ryt and ar redi tw gow hycing in wals widd gofforawalc dot cwm. Gwd lwc and Haf ffyn.

Should have sounded thus:

I hope that you can read this, and that it makes sense to you. If you can read this, then you sound right and are ready to go hiking in Wales with go4awalk.com. Good luck and have fun. Wonderful Churchill stories thanks!

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