merlodlliw
Established Member
Pity the main line stations at Acrefair & Llangollen have closed, a real tongue twister is Acrefair
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Welsh announcements
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Gwenllian2001
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To whom?
Prairie_5542
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krus_aragon
Established Member
Llangollen is more than Acrefair of a tongue twister.
As a native speaker, Machynlleth was tricky for me up to the age of twelve: the Ch-Ll-Th sequence was one the blew me out of the water. And that's having grown up on the island of Llanerchymedd, Llanfairynghornwy, Llanfihangel-tre'r-beirdd, and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysiliogogogoch!
rf_ioliver
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or the CH-LL-LL in the mutated word cyllell (knife): chyllell ... even funnier after a few pints of Felinfoel
I had a friend who had great difficulty getting from syllables with LL to those containing the trilled R as well...fairly common in Welsh
t.
Ian
W.Tregurtha
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With a name like Tregurtha guess where I'm from originally? In Cornwall there is the Cornish mafia who are determined to bring the Cornish language back. The only problem that these dreamers have is that nobody knows what it sounds like as the last speaker died in the 18th century.
jones_bangor
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There are no automated station announcements in North Wales, they are in English only by the station announcer as far as I recall.
The automated bilingual announcements are in South Wales only.....
The automated bilingual announcements are in South Wales only.....
krus_aragon
Established Member
As you say, the lack of bilingual announcements is mainly due to the fact that the stations have manual announcements only. Rhiwabon does have such an automated system installed and in use, and I think one or two of its neighbours may as well. (Merlodlliw?)
Leslie Fletcher
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There are truly dreadful automated announcements, in English only, along the Conwy Valley. They include "Pont why pant" , an incomprehensible mangling of Betws-y-Coed and announce the platform number at Dolwyddelan. There was a lengthy thread here about this 18 months(?) ago.
merlodlliw
Established Member
Wrexham General/Ruabon/Chirk are auto Bi Ling, have been for a few years,Gobowen was Bi Ling for a while now its auto English.
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Non local announcers.
rf_ioliver
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There was quite a study of the language at the end of the 19th century so some details of the phonology are preserved, plus there is the fact that Cornish is similar to Welsh and Breton so even if some subtleties are lost a new standard phonology can be recreated. Anyway, language phonologies change over time and in some cases quite dramatically as happened with the "Great Vowel Shift" in English which has lead the to the theory that the American accent might be similar to that of Medieval English.
Also spare a thought for the Hebrew revivalists working with a literary language and also one that didn't record vowels
t.
Ian
Gwenllian2001
Member
The Cornish language never died completely. Bits and pieces lingered on just as non Welsh speakers will unconsciously use terms like 'sut mae?' and 'diolch yn fawr.' so we have a pretty good idea as to what it sounds like.
Sadly, your use of the term 'Cornish mafia', to describe something you disapprove of, is simple intolerance and does you no credit.
EbbwJunction1
Established Member
I knew that someone would pick me up on my post about the two "LL's".. and the worst thing is that the comments are correct, so my apologies!
Regarding the other point about "Welshness", as far as I am concerned, I'm Welsh. I don't accept in any way that you are only Welsh if you speak Welsh.
Regarding the other point about "Welshness", as far as I am concerned, I'm Welsh. I don't accept in any way that you are only Welsh if you speak Welsh.
krus_aragon
Established Member
I must have missed that thread. Which stations on the Conwy Valley route have announcements? I don't remember any up there before I moved south a few years back.
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This I second wholeheartedly. It's the sort of misimpression that someone growing up in the Welsh heartlands can acquire, as a high proportion of non Welsh speakers in such an area are immigrants (mainly from England). I was always taught that this wasn't the case, but I never really appreciated it until I lived in Cardiff for a few years.
France?
Some years ago, on a trip to Britanny to a place beginning with 'Tre..', we figured that 'Tre' would be unusual enough that is was all we needed to remember of thg name. Wrong. Looking at the map, 'Tre' was everywhere. Cornwall with a different accent.
In the distant past, Britanny and Cornwall were close neighbours.
johnnychips
Established Member
'Tre' in Breton is cognate with Welsh 'Dref' meaning 'settlement, town'.
Anyway, is there any requirement/advantage for Arriva Wales customer-facing staff to be able to speak Welsh?
Anyway, is there any requirement/advantage for Arriva Wales customer-facing staff to be able to speak Welsh?
The problem with Kernewek is that it has 4 official versions so there are numerous ways of writing / saying something. For example, I prefer "agas Dyngarch" when it comes to saying "Welcome to" , although "Dynnerch" works too. I have a Cornish language learning kit, as I spent three wonderful years living there and have set myself a challenge to be less emmet-like. I think it must be the SWF version - some of the only words to stick in my head so far are "pellgowser" (telephone) and "nadelek lowen" (Merry Christmas).
Brittany, Cornwall and Wales all share the same language and cultural heritage - Brittany is considered one of the Celtic Nations. As such places beginning with Tre will be very common, as that is the Celtic word for town.
As for the Cornish Mafia comment, well given that the Cornish language was originally killed off by a marauding bunch of Protestant religionistas hell bent on instilling the English book of common prayer on a reluctant indigenous population, any attempts at reversing this linguistic rape is welcome in my opinion.
Given that they employ people east of the border as well as west, not really. However some of us will make the extra effort to learn enough words to have a roughly pidgin conversation with Welsh speakers. After all, so long as you know the times, prices, place names and then if all else fails "Mae'n flin da fi, dwi'n siarad neu tipyn bach Cymraeg" then you should be able to have a decent basic conversation.
Brittany, Cornwall and Wales all share the same language and cultural heritage - Brittany is considered one of the Celtic Nations. As such places beginning with Tre will be very common, as that is the Celtic word for town.
As for the Cornish Mafia comment, well given that the Cornish language was originally killed off by a marauding bunch of Protestant religionistas hell bent on instilling the English book of common prayer on a reluctant indigenous population, any attempts at reversing this linguistic rape is welcome in my opinion.
Given that they employ people east of the border as well as west, not really. However some of us will make the extra effort to learn enough words to have a roughly pidgin conversation with Welsh speakers. After all, so long as you know the times, prices, place names and then if all else fails "Mae'n flin da fi, dwi'n siarad neu tipyn bach Cymraeg" then you should be able to have a decent basic conversation.
WatcherZero
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Its declining despite the decades of effort to promote it, last census showed 19% of the Welsh population can speak Welsh down 2% and the number of wards where more than 50% of the population can speak Welsh fell from 192 to 157.
Apart from watching S4C the only familial direct experience I can attest is my grandmother (english) playing weekly Welsh scrabble matches with her freinds. My father has lost the ability to speak it though he still watches S4C for the rugby matches.
Apart from watching S4C the only familial direct experience I can attest is my grandmother (english) playing weekly Welsh scrabble matches with her freinds. My father has lost the ability to speak it though he still watches S4C for the rugby matches.
krus_aragon
Established Member
I've never really applied myself to the language, but the term for toilet, 'an bisvan' (sp?) sticks in my mind: it literally translates as 'the p-i-double-ess place'!
The forum language filter doesn't like the English equivalent...
D1009
Established Member
It's probably not a requirement, but in Welsh speaking areas I would have thought it an advantage. I used to visit Aberystwyth regularly, and certainly it was an advantage for work in a customer facing role in businesses there.
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Flint has bilingual auto-announcements.
It used to be a nice quiet place but now you get the auto announcements covering all the many stops to HHD/CDF/BHI/MAN PLUS the luggage and no-smoking and CCTV warnings which drivel on - and on - in both languages.
Just give me a quiet working scrolling real-time display.
There were engineering works handbills once which mentioned Manceinion Fictoria and Heol Rhydychyn (Victoria and Oxford Road), but fortunately these don't make the announcements.
I have yet to hear an on-board announcement in Welsh (though plenty of cheerful chat in Welsh from the guards).
PHILIPE
Veteran Member
The Welsh word for town is "Tref" but in instances when it has to be mutated, it then becomes "Dref".
Prairie_5542
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For village ''pentref''.
merlodlliw
Established Member
LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
Requeststop
Member
Well said Gwenllian. As a born and bred Cornishman, I have seen and been delighted at the re-birth of Cornish. My view is that it has more historic and linguistic links to Breton than Welsh. As you pass into Saltash indeed you get a small but welcome greeting to Cornwall if you are on the correct side of the train, and as you leave Penzance station you also get a welcome in Cornish. I would like there to be station signs in English and Cornish at all of Cornwalls
stations. I really would like to step off at my local station and see not just "Lelant" but "UnyLelant" and at the end of the branch to see the signs declare "St. Ives" and "Port Ia", Bi-lingual can been seen on the Far North lines Wales and in Slough and other places, so why not in Cornwall.
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I think it was on the Today programme on Radio 4 that I heard that Polish was now the 2nd language most spoken in the UK these days, to which a comment was e-mailed to the programme that it was all well and good to have languages such as Polish and Welsh spoken and used in our nation, but learning the languages would be fine if they occaisionally used vowels!
I can imagine the Polish and Welsh editions of Countdown: "Consonant" "Consonant" "Consonant" "Consonant" "Consonant" "Consonant" "Consonant" "Consonant" "oooh I'd better have a vowel please"
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Prairie_5542
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Prairie_5542
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