Snaue

Hie mee snaue jiu er yn chied cheayrt rish bleeantyn. Va mee smooinaghtyn by chair dou smoo lheiltys y yannoo er y gherrid, as jiu ren mee red ennagh fo.

Nofio

Mi es i nofio heddiw am y tro cyntaf ers blynyddoedd. Ro’n i’n meddwl am neud mwy o ymarfer corff yn ddiweddar, ac heddiw mi nes i rywbeth amdano o’r diwedd.

Moldovan or Romanian

Moves are afoot to rename the language of Moldova Romanian rather than Moldovan, according to this report.

The Moldovan Prime Minister believes that the “Moldovan people speak in Romanian like Americans speak in English. The national language can be renamed in the future from Moldovan to Romanian”.

While the main language they speak in Moldova is not exactly the same as the Romanian of Romania, it can be considered a dialect of Romanian, according to the government in Bucharest.

Arguments over whether Moldovans speak Moldovan or Romanian have been bubbling away at least since the country became independent in 1991. When independence was declared the official language was named as Romanian, but the 1994 constitution named Moldovan as the the national language of Moldova. In 1996 a proposal by the Moldovan President to refer to the Moldovan national language as Romanian was dismissed by the parliament, and the 2004 census found that 60% of Moldovans thought of their language as Moldovan, while only 16% thought of it as Romanian.

Before 1989 Moldovan / Romanian in Moldova was written with the Cyrillic alphabet. Since then it has been written with the Latin alphabet, except in the Transdniestrian region, where the population is mainly Russian and Ukrainian they still use Cyrillic.

Moldova was part of Romania before it was taken over by the Soviet Union after the Second World War, and recently has began seeking closely ties with Romania.

Y Messiah

Jea cheau mee y laa goaill arrane Y Messiah as noa ‘syn ollooscoill lesh ram studeyryn as sleih elley voish Bangor. Ren shin cliaghtaghey feie’n laa, as ghow shin arrane lesh kiaullane beg ayns co-unnaneys ‘syn astyr. Shen yn chied cheayrt y ghow mee arrane Y Messiah, as v’eh y skeeal cheddin da’n chooid smoo jeh’n sleih ayns shen. Hie y co-unnaneys dy mie, agh dy meeaighar va smoo sleih ‘syn sheshaght chiaullee as kiaullane ny ‘syn lught eaishtagh. Va taitnys vooar aym jeh’n laa agh v’eh tooilleilagh.

Y Messiah

Ddoe mi dreulies i y dydd yn canu Y Messiah o’r dechrau yn y prifysgol efo llawer o fyfyrwyr a phobl eraill o Vangor. Mi ymarferon ni yn ystod y dydd, ac mi ganon ni efo cerddorfa fach mewn cyngerdd gyda’r nos. Dyna y tro cyntaf ydw i wedi canu Y Messiah, ac roedd hi’n yr un stori ar gyfer mwyafrif y pobl yna. Roedd y gyngerdd yn wych, ach yn anffodus roedd mwy o bobl yn y corws a’r gerddorfa nac yn y gynulleidfa. Mi fwynheues i y dydd yn fawr ond roedd hi’n flinedig.

Frangish

Hie mee stiagh ayns possan coloayrtys Frangish riyr. Cheayll mee mysh ‘sy Jerrey Geuree, as riyr hoshee mee goll huggey fy yerrey. Daittin lhiam dy oddym loayrt Frangish foast, er yn oyr cha loayrt mee ram jeh rish yn feed bleeaney shoh chaie. Tra va mee loayrt Frangish va focklyn Bretnish dy kinjagh geabbey tar magh ass my veeal er yn oyr dy vel Bretnish my hengey joarree stroshey ec y traa t’ayn. Loayrmayd er shoh as er shid, by vooar yn spoyrt eh, as v’eh braew çheet ry-cheilley lesh sleih noa.

Va ram sleih noa ‘syn sheshaght chiaullee co-hellooderys yn çhiaghtyn shoh myrgeddin, as ta ain stiureyder shirrey boayl elley smoo dy yannoo cliaghtey.

Ffrangeg

Mi ymunes i rŵp sgwrsio Ffrangeg neithiwr. Mi glywes i amdano ym Mis Ionawr, a neithiwr mi es i iddo o’r diwedd. Ro’n i’n falch mod i dal i siarad Ffrangeg yn eithaf rhugl, achos dw i ddim wedi siarad mwy ohoni yn ystod yr ugain mlynedd diwethaf. Pan o’n i’n siarad Ffrangeg roedd geiriau Cymraeg yn wastad eisiau dod allan o fy nheg achos Cymraeg ydy fy iaith estron cryfaf ar hyn o bryd. Mi siaradon ni am bethau amrywiol, mi fwynheues i fy hunan yn fawr, ac roedd hi’n hyfryd cwrdd â phobl newydd.

Roedd lawer o bobl newydd yn y côr cymuned yr wythnos hon hefyd, ac mae ein arweinydd yn chwilio am le arall mwy i ymarfer.

Groupe de conversation Française

Last night I joined a French conversation group which meets regularly in a local pub. I heard about it at a party in January and have been intending to join since then. Last night I finally tracked them down.

All members of the group are English and/or Welsh and can speak French well, or at least can understand it even if they don’t speak it fluently. The group has been going for about eight years and is run by a teacher of English as a foreign language from Bangor University. The rule is that only French is spoken for first two hours, and we stuck to this last night. After that English is allowed, though last night we continued to speak mainly in French.

It was fun, interesting, we discussed all sorts of topics, and I found that I can still speak and understand French reasonably well even though I’ve used it very little during the past 20 years. Welsh, which is currently my dominant foreign language, kept on trying to impose itself on my French, but I managed to keep it in check most of the time. If I’d spoken the mixture of French and Welsh that was brewing in my head the Welsh-speaking members of the group would have probably understood.

One thing we talked about was how it can be difficult to understand mispronounced words, especially in unfamiliar contexts. The leader of the group told us about a student of hers who was talking about a visit to the “islands”, or at least that’s what it sounded like. The leader kept on asking “Which islands?”, but the student kept on saying “the islands”. Eventually she worked out that the student was talking about the Highlands (of Scotland). The mispronunciation may be only slight, but it’s enough to disrupt comprehension, and this can happen not just with foreign languages, but also with different dialects and accents of your native language.

When I meet people with names I’ve never heard before, sometimes I find it hard to take in their names until I’ve seen them written down.

Traghtys

Chur mee my hraghtys stiagh jiu – t’eh yindyssagh cur jerrey er fy yerrey.

Tráchtas

Chuir mé mo thráchtas isteach inniu – tá sé go hiontach é a chríochnú faoi dheireadh.

Traethawd hir

Mi gyflwynes i nhraethawd hir heddiw – mae hi’n wych ei orffen o’r diwedd.

Loaded for bear

Black bear

The phrase “loaded for bear” appears in the novel I’m reading at the moment and is used in the following context: “I know next to nothing about computers but clearly Dommie is loaded for bear.” I take this to mean that Dommie is a computer wizard who’s ready for any challange, and if he were to go hunting, he would have appropriate ammunition for bears.

According to the Free Dictionary, loaded for bear means, “ready and eager to deal with something that is going to be difficult”.

What does this mean? defines this expression as, “To be full of energy. To be prepared for any eventuallity; to be over-prepared.”

The Urban Dictionary defines it as, “Carrying more equipment than necessary. Overloaded.”

I haven’t heard this phrase before and suspect it might be used mainly in American English. Is it familiar to you?

Empty chairing

On the radio the other day they were discussing the possibility of staging televised debates for British politicians similar to the ones that happen during presidential elections in the USA. One commentator thought it was unlikely that the British Prime Minister would be willing to take part in such debates and that if he didn’t, the BBC might “empty chair” him.

According to The Guardian, empty chairing is “the practice of drawing attention to politicians’ refusal to show up. The aim is clear: to embarrass ministers for ducking tough questions.” While according to The Economist, empty chairing involves using an empty studio chair to symbolically represent someone who has refused to appear on a TV programme.

This seems to be similar to the practice of mentioning that somebody was “unavailable for comment” or “refused to comment” on a big news story.

Have you heard the term empty chairing used? Are there equivalents in other languages?