Kig yar gant piz-bihan
The more Breton I learn, the more connections I am finding with Welsh, and to some extent with French, in terms of vocabulary. Today’s lesson, for example, includes these words:
- korn = cornel (corner)
- straed= stryd (street) – e korn ar straed = ar gornel y stryd (on the street corner)
- iliz = eglwys (church)
- marc’had-mat (‘good market’) = rhad (cheap) – looks like a calque translation from the French bonne-marché
- kig = cig (meat)
- kig yar (‘hen meat’) = cyw iâr (chicken)
- piz-bihan = pys (peas) – looks like a calque of petit-pois.
- tartezenn avaloù = pastai afal (apple tart/pie)
- enez = ynys (island)
Yesterday we had deiz = dydd (day), beure = bore (morning), and noz = nos (night). The spelling and pronunciation disguises the related words, but once you get used to it, you can spot them more easily. It took me a while to realise that beure = bore.
You can see the obvious Celtic relationship when you compare the Breton and Welsh counterparts with Cornish:
korn(el) (korn – cornel – corner)
stret (straed – stryd – street)
eglos (iliz – eglwys – church)
kig (kig – cig – meat)
kig yar (kig yar (meat) – cyw iâr – chicken)
pesen/pys (piz – pys – peas)
aval (aval – afal – apple)
enys (enez – ynys – island)
dydh (deiz – dydd – day)
nos (noz – nos – night)
There are a few Breton songs in my CD collection, including this and this. I wouldn’t mind having translations if you’re ever in the mood… :-)
This song contains code switching between, I believe, French, Breton and Irish. I don’t have a translation for that either, but I can get an idea of the meaning by running it through an automatic translator.
Adrian – it will be a while before my Breton is good enough to translate those songs.
Well, thanks anyway, and hopefully someday I’ll find out what the songs are about.