I came across a wonderful word in Welsh today – hollallu [hɔɬˈaɬɨ] – which means omnipotence or almightiness. It is a portmanteau of (h)oll (all, the whole, everything, everyone) and gallu (to be able (to), have power (to), can, be able to accomplish (a thing)), and there are a couple of variant forms: ollallu and hollalluogrwydd.
Related words include:
– hollalluedd / ollalluedd = omnipotence
– hollalluog / ollalluog = omnipotent, almighty, all-powerful; the Almighty.
Source: Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru / A Dictionary of the Welsh Language
So I have come up with a Welsh version of Omniglot based on these words – (h)olliaithadur, which combines (h)oll with iaith (language) and the suffix adur (denoting a tool or thing) as in geiriadur (dictionary or “words tool/thing”).
Hoffi! The spirit of word smiths like Iolo Morganwg is alive!
Though, no need to drop the initial ‘h’.
If Welsh for polygolt and multilingual is amlieithog (noun. amlieithydd) then wouldn’t holliaithadur be better formed as hollieithadur ?
(First time I’ve tried using the HTML tags!)
I’ve never considered before that hollallu was the original word. Maybe I should have paid more attention in Ysgol Sul.
Are you familiar with the word ‘ieithgi’ [language dog] for someone who loves languages?
Ci can be suffixed in the same way for most things I think, maybe a ‘pedant’ could be a ‘cywirgi’?
I’m off to forge manuscripts and pretend to be a druid!
Maybe [language hound] is a more accurate translation. Thats the Cywirgi in me!