Mono-lingual direction signs in Wales

[roadtester]

Interesting news story on the BBC - a petition calling for a ban on changing Welsh town names to English because it is eroding Welsh identity:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53163702

I was slightly surprised by the apparent strength of feeling on this. I can see that historically there would have been a long period when anglicisation of place names was on the march, and keepers of the flame of Welsh identity would have had plenty to worry about. But my impression was that the tide was if anything being reversed a bit in recent decades with efforts to promote the language and the use of dual language signs and so on. Surely now more people would be e.g. aware that the Welsh name for Swansea is Abertawe than in, say, the fifties, given the appearance of both names on modern road signs.

The petition is actually to stop people changing house names if you click through to it from the BBC page. So it doesn't have anything to do with traffic signage or town names.

Very confusing. The first sentence is:

A petition to stop Welsh place names be ... he Senedd.

And the last several paras are about place names as well.

I guess the same arguments about erosion of Welsh identity apply in both cases, although I suppose it's difficult to stop people changing the names of their own houses.

TBH, I think random changes to long-standing traditional names are regrettable in general, not just in the case of a change from Welsh > English - e.g. pubs that have had a name for hundreds of years being changed to trendy/Firkin names etc.

[scragend]

He gave the example of Cable Bay on Anglesey - allegedly named in English because someone laid a cable there.

I hope they cleaned it up.

[M4Simon]

I would be very grateful if one of the Welsh speakers who have contributed to this thread could kindly provide me with a phonetic pronunciation of Ynys Gybi.

In my simple English head it reads as "Innis Guy-be", but I'm conscious that Ys are often pronounced us Us and Gs as Cs and wondering if it's actually a bit more like "Unnus Cub-be"?

Thanks in advance.

I would say Unnis Gub-be.

I was always taught that the letter Y was the only one that had more than one pronunciation. (Don't forget that in Welsh, the double letter combinations ll, ch, ff, dd, th are considered letters in their own right).

Y on its own - (means the) - pronounced like the -ur- in church.
Y before a consonant as the first letter of w word or name - pronounced un (as in under)
Y as a vowel at the end of a word - ysbyty (hospital) - the last y rhymes with ee.

As I write this, I'm not sure I can entirely state the rules with confidence - the other two y's in ysbyty would rhyme with u.

In mynydd (mountain), I would say that as munith where the th is the same sound as at the beginning of that, there or the. I have also heard minith.

Finally, in one syllable words like dydd (day), I would say that to rhyme with breathe.

The rules for all the other letters are much simpler, even if the actual pronunciation of the sound is more tricky. I'm not a fluent Welsh speaker, but my Dad is and these are the way he would pronounce these letters, and it also resonates with the Welsh I learned at school nearly 40 years ago.

Simon

[rhyds]

Very confusing. The first sentence is:

A petition to stop Welsh place names be ... he Senedd.

And the last several paras are about place names as well.

I guess the same arguments about erosion of Welsh identity apply in both cases, although I suppose it's difficult to stop people changing the names of their own houses.

TBH, I think random changes to long-standing traditional names are regrettable in general, not just in the case of a change from Welsh > English - e.g. pubs that have had a name for hundreds of years being changed to trendy/Firkin names etc.

The problem is that there are names for areas and geological features such as mountains and lakes in Welsh that local folks have used for many years/decades/centuries, but when visitors arrive and struggle with anything not English suddenly an "easy" new name appears, such as the story of Llyn Bochlwyd.

Llyn Bochlwyd is here and the name (which translates literally as "Lake of the Greycheek") has a legend behind it regarding an old grey stag swimming across the lake to escape hunters.

However, Bochlwyd is apparently too difficult for English speakers to pronounce, therefore they refer to the lake as "Lake Australia", as it just so happens to look a little like the outline of Australia if you squint a bit.

And that's the problem, its effectively cultural appropriation, not to the same degree as happened to other parts of the world (Uluru / Ayres Rock and the like) but its something that needs to be called out for what it is, monoglot laziness.

As for changing house names, its not something I would want to ban, but it can cause a fair few issues. A house near mine was always known as Sgubor Degwm (literal translation "Tithebarn"), as it was a barn conversion of the old tithebarn. One day a chap from the council asks me where "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" was and I didn't have a clue. Turns out the owners of the tithebarn decided that they wanted to call their house "Dragonfly Cottage", got it translated to Welsh and lo, "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" comes in to existence. Problem was they hadn't told anyone or put a sign up (they have now), therefore nobody knew where to point deliveries etc towards. Thing is, even now 3+ years later nobody locally uses the new name, as it makes zero sense (there's no Dragonflies there, and its not a cottage...)

[roadtester]

As for changing house names, its not something I would want to ban, but it can cause a fair few issues. A house near mine was always known as Sgubor Degwm (literal translation "Tithebarn"), as it was a barn conversion of the old tithebarn. One day a chap from the council asks me where "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" was and I didn't have a clue. Turns out the owners of the tithebarn decided that they wanted to call their house "Dragonfly Cottage", got it translated to Welsh and lo, "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" comes in to existence. Problem was they hadn't told anyone or put a sign up (they have now), therefore nobody knew where to point deliveries etc towards. Thing is, even now 3+ years later nobody locally uses the new name, as it makes zero sense (there's no Dragonflies there, and its not a cottage...)

At least they tried to make a bit of an effort by sticking with Welsh, even if it is all a bit crass!

Lots of Welsh names get mocked/b*st*rdised/anglicised.

The one my dad always used to point out when we saw signs for it was Ffostrasol which servicemen who were posted there in the war apparently used to render as something rude, and similar to, but not quite identical to, the correct pronunciation.

[Chris Bertram]

As for changing house names, its not something I would want to ban, but it can cause a fair few issues. A house near mine was always known as Sgubor Degwm (literal translation "Tithebarn"), as it was a barn conversion of the old tithebarn. One day a chap from the council asks me where "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" was and I didn't have a clue. Turns out the owners of the tithebarn decided that they wanted to call their house "Dragonfly Cottage", got it translated to Welsh and lo, "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" comes in to existence. Problem was they hadn't told anyone or put a sign up (they have now), therefore nobody knew where to point deliveries etc towards. Thing is, even now 3+ years later nobody locally uses the new name, as it makes zero sense (there's no Dragonflies there, and its not a cottage...)

At least they tried to make a bit of an effort by sticking with Welsh, even if it is all a bit crass!

Lots of Welsh names get mocked/b*st*rdised/anglicised.

The one my dad always used to point out when we saw signs for it was Ffostrasol which servicemen who were posted there in the war apparently used to render as something rude, and similar to, but not quite identical to, the correct pronunciation.

Ah, but when the language board come round with their clodhoppers on and want to re-Cymricise your village name, they may meet some resistance. Ask the villagers of Varteg!

[Gareth Thomas]

That's a bit like my Friend's Mum trying to find a town in France called Sortie which was signed for on every major autoroute junction.

There's also "Ausgang" in Germany and "Uscita" in Italy

Are they twinned?

Back to the original topic, there is this sign for "Cardiff M4" at Junction 35, this one for "Coychurch" (no "Llangrallo") further down the A473, and this strange one where Cardiff does get its "Caerdydd" but none of the other places with two names are translated.

[exiled]

As for changing house names, its not something I would want to ban, but it can cause a fair few issues. A house near mine was always known as Sgubor Degwm (literal translation "Tithebarn"), as it was a barn conversion of the old tithebarn. One day a chap from the council asks me where "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" was and I didn't have a clue. Turns out the owners of the tithebarn decided that they wanted to call their house "Dragonfly Cottage", got it translated to Welsh and lo, "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" comes in to existence. Problem was they hadn't told anyone or put a sign up (they have now), therefore nobody knew where to point deliveries etc towards. Thing is, even now 3+ years later nobody locally uses the new name, as it makes zero sense (there's no Dragonflies there, and its not a cottage...)

At least they tried to make a bit of an effort by sticking with Welsh, even if it is all a bit crass!

Lots of Welsh names get mocked/b*st*rdised/anglicised.

The one my dad always used to point out when we saw signs for it was Ffostrasol which servicemen who were posted there in the war apparently used to render as something rude, and similar to, but not quite identical to, the correct pronunciation.

There is a tendency of that wherever the language is different or the name can be 'comically' bodged. Famously the nickname Wipers came from failing to pronounce the word Ypres which was printed on all the signs. The town in question now being written solely as Ieper in its area.

[Chris Bertram]

As for changing house names, its not something I would want to ban, but it can cause a fair few issues. A house near mine was always known as Sgubor Degwm (literal translation "Tithebarn"), as it was a barn conversion of the old tithebarn. One day a chap from the council asks me where "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" was and I didn't have a clue. Turns out the owners of the tithebarn decided that they wanted to call their house "Dragonfly Cottage", got it translated to Welsh and lo, "Bwthyn Gwas y Neidr" comes in to existence. Problem was they hadn't told anyone or put a sign up (they have now), therefore nobody knew where to point deliveries etc towards. Thing is, even now 3+ years later nobody locally uses the new name, as it makes zero sense (there's no Dragonflies there, and its not a cottage...)

At least they tried to make a bit of an effort by sticking with Welsh, even if it is all a bit crass!

Lots of Welsh names get mocked/b*st*rdised/anglicised.

The one my dad always used to point out when we saw signs for it was Ffostrasol which servicemen who were posted there in the war apparently used to render as something rude, and similar to, but not quite identical to, the correct pronunciation.

There is a tendency of that wherever the language is different or the name can be 'comically' bodged. Famously the nickname Wipers came from failing to pronounce the word Ypres which was printed on all the signs. The town in question now being written solely as Ieper in its area.

Étaples was rendered as Eat-apples.

[RichardA626]

A taunt to German soldiers in the winters was Got Mittens? from Gott Mit Ans (May God Be With You).