Where have all the vowels gone? And what are the double Ds all about,
is it a road sign or an advert for the nearest lingerie shop? Speaking
Welsh is easier than it looks – if how it looks isn’t
enough to put you off forever. On first glance the sentences seem
to be overpopulated with letters rarely used in English –
thousands of Ys jostle for space alongside other consonants, and
nothing seems pronounceable.
In fact, the letter Y is a vowel. As is W. The Welsh language does
make use of the ‘normal’ vowels AEIOU but in Welsh they
have a few extra friends. Additional consonants include double DD
(sounds like TH), RH (roll roll roll your Rs gently down the tongue!),
CH (like clearing your sore throat), NG (sounds like a Welsh version
of ugh!), FF(a normal F) and PH. Not forgetting the infamous culprit
of many a tongue-twisting village name – the double LL (hiss!)
There is no J. (Only occasionally used for words like garej (garage)
and other words incorporated into the language for which there are
no sounds).
The beauty of the Welsh language is that it is phonetic. Once you
have learnt the sounds of the alphabet it is easy to pronounce anything.
Unlike English there are no quirky spelling rules or pronunciation
trip wires like Leicester, Salisbury or Carlisle. There are no silent
letters. In Welsh you will quickly be able to read road signs out
loud and be understood when asking for directions – if you
only learn the alphabet and apply an exaggerated Welsh accent for
emphasis. (Except for the occasional Y, which changes its pronunciation
depending on its position).
As with all languages, Welsh has a sneaky grammatical challenge
thrown in to exasperate language learners. The dreaded mutations.
A word’s first letter will change depending on what is being
‘done’ to it. For example a cat or cath may change to
gath or ngath depending the quantity, who it belongs to, simply
dependent on the word in front of it. However, if you are only beginning
to learn Welsh, you needn’t worry about these yet, but may
notice signs to Caerdydd (Cardiff) may sometimes be to Nghaerdydd.
There is a lot of bad press about Welsh speakers in Wales continuing
to speak Welsh to ostracise English visitors. Personally all I have
ever encountered is admiration for having learnt some of their ancient
language and encouragement to learn more. There are few places left
in Wales where Welsh is spoken as the default language so learners
can often find it hard to find somewhere to practice. With only
20% of the population able to speak Welsh, many fear that the language
will one day die out. Learn it while you can.
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