h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

cymraeg? i think there are two spellings, one for the language, and one as a descriptor , like "welsh school" = "ysgol gymraeg" except that's probably dodgy example, and i can't remember my mutations and also i can't remember which cymraeg/cymraig goes where.....argh...

well, you know what they say, poly of wales, nobody fails.



(the only way i got my degree)



the new hospital to replace East Glamorgan hospital is the Royal Glamorgan, but they were going to call it Camilla, as its between the Princess of Wales hosptial in Bridgend and the Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr.

oh yeah, and i forgot to say, there is an indoor climbing centre in Baargoed, where they also have lots of earthquakes (relatively speaking), but i don't think the two things are related.

Heh-heh!

The Thought Police pulled a posting partly in Welsh?!!

Are they like the English drivers who pull off the M4 at junction 44 and try to find a way to Swansea without going through Abertawe?!!

...Or more the English Rugby Union who commissioned that awful, washed-out, intentionally soulless recording of 'Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau' to play at Twickenham?

Sorry to reply to my own message, but that reminds me of a joke:

An Englishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman are lost in the desert, when they stumble upon an ornate brass lamp lying half-buried in the sand.
The Enlgishman picks it up, gives it a rub and out drifts a genie!

The genie of the lamp looks at the three men and says: "I see each of you are from a different nation. As representatives of your homelands, I grant each of you one wish!"

The Scotsman goes first. He says to the genie: "O, Genie. What we Sottish really need is a Great Wall, A thousand feet high, a hundred feet thick. Built along the length of our border with England, so the English can no longer get in!"

"Very well," says the genie "It is done!"

The genie turns to the Englishman and says "You! What is your wish for your homeland?"

The Englishman replies "Well, I'd like you to continue that wall from the border with Scotland around the entire border of England. That way we can keep everyone out!"

With a wave of his hand the genie replied "It is done."

Finally, he turned to the Welshman, "And you," he said "What is your wish?"

"Well..." began the Welshman "You know that wall you just built round England?"

"Yes..." Replied the genie.

"Do us all a favour and fill the thing up with water!"



(Please note that the comments above are intended in good humour and are not intended to cause offence or encourage ill-feeling. They in no way represent the feelings of the Welsh nation as a whole.)

I think there's a place about halfway up the west coast that's got a University. Caernarvon, maybe? They have inter University (of Wales) prom relays along the Promenade.

Gla’ Morgan’s assertion that the Welsh Society has sprung a leek brings a melancholic tear to my eye as I still harbour fond memories of an exuberant youthful honeymoon excursion into the principality.

Young and naiive, we’d been told we’d be wisest to tred eagerly to carmart than to p-rhoose the small-ads. “What do you want and where are you headed”, we were asked. “We’d like to have a Ford. West”, I replied. As it was, we had barely enough money to buy a moldy old bangor (which was worth about ten bicycles), and a map to get clwyd up on the route. Later on that day, as we crossed the Cambrians, something went wrong with the car. We didn’t know if the pem broke or the dyff’d gone ... either way, we were stranded. We pretended to try to diagnose the problem. “Press dat in ... is the brecon?”. “Beacon’s flashing” responded La Trout who was looking at the hazard indicator on the dashboard. Then it snowed on us. Even though I considered myself a rugged man of flint in those days, I put on my Cardigan, my red-top wllhelis and my fishguard. It seemed like we were there for days. Neither of us ’ad a wrist-watch. “Still Marches n’t it?”, chuckled the Mrs, wondering if the months were passing too. Fortunately, eventually, a kindly soul found us, llay down, looked underneath and told us without merthyr merriment that we may as well send it to “where they wrecks ‘em”. “Holy head, why?”, I asked, astonished. “Cym, look at the engine angle, see? It wasn’t built well so now its collapsed”, he said, not without a touch of the mumbles. Then, without further ado, he gave us a lift to the railway station where we got the rattler back home, which was rhyl nice.

Thus, I’ll be sorry if the Welsh Society folds, but I’ll be sure to send a condolence Cardiff it does, look you.

Regards,

Dr Montague Trout
Gulf Daily News, March 2002

aberystwyth?

ah yes. aluminium pots and tanqueray gin seem to have done their job.

but what better way to go, than pickled in gin!!

perhaps you should stop drinking it out of aluminium cooking pots though.....

tanqueray is a gin de la gin, but if you like bombay saphire, may i recommend brecon welsh gin?

it's very nice (hic)

Ooohhhh... Yes!

Bombay Sapphire is indeed the queen of gins! The only way to drink it is to fill a tumbler with ice, cut a thick wedge of fresh lime, use the lime to rim the glass, "kiss the ice" with the lime (i.e. give it a little squeeze and drip some juice onto the ice) then drop the wedge in. Fill glass generously with Bombay Sapphire and enjoy!

(Also makes an excellent Martini with a few drops of Noilly Prat vermouth. Shaken, of course, not stirred!)

But the Brecon Gin is truly excellent, do you know that one of the botanical exrtacts used for flavour in Brecon Gin is Daffodil? No, really!

cool!

You are right, Ponty Poly is now the University of Glamorgan. Tidy, innit?

Go to A960635 for a Welsh Sojourn

DMT

Learning Welsh is very hard. I haven't tried it yet but will be taking lessons at work soon. Even German with it's three genders and Italian with the irregular pattern in verb endings according to tense would be easier. The problem is that Welsh is compulsory for all school children and there is a shortage of teachers so teachers with only a rudimentary knowledge of Welsh are being used to teach it. There are six words for the English word "yes". Why can't it be simplified for English learners.

Simplified for learners? Why? They would not only sound like children when they spoke it, they would not be able to understand anyone else!

No, the secret is to stop trying to make Welsh into Engilsh. There are not six words for yes, there is no word for yes (well, some people use 'Ie' which is just a Welsh spelling for "yeah"). To say yes you use the affirmative. So "Do you speak Welsh?" - "I do", "Is there any more?" - "There is." See? Once you can get your mind away from English, learning another language is easy.

There are books and websites and TV programs that teach Welsh, but the best way to learn is from a native Welsh speaker. They will be able to give you not only the vocabulary but also grammer and mind-set behind the language. Good luck in your studies,

Cogs

Bit late finding this but ...

Cymraeg pertains to the language
Cymreig means Welsh as in Welsh person, Welsh team etc ...

What would confuse me about learning Welsh is the way the initial letters of words change according to the context. Somebody has already quoted 'ysgol gymraeg' for Welsh school, where the base word is 'cymraeg'. A Welshman I once know said that his wife's name was 'Margared' but, under certain circumstances, would become 'Bargared'. And I'm sure I've seen 'Dewi' (Welsh for David) become 'Tewi'.

I've studied Latin and know a little German, so I'm used to the *endings* of nouns changing. But the initial letter...!

Names of persons would never change - Marged would NEVER become Barged!

But the reason some names change is due to mutation
eg cat = cath ; the cat = y gath
eg cow = buwch ; the cow = y fuwch

I'll try and find an easy explanation for it all and get back to you

Can you make that a VERY easy explanation please?