Ancestors

Written by merlin / alex glow on 2025-01-05 at 20:47

I've been picking up some Welsh on Duolingo (likely inspired by @suearcher ), and it is a DELIGHT! Here are some cool things I've noticed so far.

(This is in spite of the app's awful AI rollout, which is straight-up wrong at times... but that's a topic for another day 😅)

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Written by merlin / alex glow on 2025-01-05 at 20:55

Once you learn the spelling conventions, lots of words are close cognates to English: ciwb (cube!), siaced (jacket), brecwast (breakfast), ysgol (school), afal (apple), Sbaen (Spain)...

Some are similar to archaic or uncommon English words! Ffrog (dress/frock), perthyn (belong/pertain), tafarn (bar/tavern), hosan (sock/hose)...

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Written by ɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ on 2025-01-05 at 21:01

@alexglow And unlike English, the spelling is consistent, so you don't have to learn two separate languages, one for speaking and one for writing.

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Written by merlin / alex glow on 2025-01-05 at 21:15

@deshipu YES OMG. I went hard on French for like a year and a half and it INFURIATED me!! But of course English is even worse, hahahaaaa

Gave me an even higher appreciation for people who learn this language. Truly unfortunate that it's so dominant 🫠

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Toot

Written by Saguaro Lynx on 2025-01-05 at 23:02

@alexglow @deshipu

Fun fact:

American English Desk Dictionaries (printed) have a pronunciation guide in the front.

As I recall, the sound of a "long A" has ~10 different spellings. Here are a few:

"weight"

"wait"

"bate"

"gaol"

etc.

If I recall correctly, several other vowel sounds have multiple spelling as well.

It's no wonder many U.S. high schools require 4 units to graduate!

8- )

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Descendants

Written by ɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ on 2025-01-05 at 23:11

@SaguaroLynx @alexglow And that still doesn't prepare you for Worcestershire.

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