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Archiver > SOUTH-AFRICA > 2003-05 > 1052183659


From: Andrew Rodger <>
Subject: Re: [ZA] Re: Barnes
Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 11:14:19 +1000
In-Reply-To: <00a001c31340$1a2d0aa0$23a6ef9b@telkomsa2156telkomsa.net>


About the R in Welsh, I am not sure (I never actually heard anyone
speaking Welsh in Wales, but then our route took us up the Wye Valley
past Tintern Abbey, back into England for a night at Ironbridge,
Shropshire, and then westward, turning north down the Conwall valley to
Conwy, the site of the northernmost of Edward I's castles built to
subdue the wild Welsh tribes; then back along the north coast via
Chester to Manchester and the Lake District. The people who still speak
Welsh are mainly along the west side of the country and in the remote
inland mountains, just as the native Gaelic speakers in Ireland tend to
be in the west, which is remote from Dublin. However, I imagine that it
is most likely to be like the Scottish and German R, that is, rolled,
not slurred as in standard English.

The other double letter that appears as a single letter in Welsh
spellers (as I know from having seen them on souvenir tea-towels and the
like) is DD, which is pronounced TH, as in Eisteddfod -- and Gwynedd
(spelt in English as Gwyneth). The -eth (or -ath) ending is common in
both Wales and Cornwall: I have a friend called Eleneth (which in Wales
would be spelt Elenedd) and of course the name Baragwanath (from
Cornwall), which contains both the -ath ending and the combination GW,
has been canvassed in this List previously.

As for the -WICK ending, the silent W is purely due to the slovenliness
of English pronunciation (prevalent everywhere but particularly bad
among Cockneys, Australians and Americans). The most notorious examples
of this are the words ending in -ough, which have taken various sounds
all perceived to easier than the original -och (as in Scotland). These,
and the changes brought about in spelling and pronunciation of words of
non-Anglo-Saxon origin when taken into English (particularly from
French, which itself inflicted grievous damage on originally Latin
words), account for the despair of both native English speakers and
foreigners trying to learn how to spell in English.

Mind you, we don't have that on our own. In Germany, Nuremberg is spelt
Nuernberg and the ue sound (umlaut-u) is that of the long U in
Afrikaans. However, the Frankish people who actually live round there
pronounce it NUMBERG (no umlaut), which may go some way to explaining
the spelling in English -- or maybe that is just a German variant that
has remained in English when it was abandoned in Germany, unlike names
such as Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne which are pure French (German Aachen
and Koeln, respectively). I don't know the origin of Aix, which is very
common in France -- there is a spa town called Aix-les-Bains a long way
from Aachen -- but Koeln and Cologne are corruptions of the Latin
Colonia, the original Roman name for their settlement there (colony).

Not really directly on the topic but it could be helpful to Listers
struggling with the complexities of European names of all stripes.

On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 04:36 AM, Becky Horne wrote:

> Hi Andrew
>
> Thank you for the explanation, re- Gwladys.
> Now for something in the same vein pertaining to the Welsh language. How
> would they pronounce their "R's"? I am looking for a lead on MEREDITH.
> Would
> this be the correct Welsh spelling of the surname or should I be
> looking for
> a variant? Maybe your visit to Wales might have been too short to pick
> up
> on this. Just trying a lucky shot I suppose.
>
> I know that in England and Ireland HENWICK is pronounced HENICK, but
> I'm not
> sure if that is how the Irish and the English actually write the name,
> although on the 1880 British Census it is transcribed as HENWICK.
> Apparently
> the "W" is silent.
>
>
Andrew Rodger


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