Greetings,
OK, ROLAND!! It is NOT: BALL - A (A as in AH), but Bal-la (A as in
apple), correct, master?
Yes my child, you have done well! :-) However, in this case I have the
unfair advantage of having grown up near the Welsh Tract where there is a
town called Bala Cynwyd, named for the Welsh towns of Bala and Cynwyd. So
I've always known the word and confirmed the pronunciation while we were in
Wales. Any guesses on how you would pronounce Cynwyd? :-))
Actually, although I'm fascinated by it, I'm still quite the neophyte when
it come to Welsh. Don't let my false bluster fool you! Geez, I'm still
debating how to pronounce Gwynedd! Until I started studying (and I use that
term loosely) Welsh about 6 months ago, I never had a clue as to how it was
correctly pronounced. I always said "gwi NED" with a short i sound in the
first syllable and the accent and a short e sound on the second syllable (no
doubt because that's how Unc pronounced it).
However, when I spoke the name at Swarthmore I was corrected by the
librarian who accented the first syllable and said it like "GWiN ed". Being
totally ignorant at the time, I thought she probably knew better and so I
corrected my pronunciation accordingly. Shortly after I began studying Welsh
on my own, I read that the accent in Welsh words is almost always on the
next to the last syllable, which would make the librarian's accent correct.
Swarthmore scores again!
However I also discovered that the "dd" in Welsh is pronounced with the
English "th" sound, which even the folks at Swarthmore remain blissfully
ignorant of. So prior to my trip to Wales I supposed that the proper
pronunciation was "GWIN eth", which is how I heard Priscilla pronounce it.
(Bonus points for Priscilla!) And yet I heard (or so I thought) Dawi say
"gwi NETH"! So you tell me which is correct. Of course in the ears of an
English speaker, the Welsh accents can be tough to detect. Perhaps I wasn't
listening closely enough when he said it (a common complaint from my wife!)
Yes, Carys is very interested in the history of the farm and has
agreed to
do some digging around for information. Her knowledge of the area will be
a real plus in getting to know what was there.
Yes it will. God bless her for it. She's such a great lady and both she and
Dawi treated us so well while we were there. Keep us posted on what she
sends.
R
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