A Welsh Pronunciation Guide

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I have other pronunciation guides to Welsh elsewhere (here, and here and Welsh Idioms here), but I made up a cheat sheet for some common names and places and thought I’d share. This is a rough approximation or English speakers. Remember, the /ll/ sound is not known in English and is something of a breathy ‘sh’ sound where you kind of blow out your cheeks while your tongue is on the roof of your mouth. Abergavenny –Ah-bare-gah-VENN-ee Aberystwyth –Ah-bare-IH-stwith Afon Arthog – AH-von ARE-thog Angharad –Angh-AR-ad Anglesey – (this is a Viking name, so not a Welsh pronunciation) Berwyn – BEAR-win Bleddfa –BLETH-va Bryn Glas –Brinn Glahs Builth – (in Welsh, this is really Buellt, prounced BEE-e/sh/t):  http://www.forvo.com/word/buellt/ Cadair Idris – CAH-dire EE-drees Cadwaladr –Cad-wall-A-der Caerleon –Kire-LAY-on Caernarfon – Kire -NAR-von Caerphilly –Kire -FILL-ee cariad – car-EE-ahd Conwy – CON-wee Cwm Llanerch – Read more…


The Evolution of Welsh

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The first thing you learn in linguistics is that languages evolve.  The second is that they are arbitrary.   This does not mean language isn’t important, or that it isn’t integral to culture. (see this article on Quebec’s policing of language).  It does mean that there is nothing inherent in the word ‘spoon’ that denotes the rounded tool with which you cook or eat. Medieval Welsh, or Middle Welsh, was the language spoken in the 12th to 14th centuries.  Like when a modern English-speaker attempts to read Chaucer in English, it is possible for a modern Welsh speaker to read middle Welsh, which is the language of much of the Welsh literature (Four Tales of the Mabinogi, for example) that we have, although the tales themselves are much older.  You can find out about learning it here: http://www.celt.dias.ie/publications/cat/cat_h.html#H.2 The root of the changes between medieval and modern Welsh lie in Read more…


The Senghenydd Mine Disaster

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Today marks the 100th anniversary of one of the worst mining disasters ever, and certainly the worst in Wales. “Britain’s worst ever mining disaster has been remembered a century after 439 miners and one rescuer lost their lives in an explosion at Senghenydd in South Wales. A new monument has been unveiled on the site of the old mine and a memorial garden opened to remember more than 5,000 miners killed in accidents across Wales since the 18th century.”  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24516312 The explosion killed almost the entire male population of the town. “The demand for Welsh steam coal before World War I was enormous, driven by the Royal Navy and its huge fleet of steam battleships, dreadnoughts and cruisers, and by foreign Navies allied to Britain and the British Empire. Coal output from British mines peaked in 1914, and there were Read more…


Self-Publishing Scams are Rampant on the Internet. Don’t get caught in one!

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*A public service announcement* If anyone is looking to indie publish a book, there’s lot of advice out there. If this is something that looks to be in your future, take yourself over to David Gaughran’s blog and read everything he’s got, including his latest:  http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/bloomsbury-seeks-deal-with-author-solutions/ He has blogged repeatedly about the scams out there that seek to exploit authors just starting out on their publishing journey. For anyone at that stage READ THIS FIRST! *We return you now to your regular programming*


Should Welsh literature be taught separately from British/English literature?

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I think that’s a ‘yes’. I was part of a panel with this as a topic at Portland State on 4 October 2013, where I discussed the challenges of writing books set in medieval Wales in a genre dominated by the Anglo-Norman medieval experience. This is the video of the whole presentation. (My 10 minutes starts at minute 42.5).


Houses and Nails

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How long have we been using nails to hold pieces of wood together? The answer is … a long time. “Bronze nails, found in Egypt, have been dated 3400 BC. The Bible give us numerous references to nails, the most well known being the crucifixion of Christ. Of course we should not forget that model wife in Judges who in 1296 BC drove a nail into the temple of her husband while he was asleep, “so he died.”” http://www.fourshee.com/history_of_nails.htm “In the UK, early evidence of large scale nail making comes from Roman times 2000 years ago. Any sizeable Roman fortress would have its ‘fabrica‘ or workshop where the blacksmiths would fashion the metal items needed by the army. They left behind 7 tons of nails at the fortress of Inchtuthil in Perthshire. For nail making, iron ore was heated with carbon Read more…


Is Time Travel Possible?

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I wrote a post on time travel that is being featured over at Historical Fiction ebooks. ____ We are all time travelers; we travel through time every millisecond of our lives.  It’s just that we can only move in one direction—into the future. Theoretically, time travel into the future and into the past are two distinct concepts.  Traveling into the future could happen merely by slowing down your own time, rather than popping in and out of the future like in the television show, Primeval. Unfortunately, at the moment, the kind of time travel we want to experience—into the past—isn’t possible.  Traveling in the future is only possible if we travel more quickly or more slowly than everyone else, but then we still can’t ‘get back’ to our own time: “If you want to advance through the years a little faster than the Read more…


Speaking in Portland/Book Signing 4-5 October 2013

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I am speaking as part of a panel on Welsh culture and literature at Portland State (Oregon) this Friday at 6:30 pm. There will be a Welsh choir and refreshments (or so I’ve been told).  http://bit.ly/15IVLyK Event Schedule 6:30  Oregon Festival Welsh Choir will perform the Welsh national anthem and ‘Eli Jenkins Prayer’. 6:40 Introductory remarks by Ceri Shaw of AmeriCymru 6:50  Keynote presentation by Dr Tracy Prince author of  CultureWars in British Literature: Multiculturalism and National Identity 7:20  Mike Jenkins 7:35  Sarah Woodbury 7:50  Chris Keil 8:05  Phil Rowlands 8.20 – 9.00  Reception and chance to meet the authors. I’ll also be doing a book signing on Saturday, October 5 at the Portland Convention Center as part of ‘Wordstock’. I’ll be at the AmeriCymru booth, #718 if anyone wants to stop by and say ‘hi’!


Castaways in Time is here!

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My newest novel, Castaways in Time, is now available at all Amazon stores, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, the Apple iBookstore and in paperback! With a scarlet fever epidemic raging throughout London, a rogue baron on the loose, a new baby keeping him up at night, and a kingdom to run, the last thing David has time for is a trip to the twenty-first century. But as he should know by now, time waits for no man, not even the King of England … Castaways in Time is the seventh novel in the After Cilmeri series. Other books in the series include a novella, Winds of Time, and six novels: Daughter of Time, Footsteps in Time, Prince of Time, Crossroads in Time, Children of Time, and Exiles in Time.


Welsh Surnames

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It is a standing joke among people who know Wales that there are only a handful of Welsh surnames (last names), consisting primarily of Jones, Evans, Roberts, Thomas, Williams, and Davies. Among English speakers, these last names are clearly derived from first names. Why is that? Why don’t the Welsh have the huge variety of surnames like the English do? The answer lies in the moment that the Welsh switched from the patronymic system of names (Sarah ferch Ronald; Carew ap Daniel) where a child’s name contained a first name, then ‘son of’ or ‘daughter of’, and then their father’s name, to a system where everyone in the family had the same surname. In England, this transition occurred soon after the Norman conquest of 1066. “Before the Norman Conquest of Britain, people did not have hereditary surnames: they were known Read more…


The Thirteen Treasures of Britain

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Dyrnwyn, the flaming sword, lost for centuries beneath the earth. A hamper that feeds a hundred, a knife to serve twenty-four, A chariot to carry a man on the wind, A halter to tame any horse he might wish. The cauldron of the Giant to test the brave, A whetstone for deadly sharpened swords, An entertaining chess set, A crock and a dish, each to fill one’s every wish, A cup that bestows immortality on those worthy of it, And the mantle of Arthur. His healing sword descends; Our enemies flee our unseen and mighty champion. –Taliesin, The Thirteen Treasures, The Black Book of Gwynedd I wrote that poem (on behalf of Taliesin) for my Last Pendragon Saga, but it has deep roots in Celtic mythology. When JK Rowling talks about the deathly hallows in the Harry Potter books, she is giving a Read more…


Laws of Hywel Dda

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Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) ruled Wales in the early 900s, one of the few Welsh kings to control the entire country. He maintained peace with Wessex, to the point of minting coins in the English city of Chester. His laws were codifications and a consolidation of the common law in Wales at the time (meaning he didn’t create them out of whole cloth), and provided the foundation for Welsh law until the Norman conquest, when many were abrogated by Edward I. A surviving manuscript (from the thirteenth century) is in the National Library of Wales. It was a ‘pocket’ book, designed for lawyers to carry around in their scrip, rather than left on a library shelf. You can view it here: http://www.llgc.org.uk/?id=lawsofhyweldda The laws are divisible into several categories: Laws of the Court These laws set down the rights of Read more…