Linguistical Fun: w and ll

Hi guys!

This week I'd like to resolve some of the mystery people tend to feel towards the Welsh language. Let me say firstly that Welsh is not my strong point, there are a lot of people out there who know this stuff better then I do. But they don't write blogposts about it. 
One of the things people say when I tell them I study Celtic languages and that Welsh is one of them, is 'haha, no one can pronounce that because the language consists only of consonants.' Well of course it doesn't, why would someone speak a language that is unpronouncable!? Unfortunately not many people are actually interested when I start explaining, they just want to make fun of the Welsh language.  Tsk. 

The problem starts of course with the infamous town name of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwollllantsyliogogogoch. Nonsense, why would someone not be able to pronounce that? Unfortunately, the town isn't really called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwollllantsyliogogogoch, it was named thus in the 19th century to attract tourists. Well, they've succeeded. Among the Welshmen it is simply known as 'Llanfairpwll'. 

But the thing that seems most frightening about the Welsh language is the apparant lack of vowels! Well, fret no more, because the w? Not a consonant, just a vowel pronounced like the o  in who? And then, it's suddenly not so frightening anymore. The Middle-Welsh word for 'man', gwr, is not pronounced gwr, but goor or something like that (it's hard to write this without using the phonetic alphabet.. just bear with me.) 

Next problematic thing in the Welsh language is the double l. Not pronounced like in 'llllloverboy', of course, but a sound that comes close to the cl in 'close'. But not really so. OK, put your tongue in your mouth like you wanna say 'l'. Done? Now smile! You look ridiculous but you are nearly there. Now blow as much air out of your mouth without moving your tongue, and this will come close to the sound of the /ll/. If you do this with a lot of noise, you're there! Congratulations, you are now able to pronounce Welsh. 

(Of course this is a simplification, blabla, and the /ll/ is pronounced differently at the end of a word than at the beginning of a word and no doubtedly the North Welshmen pronounce it differently than the South Welshmen, but I won't bore you with that)

See you next time!

Lian

Sources photography: wikipedia