Languagegeek Musings

New Mutation in Welsh

2009-06-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

For those learning Welsh from books, recordings, or an on-line course, there’s one mutation your course has probably left out. In wandering around the BBC Cymru web-site, I stumbled upon this page:

Llond platiad o jips!

The key phrase here is platiad o jibs (plate of chips).

For a bit of background, words which come after the preposition o change the first letter of the word—where possible. This sort of change is called a “mutation”.

the p in the word pobl changes to b: llawer o bobl (lots of people)
the c in the word ceir changes to g: ychydig o geir (a few cars)

Neither the sound /tʃ/ spelled “ch” in English “chess”, nor /dʒ/ spelled “j” in English “jump” are found in Welsh words except for relatively recent borrowings—mostly from English, such as wats (watch) and jam (jam), both pronounced pretty much like their English counterparts. As these sounds are not part of the traditional phonology they are, at least I thought they were, exempt from the mutation system.

So I was interested to see the title of the article linked above, where the word chips (chips) had been mutated to jips. Looking further down in the article, I see that the unmutated form chips shows up so using the letter j in jips isn’t some kind of spelling convention. Of course, this mutation might have been around for a while, and I just didn’t notice it because I hadn’t seen it in writing; we always used the word sglodion instead of chips. But this instance of a mutated /tʃ/ does indicate two things:

There’s a new addition to the soft mutation: /tʃ/ -> /dʒ/
The sounds /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ are truly part of the Welsh language now. If only there were a consistent way to spell /tʃ/, the spelling ‹ch› is already used for the sound /x/ as in Scottish loch.

Now I’m curious, is there an aspirate mutation of /tʃ/ to /ʃ/, so that “fish and chips” would be pysgod a sips? Then again, maybe the writer of this article is just playing with the language and wouldn’t say jips normally. Nevertheless, I’ll be saying platiad o jips from now on!

Supporting past workshop participants

2009-04-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sh’mae pawb!

Two years after our Regional Technology Workshop hosted by the Seminole Nation in Hollywood, Florida, ILI and our worshop’s participants are still working together to ensure successful language revitalisation. It is one of ILI’s expressed goals to provide continuing services and support in the fields of language maintenance, education, and technology.

Back in the spring of 2007, ILI / Languagegeek prepared Native-language keyboard software for use by the participants at the regional workshop. Over the three day period in Florida, we consulted each of the (X NUMBER) language groups attending about the efficacy of the keyboards and fonts: were any letters missing, were any letters no longer part of the practical orthography, were some of the characters in need of re-design, etc. In at least two cases, the keyboards provided free by Languagegeek served as the springboard to developing the first experimental orthographies for those Native languages, and before the three days were up, all participants were quickly and easily typing in their preferred writing system.

It is always a pleasure to speak to friends I met as an instructor at the Regional Technology Workshops, so it was great to hear this week from the Elaponke-Ahfachkee language teachers from southern Florida. It turns out that ILI’s Desktop Publishing training in combination with the Languagegeek fonts and keyboards have made producing materials in the language so much easier than before, and that a curriculum including textbooks, worksheets, displays, and other classroom materials have been developed and will be implemented this coming school year.

There was also a question as to whether Elaponke-Ahfachkee language support could also be provided for the Mac OS X. The answer was, of course, yes. I designed the Mac-specific software soon after that phone call, and helped the IT department with the installation procedure two days later.

For all those who have been to an ILI workshop in the past, please don’t forget that part of the ILI experience is providing on-going support (technical or otherwise) to our fellow language teachers, students, and activists. Technology is ubiquitous in the world today, and the more Native language we can put onto modern media, the more immersed the learners and speakers can be.

Daliwch i siarad eich ieithoedd chi, a pheidiwch ag anghofio ei defnyddio hi bob dydd, os byddwch chi’n rhugl neu ddysgu!

Chris Harvey

2009-04-01T11:51:00.001-07:00

Here is a demo to see if Kwak̕wala works

La̱'maa̱n's g̱wagwixs'alał lax̱ g̱wix'ida'as'wa̱łsa̱n gukwa̱lutida Da'naxda'x̱w lax̱ Dzawadi, le ḵ̓iḵ̓eḵa̱lasa loła 'yexwa̱x̱sa loł t̓a̱p̓idux̱da hestalisex̱ 'wi'la. We g̱wała̱l'mis ḵ̓otła̱lax̱s hiłila'metł, le gukwilida Dzawadalalistła. Mukwi sasa̱mas. La̱m om dida'la̱msis gukwa̱lut wa'okwa̱x̱s le 'la̱ḵasa t̕łiḵ̓a lax̱is dzuxwa̱msg̱a̱m, ḵu'la t̓a̱p̓idtł. Wa̱yuḵ̕wa̱sida wa'okw he g̱wix'idtłi. La̱m ḵ̓otła̱li Dzawadalalisax̱ ga̱n's gig̱adex. «Gi'yi», nik x̱an's gig̱a̱ma'yi. We, la̱m 'yugwa̱x'ida, ol 'yugwa. Ugwaḵ̓a̱la'mida xwak̕wa̱na la yatłudala x̱is dzuxwa̱m lak. Mut̕saḵida xwak̕wa̱na. La̱m 'ma̱nida biba̱gwana̱m x̱a da̱nas kas mugwana̱we'.