The canon for that well-known fanfic, The Shining Company.

[bunn]

The National Library of Wales have digitised their original copy of the Book of Aneirin which holds the original story of the Gododdin*. This copy is still 6-700 years newer than the battle, and the presentation - all those twirly reds and greens - perhaps suggests that this is already part of the story that Wales tells about itself

Comments

[isiscolo]

Ooh nifty!

I am oddly charmed by the warning message in Welsh: Rydym yn defnyddio 'cookies' er mwyn gwella eich profiad ar ein gwefan. Trwy barhau heb newid eich gosodiadau rydych yn cytuno i dderbyn 'cookies'.

I guess (web) cookies don't translate!

[bunn]

In the baker's today the food was labelled in Cornish, and I was interested that they had gone for 'tesen' to describe the sweet things - teisen in Welsh is cake (I had to look this up, but oddly my ancient memory of learning welsh had correctly identified cake, spot the important priorities...).

So I'm guessing that the whole 'biscuit/cookie' thing is an invention of the Awful Saxons, and that the True British Name is just cake.
:-D

I expect Sutcliff would call them bannocks though. :-D

[moonlightmead]

But they do translate! And I'm intrigued that they use the term 'cookies', in English. At least some sites and some software use the term 'briwsion' (crumbs, breadcrumbs), which harks back to the original idea of cookie crumbs leaving a trail. Like the breadcrumbs in Babes in the Wood.

[bunn]

That's interesting. I think I've seen something like 'cwcies' somewhere too.

[moonlightmead]

I can manage modern, 'early' modern, and a dash of medieval Welsh, and I can frankly make neither head nor tail of the majority of Y Gododdin. Honestly, medieval Welsh is practically a different language. Old Welsh - which is what the Gododdin is - is another one again.

As for the orthography... ugh, again, very different! Old (and medieval) Welsh use k and v as well. At least, I think Old Welsh does; the medieval stuff definitely does.

[bunn]

Cornish is brimming with 'k's. The unkind might say that to recreate Kernewek you take a big spoonsful of Welsh and sprinkle 'K's on top of it. :-D

[moonlightmead]

Heh, yes, and move the verb, and hey, presto: Cornish!

I remember pottering around in a room with a television on and thinking 'what's happened to my brain, I suddenly can't understand language... wait, hang on, what on earth...?' and turning to watch it and discovering that that section of the programme was not in Welsh but in Cornish.

It was surreal. So close, and yet so far. I know there are stories of people understanding the languages by knowing the other, 'cousin' language, but this was maddening. I really couldn't understand it, and I felt I really ought to! Especially because we are brought up with stories of the interchangeability, and 'Sioni Wnions' the onion seller from Brittany, and all that. And then you discover that however similar they look written down, when you hear them... no, nononono...