Bannau Brycheiniog
As Brecon Beacons: National park ditches its English-language name for its Welsh – the park in southern Wales is now to be known as Bannau Brycheiniog – pronounced Ban-eye Bruck-ein-iog – national park or informally The Bannau – Michael Sheen speaks to a deeper change required. This mirrors some of the debates about language, ownership, communities and both re-wilding and re-peopling we are having here in Scotland …
Not sure it was a great idea to show the sheep in this video!
Well yes, ravagers of the landscape and life that lives on it. But it is tied in with the idea of people working there but it is a serious conflict of interest.
true
Beautiful country Wales. Same as Scotland. Beautiful accent. Same as Scotland. Time you extricated the borg from your country and became a free nation again. Loved my time in Wales. Such a friendly nation. The only downside was I had to go through little england to get there!
For Wales!
Re the pronunciation ‘ein’ is ambiguous unless you mean ein as in reign. And Bruck is wrong – the ‘ch’ is like loch not lock.
Indeed, and surprising that a Scottish commentator would fall for the English pronunciation of ‘-ck’ where the correct ‘-ch’ (similar, but not exactly the same as ‘loch’ is closer to home). How many times have Scottish teeth been set on edge by referencing Nessie’s home as ‘Lock Ness?
And why not render the ‘English’ word ‘eye’, with good ol’ Scottish, ‘aye’?
As for ‘ein’ rhyming with ‘reign’ (or even ‘rain’ – something both our countries are known for), again, this is a closer substitute than just leaving it as ‘ein’. (Perhaps, someone was thinking of the German for ‘one’ …).
Note further that this is the stressed syllable in Cymraeg/Welsh (as it is in over 90% of native words, i.e. on the last syllable but one.
So, let’s have another try. Altogether now: ‘BANN-aye bruhkh-AIN-iog’.
Diolch / Thank you.
Thank you. I think I had intuitively picked up on the stressed penultimate syllable thing but did not know it was 90%
And in German where you get ‘ei’, it is always the second letter that is pronounced so that is wrong here, though I have also made that mistake in Welsh pronunciation – Plas Einion should be Plas Ainion but I always said Ayenion. Now I know. I don’t speak Welsh but lived there for a few years so made an effort to at least try and get my head around how to pronounce things. It was the mutating first letters of words that really baffled me!
Thanks for making the effort, though!
I work as a Welsh first language linguist in England – doing missionary work. 😉
In my childhood days, remember someone on wireless(not Scot) saying the there were three locks on the Caley Canal. Having studied.the canal in class, knew that there were mamy more. But then came the clarification – Lock Ness, Lock Locky and Lock Oick.
I’ve invested in https://invest.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/invest Not sure how many folk are aware of them or what they’re doing. Yes I am prepared to lose my money, call it a donation.
Just imagine a new form of government that placed the health of our land, rivers, ecosystems at the very top of our constitutional duties. #biocracynow
He’s always inspirational and so good to hear a bit of Welsh