As a proud welsh woman from Swansea living in England for the past 40 years I love to go back and visit, when a girl in a shop told me the skirt I was buying was 'lush' I knew I was home :)
And also a place for the dog's bed. "Get in your cwtch!" my nan would always say to her lovely mutt. But when she had a sack of potatoes delivered she'd also say "Put them in the cwtch" as in under the stairs. Luckily nobody ever put the potatoes in the dog's bed. 😂
4:40 Sometimes you don't even need to repeat a phrase to reinforce it - you can say "She was furious she was", but "Furious she was" is slightly more emphatic. In Welsh, the constituents of a sentence can be placed ahead of the verb for emphasis - e.g. "Mae hi'n byw yng Ngwent" ("She lives in Gwent") is fine, but it's slightly more emphatic to say "Yng Ngwent mae hi'n byw" (literally "In Gwent she lives"). Even though a region may no longer be heavily Welsh-speaking, it's as if the patterns of Welsh speech are preserved in the way in which people speak English there. As John Edwards, who wrote some entertaining books on 'Wenglish', put it: "We still speak Welsh in the Valleys, but it's spoken through the medium of English". Loved the video, and your accent is fab :)
We say “now in a minute”…thought that was normal…I’m from Newfoundland…we also say like, and luh at the end of a sentence. We are descendants of UK and Ireland.
I love the word "tamping" but I think I've only heard it since I've moved further West! I use "Stonking", quite a bit! AND "I'm not being funny but..." I've also heard: "Poody" (don't know how to spell it) - sulking! "Howling" for drunk, is another word I've heard here - I didn't use it in Cardiff!
Lovely! As a Welsh exile in Canada, this was a delight to watch. You are a beautiful Brazilian/ Welsh person, and a credit to the welsh speaking world. Thanks!
Thank you for a beautifully presented item! My mam(1926-2011) was born in Glamorgan,the last of 12 kids. Very hard ,disadvantaged early life she had. She met my dad( a Londoner) when he was doing his National service in Wales: she worked in the NAAFI. She lived up here in Kent for 54years and never lost her accent - she wasn't a fluent speaker of Welsh as she was of the generation that had a placard round their neck and a beating if they were heard using their own language. She always said daps for plimsolls: loshins for sweets: poor little dab for any unfortunate being and called on "Duw" when angry!! "Ych I fi"when we got mucky. "Shopping is it then?": for "are going shopping? and"light the fire then" for "go and light the fire". I'm very proud of my Welsh heritage and I think I sound more like her as the years pass. There's funny!
I left Swansea more than 40 years ago for London and I still use a lot of those expressions and pronunciations. I couldn’t drop them even if I tried.Your vid gave me a good laugh and brought back some fond memories-isn’t it?
In the valleys they used to say "We do" instead of "we are" - "we do go down the shops". A guy asks his friend who passed him driving earlier - " where were you going when i saw you coming"
My friend is from Swansea and he says “mind” ALLLL the time at the end of his sentences “it is mind” “ i don’t know mind” i love it😂wish i had a welsh accent 🥰
I moved to South Wales 18 months ago and I was already aware of lots of these from tv and banter with Welsh people I knew. But one thing I noticed a loooot when I moved was a phrase that’s used as a statement of agreement or to show your suggestion is an acceptable solution to something, and that is ‘there you go’ or ‘there you/we are’ which also has an optional ‘then’ at the end 😀
Wotan Lead The Way I’ve never heard it used in England like it is in Wales. I have heard it used in England, but a lot of Welsh use it way more than I’ve ever heard someone English use it.
It comes from the 'yes/no' structure in the elsh, Quentin. Mostly, Welsh uses, for example' an interrogative as a reply, so, is there? rep. there is, Is it/It is ,do they, they so etc... In Welsh 'na fe - dyna fe, there it is. 'na di - there you are.
People in South Wales say "I do 'ave" "Where's it to?" This is West Country talk, mainly from Gloucestershire and Somerset, brought in by English people who came to work in the coal mines.
Can't see anyone else taking about it but the reason Welsh people say "i am" on the end of our sentences is because in welsh we say the sentence round the other way. In welsh I'd say "Cymraeg ydw i." ("Welsh I am.") in English its "I am Welsh." You can see how it ends up as "I am welsh I am."
I don't know if this is something that comes up as much in everyday conversation (I'm Welsh by blood but have always lived in England) but one of my favourite Welsh-isms from my parents is being called 'bach' ('little one') as a term of endearment. That and cwtch are both things I didn't realise as a kid were Welsh words because I heard them at home so often!
My daughter thought it was hilarious when they were kids because I said Sospan instead of Saucepan. I never realized I pronounced it in Welsh all my life and still do to this day
The now in a minute expression reminds me of something we say in Spain which is 'ahora después', this translates to 'now after' lol it doesn't make any sense but we all use it to say what we will do somewhat shortly after we are speaking 🤣🤣 it's fun seeing similarities like that in different languages!
@@ellenbyrne7849 I live 40 mins away from the Severn bridge and know a fair few Welsh guys, we definitely share a lot of phrases and speech patterns. Obviously I'm not saying the West country and Wales are the exact same, but South Wales and the west country have a lot in common
Large scale immigration in the 19th Century from the West Country introduced a lot of these sayings into Wales and mingled with Welsh language structure. These sayings are pretty much restricted to the former coal mining areas but aren’t general to Wales.
I'm born in Australia to a Welsh 🏴 Father and Australian Mother. Oh lord I feel like a square peg to a round hole at time's. My Father was from Nelson and I tell you now I wouldn't choose to be any other way.. 🏴 I have only been to Wales the once when I was a young boyo, but I can remember that I felt in my heart that this very different land was somehow familiar to me.. Still to this very day I will sometimes have moments where I feel like I'm a long way from home even though I'm born and bred in Australia.. Everytime I meet someone from Wales in my life I get an amazing feeling of pure joy as I feel like I'm speaking with someone whom naturally understands me.. I feel like the Welsh blood within me definitely has me being very aware of emotions, compassion, empathy and passion when ever I speak of anything, it's like it all stems from the feelings of observation with in life... Can any Welshman/woman let me know if this is a Welsh thing or am I just a nutter..? Lol
That’s very much a “hwntws” (south walian), thing to say. Personally, I’m a “gog” (gogledd cymru = north wales). In fact, most of these, are very much south walian
@@rebeccalyons1327 They said "isn't it" at the end of many sentences in my village near Llanfyllin Powys too. I wondered if there is an equivalent in Welsh since the folks were mainly Welsh speakers.
My Welsh mother and her sister used to always talk about “donkey’s yurs,” meaning a long time, playing on the pun of years/ears-long ears = long years. “I haven’t heard from him in donkey’s yurs.”
Donkeys ‘ears respondin here lol when my Dad would say this I’d look up at him and ask - Daddy are you saying Donkeys ears? Or Donkeys Years? lol he’d laugh and pat me on my head. I’d think now Donkeys Ears lol because they’re so loooong! Beautiful Welsh accent my Dad had. My Auntie was an opera singer. Cymru am Byth 🏴❤️.
I loved listening to you. I am only half Welsh and grew up in Dorset, but I remember my dear mother using some of these. I have lived in Australia for more than 60 years but people still pick my English accent. I sing with two Welsh choirs and love everything Cymraeg. Thanks for this!! (ps your accent is beautiful)
Wow, I'm Brazilian and I'm married to a Welsh man too and it is SO refreshing to hear you speaking with Welsh accent. Da yawn i ti!!! We are preparing to go back to Wales and finding your channel was a great bonus. Hope we bump into each other at some point. Hwyl!
I loved your video! We have a another family we're friends with and the wife is from Wales... I love it because I've never met anyone from there before! Besides, she and her husband are such great people, easy for anyone to love. But she's sparked an interest in me fore Wales. Your video was great! I love learning about the little word phrases different areas use! I lived for a few years near Atlanta, Georgia in the US and they have several sayings in the south. But the one that stood out to me was "might could." You might could do this, or you might could do that... I even heard it in a popular Christian song once and instantly knew that song write must have been a southerner! So learning about the different sayings from Wales was so fun and interesting. Thank you!
I'm from Ireland. We have some unique sayings here too. I'm from a part of Ireland were literally no one speaks Irish so there's probably more unique sayings of words bring taken from the Irish language and used with the English language in other parts of Ireland.
Irish people say now in a minute, and heaving, also. Would you agree? My favourite Tipp one is well. Well meaning hello, goodbye, how are you? A very economical greeting. You go by intonation to pick up what is being said. Then Cork. Cop on. Which means behave yourself. When angry: would you ever cop on.
Most Welsh sayings don't seem to make sense due to translations from Welsh to English, because there wasn't a English version for a Welsh word. So it caused confusion in translations, so when it's spoken in Welsh it makes complete sense but when translated to English these phrases like "now in a minute" or "whose coat is that jacket" are the literal translations from Welsh to English.
Where in North Wales? I've never heard anyone I know or anyone I've met up here saying most of those (with one or two exceptions), unless they're saying them ironically.
@@bujin1977 Same. This is a video of things 'South' Walian people say. Some of the things she listed I'd even attribute more to the zoomer generation than the Welsh (e.g. proper, lush). And the last example is a stereotypical saying for a guy. The only one of these I've heard up here was Ych a fi. And that was one person. Two decades ago.
I lived in Swansea for 3 years as well. As a Brazilian who could speak and understand American English it was a rough time understanding the local accent. In the end it became the regular homie accent.
Very true :), but for any viewers that are interested, you should know that the languagr mentioned in this video specifically applies to people from the Valleys and industrial towns of South Wales, not North Wales.
I have Welsh ancestry. My Great Grand parent immigrated from Wales to the U.S. in the 1800. I lived in the U.S. most of my life. We have said in my family, "I'm saying". Never thought about the significance of that.
How can be interchanged with why as in "How are you down here?" meaning "Why are you here?". You can really can cause confusion if you answer by saying you caught the bus.
im welsh(cardiiff)...i grew up knowing a "cwtch" as a loving warm hug...a hug is what you give a friend but a "cwtch" is what you give a really loving person..it differant.
I'm English but grew up in the valleys and felt nostalgic listening to your list. One you missed: "where's Jane to?" instead of just "where's Jane". Your accent drops in and out with bits of Welsh!
With the exception of a couple of those sayings, they're all pretty regional and limited to South Wales. I was born in Wales and have lived here all my life, and I have never heard people up here in the north say most of those things. On the other hand, I had a friend in university from Bristol and he used to use the word "lush" all the time. As did my niece who grew up in Gloucester, so that's a term that has leaked across the border. But (and without meaning any offence by this - just pointing out that Wales is the same as anywhere else in the world in that we don't all speak the same way), saying "things Welsh people say" with these examples is like saying "things English people say" and filling it with stuff you'd only ever hear from the mouths of Geordies.
We have some similar things in Australia, given we were settled by the British it's not uncommon to use Welsh, English, Irish and Scottish sayings in our everyday language
Point of correction- The British migrants speak in that manner in Australia. The natives of that land occupied by other nations do not speak in that manner!
Loved this little interlude- took me back to my childhood....you are spot on. Some of the sayings you featured have become better known thanks to Ruth Jones’ ‘Nessa’ from Gavin and Stacey.
Very true! I am in North Texas and grew up in Central and East Texas, especially in East Texas amongst the older generations they would say some of those variations. Many people descend from people of welsh origins and believe that is where it came from. Isn’t it often used, just sayin’. I understand language-wise that Southerners tend to retain the old sayings and also foods as well.
I am in the US midwest, Chicago, and picked up "I'm just sayin" from standup comedy. I hear it used around me to mean: "I don't mean to offend" but even more to be ironic and mean "I am pretending I don't mean to offend, but we both know I really meant it and now you'll look like a jerk to come back at me as angry as you really are." Usually it's used to tease a friend, but can be used when someone unexpectedly takes offense as a way to backpedal and soften it or distance yourself, like saying "Or I could be wrong" or "That's my perspective but I may not know as much as you do."
Hey Ysis, Video muitobom, tenho uma Galesa na minha vida que não quero que saia nunca e achar uma Brasileira que fala Welsh é bem reconfortante, vai ajudar bastante, aliás quem me mostrou esse video foi ela hahah I also can speak english, but I didn''t see any comment in portuguese and I wanted to be the first hahah by the way I love Wales
I’m from Bristol but my mother’s side is all from Neath and painfully Welsh. Took me until my adult years to even realise a bunch of the slang I use isn’t actually English slang but speaking patterns and words I’ve picked up from my family!
Ych-a-fi - i never knew it was only a Welsh thing but it makes sense as I have never heard anyone say it apart from my nana who is from South Wales! Also made me laugh out at the father in law comment of who’s coat is that jacket hanging on the floor because I heard it in a Welsh accent too😂! Loved the video 😁
My late wife and I were born in England but chose to be Welsh when we moved to Wales in 1989. Our house is even called 'Ein Nyth'. Since my wife died I have discovered that I have Welsh DNA, although I don't know from where it originates.
"I'm Welsh I am" is because in the welsh laguage we would say "Cymraeg ydw i" literally "Welsh I am" the "I'm" at the beggining is the odd ball here coming from the when the English tried to eradicate spoken welsh.
I am from California.I'm writing a book about four fifteen-year-old friends living in Biggleswade, England and one of my characters is Welsh and moved from Flintshire, North Wales. I was trying to find some Welsh words and phrases I could add to my character and I think you just helped me immensely. That was wonderful.
Be very careful! North Wales is different to South Wales. Most of these phrases are not used in North Wales. Great video that it is, it represented regional (South Wales) Welsh 👍
Another one is "where's he to ?" (where is he). Also, in the kitchen, there are no saucepans but there are "sospans"...(from a Swansea boy living in England). I follow the Swansea City football team and, of course, the great Welsh rugby !
I’m from wales and I have never ever heard anyone say who’s coat is that jacket. I’ve only ever heard it as a pun used by English people to take the piss of how the Welsh speak.
Cwtch has multiple meanings beside a cuddle. It's the cupboard under the stairs, it's to hide something and when I was a kid, picking blackberrys it was your patch to pick from and if someone came on your patch you would say "bar cwtch".
Hi Ysis, liked your vid, just subscribed to your channel, I'm from North Wales and am a fluent Welsh speaker, I have to admit that I do not use most phrases you mention in your piece as they apply to parts of South Wales, lush over here in my part of North Wales means alcohol and Tidy does mean keeping things tidy. Cwtch is a word I've heard of but it's not used over here. It's so interesting to hear the different phrases used from area to area isn't it. Thanks for the vid.
