True story…

#cymraeg #cymru #dysgu #dysgucymraeg #learningwelsh #learnwelsh #wales #welsh #welshlanguage

[@Glaatwi]

I love the sound of Welsh. It's my father's first language. He was born in Holywell in 1940 and didn't learn English until he went to school. I keep thinking about learning, I should have done it years ago.

[@Skatamska]

I had a tapei in the nineties (when the internet didn’t exist like it is now) to learn Welsh and I remember having to answer questions with cywir neu angywir? If I remember that correctly.

[@DoctorCymraeg]

CYWIR = correct ANGHYWIR = incorrect If we all used those we’d save a lot of the ‘yes-no’ confusion 😂

[@Knappa22]

Gwir doesn’t come from Latin i.e it is not a loanword. It comes to us directly from Brythonic *uiros*. It is *cognate* with the Latin word ueritas / veritas of course, and with cognates in other indo european languages, like Irish ‘fir.’

[@siunach309]

I'd say you mean fíor in Irish, meaning true, rather than fir meaning men.

[@Knappa22]

@@siunach309 fíor is the modern descendant yes. I was referring to its Old Irish antecedent fir - derived from Indo-european wīros. Incidentally both modern fir and fíor have cognates in Welsh - these being gwŷr (men) and gwir (truth). The f / gw correlation is fascinating to me, cf feamainn - gwymon (seaweed) and faoileán - gwylan (seagull). Such ancient connections.

[@siunach309]

Thanks for that. The f /gw swap is very interesting indeed. Go raibh maith agat