UKC

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/whats-on/trips-breaks/25-eryri-beauty-spots-who...

Hafn y Grib Ysgrythog not 'Seinister Gully'

Cil_hafn y Grib Ysgrythog not 'Dexter Gully'

Diffwys y Glyder not 'The Chasm'

Meingraig y Gromlech not 'Dolmen Ridge'

Meingraig neu Miniog Cwm Cneifion not 'Cneifion Arrette'

Ysgar Bochlwyd not 'False Gribyn'

Hafn y Garreg Wastad not 'Bryant's Gully'

Rhiwia Caws not 'Idwal Slabs'

Plygion Cwm Idwal not 'Idwal Darwin Boulders'

Y Ro not 'Idwal Beach'

Rhaeadr y Benglog not 'Ogwen Falls'

Creigiau Cwm Graianog not 'Atlantic Slabs

Carreg y Gwylwyr not 'Cantilever'

Castell or Carnedd y Gwynt not 'Castle of the Winds'

Coed Carreg y Fran not 'Mushroom Garden'

Llwybr Gwregus not 'Heather Terrace''

Some interesting ones on the list, perhaps UKC, Rockfax and guidebook writers will need to make some changes....

Thanks for copying out the names so I didn’t have to scroll through that article, almost completely unreadable with the amount of adverts! 

Maybe they should list/use both names (equally)

Brilliant, I love it when people reclaim their identity and when the result is utterly incomprehensible it's the icing on the cake! Lol.

Simply have all the Welsh guidebooks written in Welsh. Probably might restrict sales somewhat!

Most Welsh guidebooks do that already don't they?  My Ogwen one certainly does.  Anyway, I've never heard some of these English ones used, even by English climbers.  I've never heard anyone refer to Idwal Beach in any language.  I've only ever seen Castell y Gwynt used with Castle of the Winds mentioned as a literal English translation.

That said, I've yet to meet any English person who can pronounce 'llywbr' so I think Heather Terrace it will remain.

Sometimes Welsh place names are beautifully descriptive.  When that's the case, as a non-Welsh speaker, I appreciate guidebooks etc. giving the literal translation or some other info about the history of the name when it's first mentioned. 

It's interesting in its own right, but also makes it easier to remember the name I find.  (Obviously I appreciate that this is difficult to do in print when space is limited.)

That should be Rhiwiau Caws, surely? I guess it means "slabs of cheese"?

The French are just as bad. They refer to Cymru as Pays de Galle. Not to mention their using French works for GB, England and Scotland: Grande Bretagne, Angleterre and Ecosse. 

I think I can pronounce llywbr but most probably that's misplaced English optimism. My dad's a Welsh speaker and he has to correct attempts of mine to pronounce many things, even though I was trying!

Yeah, for example Castell y Gwynt, don't know I've heard the other names for  it, since it's on the OS map as such

Edit: " blay mire the lubber co hoy dis up mount wid fa" see perfect pronunciation!!! If not I can resort to slowly shouting it. Who says English don't understand culture?

What language is 'arrette' ??

From what I've read elsewhere, a list of hundreds of old original names have been recorded throughout Eryri. What the Daily Post have shown are some of the Ogwen plums. Some years ago I realised that several farmers around Cadair Idris were already of pretty advanced years but still quite compos mentis so I approached them with a large scale 6" map of Cadair. Several days were spent in their company, noting and scribbling names of over 300 buttresses, gulleys, boulders and features on Cadair I'd never heard of before -  names that describe the features perfectly - something that comes with an intimate familiarity with the area in all seasons. So glad I did it because the 4 that helped the most have since died. The map has been tidied up and is on the office wall. Perhaps I should contact the Daily Post...🤣 

Interesting, as an Englishman learning welsh, I am in general in favour of using the original welsh names, however, when we are talking about a particular climb, then the first ascentionist has the right to name the route. So if G Barlow and Miss E M Barlow chose back in 1905 to call their route Cneifion Arete that's the name of the climb up Meingraig. If however the name was given by someone else at a later date, it's a bit more complicated!

Can you share that map, I'd love to see it.

I'd love to see a copy of that myfyr.

I'll see what can be done. The Dinas Mawddwy area warden did something similar in Cwm Cywarch years ago. Some of that map was incorporated into later CC guides to the area.

Meingraig is a word I'm not familiar with but it describes an arete to perfection. From the words main, meaning thin or narrow, and craig. When coupled together, they mutate to meingraig which just slips off the tongue. 😉 Love it!

Pays de Galles, Écosse

Those Philip Gibson drawings of Craig Cywarch are a thing of beauty, I'd love to have some bigger prints of those for my wall. His website seems to have gone offline last time I looked.

Wait until you see what the Anglophones call Cymru, Éire, Deustchland, Österreich, España, Nederland and so many others. 

As a bilingual speaker, I don't see the problem. If I'm talking in English I say Poland/England whereas if I'm talking in Polish I'd say Polska/Anglia. Does that make me bad person?

Thanks. My phone edits words when I'm not looking and producing an acute is beyond my technical capability. 

One time I managed to get the umlaut in Schrodinger, but struggled thereafter to get rid of the induced German keyboard!

Languages generally have their own words for other major countries and many cities. To what extent is interesting when you look at it. 

No, you (and Pero) seem to have missed my lighthearted sarcasm. Maybe I misinterpreted Pero's post. No matter.

The spelling can be quite amusing as well!

What about Cenotaph Corner and Cemetery Gates in Welsh. Such classics would be interesting to see in Welsh but we would never be able to pronounce these new names. Faced by a blank stare when using such language. Indeed with my deafness I struggle to understand the King's English.

Were these names simply things like "black cliff", "big knobbly rock" and so forth.

If so then they may not necessarily be the names that anyone else used, but were simply descriptions - however in the local Welsh dialect.

If Welsh folk want other British folk to use Welsh names, that's all well and good. I don't see a problem for the most part. But given that Welsh pronunciation is so radically different from English, it would help their case a lot if, when the Welsh names are introduced, a simple guide to pronunciation is supplied alongside it. I used to find it quite irritating that English language climbing guides to Welsh areas would leave English speakers in the dark about how to pronounce the Welsh language crag names ... and then you'd find people being laughed at for guessing at or Anglicising the pronunciation. It's easier now that we have internet resources to reference but I still think that addressing the issue at source would be far better.

No worries, although placing an accent over a capital letter is by convention optional.

Totally agree. I think 'Idwal Beach' must be a name for the shallow NNW corner of Llyn Idwal where people swim. Recently i saw a map had been constructed up there with 'beach' marked on it. 'Y Ro' is a much better name imo, not once did i think 'beach' when i went for a dip there back in March, but i do remember trying to get the tiny gravel off my feet without much success.

I'd also be fascinated to see your map Myfyr. Have you done anything similar up in the Rhinogydd? Atb David

Used to be a no-no. Or so I was taught in the 80s. I used them now lest my pupils forget there should be an accent (helps with pronunciation).

Send me the map Myfyr! Send me the map! I’m not dead set on renaming or anything but I’d be really interested to hear what the local farmers / land users called everything. It’s almost like a treasure hunt 

Have a vague memory of a québécois friend telling me that they use accents on capitals, and a québécois keyboard makes that easier than with an AZERTY keyboard.

This sounds beautiful 

Would this be worth passing on to the guidebook editor Myfyr, the CC I would guess?

Why? If I was writing in Welsh about England, I would use Welsh names for English locations where a Welsh name for it exists.

If writing (or speaking) in English why then use the Welsh names. It makes no sense.

Fair point but English isn't exactly a language struggling to survive

I think that is a reasonable point - but I would like it if the languages of these isles where better known by the English speaking mass - so why not promote?

I think it would be great if more people realised how many distinct languages were spoken on this island in times past. It's hinted at in place names. Even English is an amalgam of different tongues. There are quite a few Old Welsh/Cumbric names dotted around NW England eg Lanercost and Lyvennet. I think Helvellyn is also an example. If it isn't, it should be.

If the English names were translations, or anglicisations, I would agree with you. For example, I've not heard an Italian complain about Napoli being called Naples, because the latter is simply an anglicisation of the original.

There are also many such anglicisations in Wales e.g. 'Cardiff' is a clear adaptation of the original "Caerdydd". I think that's fine.

The problem arises when completely arbitrary English names have been applied, without any reference to the original.

Eryri is a good example. The origins of the name are lost to time - some people say it is derived from the Welsh word 'eryr', which means eagle, others say it comes from the latin "oriri', which apparently means "to rise". Either way, "Snowdonia" has no relation to the Welsh name at all; it's simply an extension of Snowdon - which itself has no relation to the Welsh name of the mountain "Yr Wyddfa".

Had the English called Eryri "The Eagle District" or something similar that referenced the original, I suspect there would probably be less of a hullabaloo about the whole thing.

The tricky thing there may be that the mountain has had an English name for a long time - in a land with many languages there maybe many names for the same thing.

I always thought that Helvellyn was a Norse name, but looking at it its ending it could be Welsh.

I love it when monolingots assume things are incomprehensible because they can only communicate in one language. Imagine a national of a country wanting to refer to places in the aforementioned country by the names used in their own language. 

a) it would be weird, given that the heritage of these routes is to have English-langauge names (in contrast to the anglicisation of original welsh names exemplified in the OP), and b) they'd be perfectly pronounceable, once you learn the rules, much like any other language.

English is pretty much only a mixture of other languages - the number of loan words is absolute phenomenal, and actually make it a super interesting language (and simultaneously a bit of a mess). Fun fact for you - all the -by suffixes on town names in the northeast can be attributed to vikings - By is the Danish word for town/city.

Indeed, I agree that languages and places evolve. I'm sure before it was called Eryri it was probably called something else!

Snowdonia

According to Mark Richards ('Near Eastern Fells' guide):

'Pure Celtic in origin, spelt in modern Welsh Helfa-llyn, 'the lake of the hunting ground' a clear reference to Red Tarn'

Does anyone know for sure or is it just conjecture? I always thought it meant pale yellow upland?

Wiki has some good detail:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvellyn#Names

Mean Crag?

I always assumed that Helvellyn (Lauvellyn in one book I read) was what is now called Welsh.

Pen y Ghent, Penrith ("Oh I love Cornwall" one person said after asking where I lived), Pendragon ....

I always wondered if some well travelled legionary named it after remembering marching through Helvetia

I think I  heard of Helvellyn long before I knew where it was and imagined it was in Wales.  But then I found it in the true home of the language, not in the modern upstart.

I find the section on names in the Wikipedia a bit odd.  It asserts that ideas are wrong without justification and then explores at length a favoured idea of colour.  I am not at all convinced by it.  It reads as if it is a based on preferring one opinion over others.

I suppose that is Wikipedia

Fair enough - no idea if it's right. It would be interesting to hear more about Helfa-llyn as a possible origin. To me, it would seem unusual to name a hill after a lake. And presumably those on the Thirlmere side would have had a different name for it anyway (it's certainly the case for some Welsh hills that different farmers had different names for them).

Lochnagar,  Beinn an Lochain, Sgorr nan Lochan Uaine

That's a fair summary of linguistics as an academic subject. Tremendous battles with astonishingly low stakes. Entrenched positions, factions, the whole bit. Lots of cheap non-rigorous cr@p folk etymology that's abject boll@cks but won't go away. Good fun to watch. Not something you'd want your daughter to marry into, maybe. 

I mean, really we should probably go back to the original Proto-Indo-European for all the terms, right ? Or is someone going to produce a rigorous argument at where the chronological cut-line should lie ? The Welsh displaced someone for sure - "pays de galle" - gal being the celtic for "not like us." <cheap non-rigorous but with a grain of truth in it...

Right, that's my fun had, I'll step back and see what happens. 

Y

And many more - this would make a fun game in a different thread.

noting it might be a slightly niche definition of fun 

Have you just outed yourself as a professional linguist?😀

Really though I think you’ve described philology as it was practiced many decades ago. I’ve met a few academic linguists and their work is much duller and more evidence-based than that. And the stakes aren’t always low: back on topic (nearly), place-names are almost the only evidence we have for how different cultures were located in prehistory.

Also, one for Lankyman: Blencathra.

Touche. Though two of those aren't named as lakes, they're named "peak of the lake" - pedantic perhaps, but still a difference. I've no skin in the game, just curious as to what the real meaning may be.

So Grimsby was Grim before the Danes arrived?

But Lochnagar was apparently known as Beinn nan Cìochan (hill of the paps) before Queen Victoria bought it when the name of the loch was transferred to the hill.

Always has been - But Hulls never been dull

Thanks.

Hah, no, but thanks. Just read a bit deeper than just Steven Pinker and made some of my professional life on the back of language skills. I think the bitch-fights carry on as before, but I agree with you that they aren't the majority of the activity as practised, just the bit noticeable to outsiders. I have huge respect for the dull scholarly grind, which gives me an allergy to the cheap/quick/internet hearsay etymological sh1t. And yes, absolutely, on-topic the stakes are higher of course. Although in the age of populism most of the "different cultures location in prehistory" stuff then gets recruited to "our lot were here 17,000 years before yours and that's our pretext to do unspeakable things to your kids now." Stakes too high, but in culture not linguistics. 

Hence my original challenge - where's the chronological cut-line ? 

Y

Completely agree. On your cut-line question, I guess the point is there isn’t one: populations/cultures/languages have always been in near-constant change and there’s no reason to expect otherwise in the future. Of course it would be easy to accept that, and sometimes live with multiple names for the same place- there are many areas in Europe for example where that seems to be no problem .

But those with axes to grind seize on  language to advance their dodgy causes. A feature of nationalisms for 150 years and more.  An example of language used to “other” I stumbled across recently: it seems (no hard evidence!) that “Galloway” could be “other Gaels”, ie Gaels-but-not-like-us. Perhaps because of interbreeding with Norse. 

Yep. Interesting. And of course the cut-line is rhetorical, just in the back pocket for when some nationalist starts the blood-and-soil-and-language stuff which has been delightfully absent from this thread. 

Y