Grwp y Gymraeg

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Comment by Gareth Williams on September 24, 2009 at 8:47pm

I have embedded Hiwangerddi video. It has voice and lyrics

Comment by iain williams on September 16, 2009 at 9:16am

dirence=difference

Comment by iain williams on September 16, 2009 at 9:15am

thank you
your friend's adaptation is good and captures the spirit of it well...even if certain words are used that are not inthe original. However this bears out mty point ...one does not translate from one language to another but adapt.
Good. Cleryglod isn't exactly a new word to me but i doubt whether i would have heard or had it used amongst my parents and network. Butthat is the dirrence betwwen poetry and natural speech. Anyway enough said... it is a very interesting piece of compressed language. Thank....diolch am ddwyn y testun na i'r cof....thanks for bringing it into focus . Well done. Eitha da

Comment by Ashley Pritchard on September 16, 2009 at 9:00am

the full context of the inscription is:

Here lieth the body of Ellin Jones the wife of John Trevor Quarryman who departed this transitory life on the 30th day of June in the year of our lord 1806, aged 26 years.

Cantores ber gleryglod, gwawr ewyn
Gall garuaidd hynod
Chwith y byw a chaeth o'i bod
Yma'n tewi mewn tywod.

Er cof am Hugh Hughes Tu'n y Plas, Capel Curig yr hwn a fu Farw Gorphenaf 2 1875 yn 72 mlwydd oed. Hefyd Ellen anwyl briod y diweddar Hugh Hughes yr hon a hunaodd yn yr Iesu Chwefror 23ain 1886 yn 79 mlwydd oed.

Comment by Ashley Pritchard on September 16, 2009 at 8:43am

Another friend who is a native welsh speaker from another forum translated it like this:
Sweet Singer loved through the land - dawn on wave - 10
A wise and loving friend - 6
The living, a grieving band, - 7
As she lies silent in sand -7

Comment by Ashley Pritchard on September 16, 2009 at 8:41am

THis is an inscription from a headston in the church yard of Sant Curig a'i fam Julitta in Capel Curig, North Wales. This is only the Englyn off of the head stone. There fare 3 people listed on the headstone. The first dieing about 1806, the second in 1875 & the third in 1886. I did not put the full inscription because all i needed assistance with was the englyn.

Comment by iain williams on September 16, 2009 at 8:29am

Yes indeed some one famed for their talent would work. Y cler were wandering poets and yes as a derived meaning it would work. However it would be clerhyglod not cleryglod. Since y cler is both a masculine and a feminine noun within shifting texts we would expect the h to be there. Even if it were treated as feminine it should not lose its h since h is not subject to soft mutation. My feeling is that it is a representation of how the original was pronounced by the poet...sometimes h is not sounded in certain dialects.
incoherent at least in modern welsh-you give no date for the composition of the verse perhaps there isn't one- would be better translated by the words digyswllt or cymysglyd ie disconnected or mixed up.
But overall well done
i THINK your last two lines will now standand if yuo add them to the other two yuo have a workable translation
Welcome to the world of the translator

Comment by Ashley Pritchard on September 15, 2009 at 8:20pm

I follow iain
I was told in another forum on this same topic that ""gleryglod" is probably a word made up by combining other words, possibly "glêr" and "hyglod". This was a very common practice in old poetry. It may mean either "of great renown as a singer" or "highly praised by poets"" and that is where I get that gleryglod would refer to someone who was well known or famous for their talent.

I used the word incoherent since it is a synonym for silent and helped me keep the syllable count. Though I do agree that it is almost impossible to keep syllable count, rhyme & Cynghanedd in the English translation. I have racking my brain for almost a week on this.

Chwith y byw - I understand as left of life, but at first this did not make since but understanding left - as an adjective meaning - abandoned, it now makes since.

Maybe the las two line can read like this:

Left of life she is confined - 7
Here in silence in the sand -7

Comment by iain williams on September 15, 2009 at 6:29pm

hope yuo can follow my english...chwith=askew "To the left of things" as it were...the word sad an extensionof this...hope yuo follow ...

Comment by iain williams on September 15, 2009 at 6:21pm

ok first of all i wasn't concentrating and the word "enabling" should not have appeared inthe text.
Using some of your suggestions i have amended

Sweet singer ,verse makers praise-froth of dawn 10
Remarkable, kind, wise 6
Sadness a confined life 6
Here in sand a silence lies 7

The syllable count is correct i believe. If not I'LL let it stand. I do not believe it is possible to translate poetry from one language to another with any accuracy in terms of sound.
Renown is good clery y glod .....certainly y glod bit does point to praise. The word seems to be composite and by my understanding cler refers to y cler i.e wandering minstrels or bards, a word much used in the middle ages. ...something along the lines of swwet singer praised by wandering bards.
"Call" orf course does mean wise or prudent and it was an error on my part to have written "enabling". I was concentrating on something else and my attention was divided. "Chwith" though meaning sad in some aspects more generally means something that doesn't follow a pattern and is sad in that sense that it doesn't fit inbut i can see how yuo arrived at your meaning.
Tewi=to make or become silent. Incoherence is not silence but a babble of words ....speech nonetheless but not silence.
Hard to translate adequately isn't it? I FIND THAT ALL the time

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