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From: alanr@rd.bbc.co.uk (Alan Roberts)
Subject: Re: The @ sign: help
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Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 08:52:05 GMT
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Stephan Baitz (baitz@immr.tu-clausthal.de) wrote:
: alanr@rd.bbc.co.uk (Alan Roberts) wrote:
: ..
: >Now, if you'ld like to try some Welsh, there's always the village in Anglesey:
: >
: >Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch
: >
: >That's probably going too far but it does have 4 l's in one row, an 14
: >consonants in another.

: I'm sorry, but that's not quite correct. In Welsh, 'w' and 'y' ARE
: vowels, not consonants. It only looks like 14 consonants in one
: row from an English point of view. This has been discussed in this
: list very frequently.

: The 4 l's are in fact only two consonants (i.e. two sounds).
: The 'consonant' ll represents a voiceless, aspirated l-sound
: (I hope this is expressed correctly enough, I'm no linguist).

: Nevertheless, I like that word, too.

: Stephan Baitz


: PS. Could someone please split up that Welsh name and post its
:     translation and the translation of its parts? My Welsh is
:     to poor to do it myself.-- Diolch yn fawr.

Ok here goes. This is verbatim from the AA Book of British Villages:

"                         LLANFAIR PG, GWYNEDD
                      2 miles west of Menai Bridge

All but the first 20 letters of the tongue-twisting name that made this
Anglesey village famous were added by a local man in the 19th century.
But the name has stuck and become the longest in Britain. Llanfairpwll-
gwyngyllgogerychwrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch means `St Mary's church
in a hollow by the white hazel close to the rapid whirlpool by the red
cave of St Tysilio'. The earlier name is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, but the
long name is the one displayed on the small railway station, and souvenir
tickets are sold in a shop nearby.

The village itself has a few rows of attractive old cottages and is strung
out along the Holyhead road built be the civil engineer Thomas Telford
at the start of the 19th century. A whitewashed octagonal toll-house
stands beside the road and remained in use until about 1890. Old toll
charges are still displayed on a board.

The approach to the village from Menai Bridge is dominated by a lofty
Classical pillar, topped with a statue of the 1st Marquis of Anglesey,
who lost a lef at Waterloo."

In detail, the name can be broken down into individual words, as in the
portmanteau words of German. Unfortunately, my Welsh is too shaky to
rely on, so I have resorted to an old Welsh/English dictionary for the
following (dictionary entries in braces):

Llan	Church	(church/village, n)
fair	Mary
pwll	hollow	(pit/pool/pond, n)
gwyn	white	(white/blessed, a)
gyll	hazel	(no dictionary entry)
goger		(no dictionary find)
y	the	(the, a)
chwyrn	rapid	(rapid, a)
trobwll	whirlpool	(whirlpool, n)
llan	church	church,village, n)
tysilio	Tysilio
gogogoch	(no dictionary find)

That's the best I can do.

By the way, the Marquis of Anglesey was the character who, sitting atop
his horse at Waterloo, was address by Wellington thus:

"By gad sir, you leg's been shot off."

and replied:

"Gad sir, so it has."

Or words very like those.

--
************* Alan Roberts **************
* BBC Research & Development Department *
* My views, not necessarily Auntie's    *
*    but they might be, you never know. *
*****************************************
