Bron-y-aur, Bron-Yr-aur (NZC)

[rdavies@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

someone replied to a post of mine referring to the Dazed and Confused book:

>>Also noted is the significance of different the spellings of >Bron-y-aur
and >Bron-Yr-Aur.  The former with lower case 'y' and 'a' >mean breast of
gold >referring to the surrounding countryside.  The >latter is the name of
the >cottage where Page and Plant stayed in >1970 and where Plant also
spent >childhood holidays.

>Are you sure about the spellings?  I thought it was:

  >Bron-yr-aur = breast of gold
  >Bron-Y-Aur  = cottage
  -------------
  -------------

  Yep I'm sure.  This is me speaking as a Welshman (though not a native
  speaker of the language)

>From the official map of the district actually you can see the area is
named Bron- y-aur and I've seen a photo of the sign naming the house as
Bron-Yr-Aur.

Welsh is a bit of a funny language, rife with regional variations in
spelling and pronunciation.  To an extent this stems from the mountainous
nature of the terrain, meaning that, until quite recently, travel between
areas relatively close geographically was not necessarily easy .  Just to
confuse things, the influx of the English in the 19th century jumbled the
language even more by either anglicising Welsh words or getting them just
plain wrong.

Y and yr are both forms the definite article (=the).  Yr is used if the
following word starts with a vowel otherwise y is used (unless the
preceding word ends with a vowel when 'r is used). From this we can see
that Bron-yr-aur is the correct version.  Where Bron-y-aur came from can be
subject to debate, my guess is: blame the English or the cartographers
(probably one and the same).

As for pronunciation:  burn your Blueberry Hill !  Perhaps they say
'Bron-rar' round your way Robert but I (and most folks from my native
Northern Coastal area) would say it as:

'Bron ear ou.errrr'

that's ou as in 'ou.ch that hurt',  roll that last  r  too.

While I'm at it lets get this breast business sorted.  No one except Beavis
and Buthead, would drive around Wales pointing at hillside and say 'cor,
look at the breast on that'.  It's much more likely to be 'what a nice
hillside' which, granted is less poetic (in the archaic Wordsworth sense),
but is more likely to be in keeping with the intention of the name.
Bron=hillside, ?=tits (anyone?).


I will now take questions from the floor.

Rob Davies

BTW for the truly interested, or the truly insane there's an excellent web
site dedicated to teaching Welsh at http://www.cs.brown.edu/fun/welsh/.
(fun?!!!!).