Degemer mat .

[otter oonagh]

Demat , ( good day )
Degemer mat . ( Welcome )
Trougarez . ( thanks )

it's a start !!! and you can maybe go a long way with this in Brittany .

Kenavo ( good bye )

( sorry , I couldn't help it , Breton I am

[D'Arzhur]

Demat Oonagh

I have just received from Myrdhin (one of the best bard in Bretagne/France/etc.) my CD "Magic Chaudron" released for the summer solstice ! I LOVE it....the story of Taliesin in music...with some texts in french and some in Breton !!!
(with a few words in english too)...
Trougarez for the vocabulary !
Kenavo

[ennys]

Wow a breton subforum!!!

But...trougarez??

I know trugarez, which means thanks. Or mersi, which indeed is a french loanword but very current


Mersi bras d'ar 'moderators' evit ar forom brezhonek!!
(greatd thanks mods for the breton forum)

Pokou (kisses)

Ennys

[otter oonagh]

I think, as in a lots of dialects and languages , you will found a different way to say a word , every time you pass a river , in Brittany maybe more than anywhere , by the language we are still tribes !!
and Breton speaking is quiet different that breton written , much of the language written is considerate scholar or even intellectual , and old people do not understand much of it .
My grand mother barely spoke french , and never write or read ! ... quiet common for this generation in the "low class" and the ones before . I understood my grand mother and spoke a little before she passed , unfortunately, I cannot help at all with the writing and my vocabulary is now very poor . !

kenavo .

[D'Arzhur]

Demat !
I am curious about the "mersi"...Ennys you mentionned it was borrowed from the french but the french spelling is "merci"....Do you know if there is a reason why the "c" would have become a "s" ?
Kenavo

[otter oonagh]

here are two different origines of the dialects in Brittany :
Breton, celtic language , as the welsh, irish, scottish ... spoken in the west and the south .
and the Gallo, spoken in the north east , which is Gaulish/french origine . "Mersi" , is certainly Gallo .


@ d'Arzhur , in the aera where you found your dream house , they speak Gallo , not breton ! ...

Kenavo

[D'Arzhur]

Oonagh...I even read that the Gallo in the region from StMalo and of course even more the Gallo south of the Mt St Michel is a Gallo influenced by the Norman dialect
Any way I do now have my first word of Gallo : Mersi ( )
......and I am still planning to "try"to learn Breton.., after all even if Broceliande is more or less in Gallo territory they seem to favor Breton...but then again which one

Kenavo

[otter oonagh]

Great ! Have fun , it's a good way to become a "local " !! all the best to you !

Kenavo

[ennys]

Salud tout an dud! (hi everyone, yes here are two other french loanwords used in spoken breton)

mersi is also said in breton; mersi dit, mersi deoc'h, mersi bras, or just plain mersi. Maybe it is not in the place where you come from, otter Oonagh, but as you said, Breton kwnos many dialects. Kant bro kant giz, etc. ;-) (a breton saying about the many differences between the breton territories) I guess mersi is written with an s because the breton way of spelling is different from the french one; breton only uses the c in the ch or c'h form, not on itself. It is always s or k. Note that it is, in most places, pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, this is different from the french! In most places breton has its accent on the penultimate syllable, there are some exeptions on this though, like the word 'demat', which is a composition from 'deiz' (de, meaning day), and 'mat' (good).

I never heard trougarez, but of course that does not mean it does not exist, I am only a student you know ;-) Just have no idea where! May I ask you where you come from?


keno, (short form of kenavo)
Ennys

[D'Arzhur]

mersi Oonagh & Kenavo (mais pas adieu )
PS : Bon voyage

[ennys]

& = ha, or hag before a vowel

bon voyage = beaj vat. Because beaj (voyage) is a female word, it 'lenites' the adjective: the m of 'mat (good) becomes a v. Btreon has four different 'mutations', ways of changing first vowels of words. When it is not late and I am not very tired I might explain this. Now I just wanted to helpo d'arzhhur writing even more breton.

Me 'ya da gousket (I go to sleep)

Noz vat d'an holl (good night to all)

Ennys

[Beith]

Hello everyone!
I just came back from travelling and found a wonderful new Breton subforum! (see what happens when you go away for a couple of weeks!)
I'm afraid I have no Breton or Gallo at all but I am interested to learn something of whatever you are willing to teach! eg. a few lines of a Breton song or piece of text with the translation and some grammar explanations might be a good way to introduce some Breton to those of us with little or no experience of it.

I am delighted there is now a Breton subforum here to add a little more P-Celtic flavour to the board! Looking forward to learning from you all!......ur yezh hepken n'eo ket a-walc'h !!

best wishes

Beith

[otter oonagh]

Thank you , for your information about " mersi' ,I never heard it my self where I'm from !

I never heard trougarez, but of course that does not mean it does not exist, I am only a student you know ;-) Just have no idea where!

" Thank you" trougarez , or trugarez , was not really used by my grand mother , a " ya " will be sometimes enough , or a view , or a small present was more the form of thankfulness ! But my grand parents was poor and maby they didn't have the same kind of "manners " . . But I kind of like it this way , the act was more important that the word . Reading the view was more the kind of expression appropriate in this case , quiet typical !

May I ask you where you come from?

Yes of course ,My Family is originally from the center of north finsitere , around Carhaix . A very remote place , where my grand father was an wooden shoes maker , and my grand mother was feeding her family with a bit of land . The other side ,was simple farmers . Nothing fancy , but real people . My parents and I lived close by the sea in Morlaix area , where I stayed until I was 17 years old ! ... My parents still live in Commana ,In the Monts D'arres . in Breton Kommana ( meaning : The community of Ana ) .

In peace

oonagh

[ennys]

is this thread dead?

Is this subforum dead?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZZZZZZZZZ

[Beith]

..it's not dead as long as you keep posting Ennys!

As you are one of the few Breton speakers/students here, I'm afraid you're going to have to be the one to prop it up again like I do and a few others have done with the Irish one!

How about giving some Breton myth/folk tales? People here cannot speak the language as you can but may be very interested in stories of the Ankhou (did I get that right?) and fairies and other spirits. It would be good comparative stuff for Irish/Scots/Welsh/Cornish/Manx lore too!

Or else how about taking a few lines of text and going through them grammatically and phonetically as you started with the folksong, only maybe with a small verse so that people can get to grips with that at first?

just some thoughts! It's not easy to keep things active when so few folks could participate with you to discuss more things in Breton, but if one can open the floor to that by summoning interest in Breton myths, folk tales, ballads, traditions etc, then that might garner more user-visits and who knows, perhaps some comparative stuff and linguistic discussions too.

What about doing something with the Cornish & Welsh fora...ie. take a verse or line of something in Breton, get someone from Cornish forum to replicate it in Cornish or into Welsh by those folks (or if a common song/poem/saying is known in all three languages) and then we can look at them and discuss the language features of these P-Celtic languages and stuff like that?

When there's only a very small populus looking in here, doing something cross-language and collaborative would draw in more interest from a wider spectrum.

Just some thoughts!

Beith

[D'Arzhur]

Great ideas Beth
Go for it Ennys Please

[ennys]

..it's not dead as long as you keep posting Ennys!

As you are one of the few Breton speakers/students here, I'm afraid you're going to have to be the one to prop it up again like I do and a few others have done with the Irish one!

How about giving some Breton myth/folk tales? People here cannot speak the language as you can but may be very interested in stories of the Ankhou (did I get that right?) and fairies and other spirits. It would be good comparative stuff for Irish/Scots/Welsh/Cornish/Manx lore too!

Or else how about taking a few lines of text and going through them grammatically and phonetically as you started with the folksong, only maybe with a small verse so that people can get to grips with that at first?

just some thoughts! It's not easy to keep things active when so few folks could participate with you to discuss more things in Breton, but if one can open the floor to that by summoning interest in Breton myths, folk tales, ballads, traditions etc, then that might garner more user-visits and who knows, perhaps some comparative stuff and linguistic discussions too.

What about doing something with the Cornish & Welsh fora...ie. take a verse or line of something in Breton, get someone from Cornish forum to replicate it in Cornish or into Welsh by those folks (or if a common song/poem/saying is known in all three languages) and then we can look at them and discuss the language features of these P-Celtic languages and stuff like that?

When there's only a very small populus looking in here, doing something cross-language and collaborative would draw in more interest from a wider spectrum.

Just some thoughts!

Beith

Hey Beith,

Thanks for your post, and all your ideas!
I would love to do something to bring this forum to live again, but I do not really know where to start....
Maybe folklore is a good one.
As we are approaching Samhain (or Gouel an Anaon - festival of the souls; Anaon = Welsh Annwn, Gouel = Welsh Gwyl), I might see if I can write something about Breton traditons concerning this festival. The Ankoù (Death personified) of course plays a role in that, and so do the korriganed (korrigan = fairy).

Right now I do not have the time, but I think that's a nice topic, for a start....
I could also give some lines of poetry, but as poetry often uses the language in another way, with another grammar etc., I think prose would be a better place to start, if anyone is interested in reading some Breton. Just have to think about a suitable text.On the other hand, I love poetry, and so do many over here, so maybe it will be some (modern) poetry in the end. There is a poem by Anjela Duval (a very famous Breton poetess) named Gouel an Anaon, although it is quite christian, it short,it is pretty, it is Breton and it is season-related

Yes I will give this all a thought, thanks you very much Beith!

gwellañ soñjoù (best wishes),
Ennys