Marzhin en e gavell

[ennys]

Hi everyone,

Now we have our own Breton subforum, I think I'd better copy/paste the tekst I gave in the earlier topic into this subforum! Later on I will give some grammatical information, for those who want this. Please pose questions, if I can answer them, I will do so with much pleasure

Marzhin en e gavell Merlin in his cradle

Bremañ trizek miz ha teir zun Now thirteen days and three weeks
E oan dindan ar c'hoad e hun I slept beneath (in) the wood

diskan: chorus:
O ! hun eta, va mabig, va mabig O sleep then, my little son, my little son (mab=son)
Hun eta, toutouig lala O sleep then, little rest lala

Klevis o kanañ ul lapous I heard a bird singing
Kane ken flour, kane ken dous it sung so fluent, it sung so sweet

O ! hun eta...

Kane ken dous, kane ken flour It sung so fluent, it sung so sweet
Flouroc'h evit hiboud an dour more fluent than the rippling of water

Kement ma'z is d'e heul, dibrel, so much that I went to follow him, without thought
Touellet gantañ ma spered my spirit seduced by him

D'e heul pell, pell, pell, pell ez is far, far, far I went to follow him
Siwazh, siwazh ! d'am yaouankiz ! O alas! My youth!

"Merc'hig roue", e lavare "daughther of ther king' he said
"Kaer out evel glizh ar beure "you are as pretty as the morning dew"

Ar gouloù-deiz zo souezhet "the daylight is astonished
Pa sell ouzhit, ne ouzez ket when it looks at you, don't you know?"

Pa bar an heol, souezhet eo "when the sun shined it is astonished,
Na piv a vo da bried-te ? so then, who will be you husband?"

- Tavit, tavit, kozh labousig " be silent, you naughty bird
C'hwi zo gwall lik en ho pegig you are naughthy,in your little beak"

Tekst: Barzaz Breiz by Kervarker
Translation: Ennys

[Beith]

Hi Ennys,

Thank you very much for posting that - it's very nice!

Could you help us out with some pointers to pronunciation?
(maybe in another thread if not here, but one could also write some phonetics for some of the sounds demonstrated in the song above by taking a few words and desmonstrating their pronunciation)

eg. how does the c'h sound in Breton? is it a hard /k/ sound like "Cat" /kat/ or is it a lenited 'Ch' sound like the ch in the composer's name Bach? /Bahkh/? Does a C /k/sound become a C'h sound after a vowel or after a preposition causing a sound mutation?

eg. ar c'hoad - does the 'ar' (I take to be a preposition) affect a /k/ sound to make it a c'h ? or is the c'h a non-mutated sound?

ie. is it standard orthography to write K for a "cat" /kat/sound and c'h for a softer sound like "bach"?

how does z sound? is it like z as in "zoo" or the s as in "pleasure" or is it an "s" sound like "sentence"?
is it affected by a letter after it such as h eg. Marzhin = how is this pronounced?
- how does the zh of souezhet sound in comparison to the word ouzez - and do they rhyme?

These are just some questions to ask about the sound of the language by using some examples from the below. Many thanks for your help!

Beith

[ennys]

Hi Beith,

These are great questions, thank you for them!
I was planning to post some more info on Breton in another thread, but hesitated a bit and why not do so over here.

So.The c'h sound. This one is pronounced as a [x] (german ch, like in Bach) or a hard H, depending on position or dialect. I find it hard to give a rule for it, I'll think on that! For the sound in 'cat', the k is used in modern standard orthography.
In C'hoad [xwat], meaning 'wood' like welsh 'coed', it is indeed the aspirated (mutated) form of the K: if a K at the beginning of the word is not lenited (when it becomes a g, ponounced as in 'garden'), it always becomes a c'h. Ar is not a preposition, but the article. The article in Breton may be an (before d, t and vowels), al (before a word beginning with an l) or ar (in all other cases).
Before feminine singular words and male plurals not ending in -ou (the ending of most plurals), the article lenites, and in other cases nothing happens wit hother letters apart from the K, that aspirates.

The sound of the z may differ. In the first position of a word, it is pronounced as in 'zoo'. Between vowels, it is often not pronounced, or just as a 'y': The name of the village Spezet is pronounced in Breton as Speyet. In the ending position, it is pronounced as an 's': soft sounds harden when they take the final position. Like d becomes t, z -->s, b-->p.

The ZH is a trick of orthography. In the most forms of Breton it is pronounced like a normal z; it is only made a zh in modern orthography because in the dialect of Gwened/Vannes, this Z is pronounced as a H. It derives from the same sound as Welsh dd, and in some very conservatist dialects in the Vannes area it is stil pronounced with a very slight dd sound, or at least that is what I have heard from others.

About rhyme: urm they have no end-rhyme. There is consonantal rhyme, like was used in Middle Breton. But I should look into that - I haven't done so earlier.

And now I must go for work, or I'll be late!

x
Ennys

[ennys]

Oh, I see I made a mistake. About souezhet and ouzez. I was in a hurry so did not look into the text , where is says 'ar goulou -deiz 'zo souezhet/pa sell ouzhit, n'ouzez ket?'. And with the 'ket' behind it, the phrases do definitely rhyme.

Because now again I have to go to work soon, and the days coming I will not be here due to great festivities I hope I can poste more when I am back! Maybe something structured on the mutations, because now it is very muddly.

[Beith]

Hi Ennys - Hej!

Thank you very much for your reply and explanations. I appreciate them very much.

What do you think about taking some words from the text and giving their phoentic pronunciations? ...so that we have examples of how to pronounce various words where letters are in a final/medial/end position and sounds change accordingly?

eg. take the first 4 lines of the song and phoneticize them? Your English is amazing and if you can do that, then it would be a good way to familiarize those of us who don't have Breton, with some sounds from the language.

Then afterwards, maybe we could discuss some of the mutations on words or grammatical features as you suggest?

Good wishes!
Beith

[ennys]

Hi Beith, hi all,

Thanks for the compliment on my english
Sorry, maybe I go to fast with my grammatical enthousiasm while you'd like to learn ho to pronounce this stuff first
I have some little problems with a phonetisation to english, as Breton contains some sounds english doesn't. Let's say that the bold syllable is the one porting the accent (most of the time this is the penultimate syllable), an X is a breton c'h (like in Bach), a u is a French 'ou' as in 'noon', and an y is a french u, like in urr...french 'mur'. An A is not an english a; I've written that one as ay. Think continental
And I would propose that I maintain the Breton rule that an ñ behind a vowel means that the vowel is nasalised: pronounced with air streaming through the nose. For the last, I have put : behind some vowels; this means they are a little bit longer.

Bremañ trizek miz ha teir zun Braymañ treezek mees a teir zyn
E oan dindan ar c'hoad e hun ay wan dindan ar Xwat ay hyn.


O ! hun eta, va mabig, va mabig O hyn ayta, va ma:beek va ma:beek
Hun eta, toutouig lala hyn ayta, tutu-eek lala

Klevis o kanañ ul lapous klayvees o kanañ uhl labus
Kane ken flour, kane ken dous kanay ken flu:r, kanay ken dus

I hope I helped you something with this attempt; for the rest there's still my soundfile in the old topic, under general topics.

x
Ennys

[Beith]

Hi Ennys!

That's really good and really useful! It helps anyone reading it to get the sounds. Phoneticization to English or French or German is fine for me as I can cope with those (would have a problem with Dutch though!!).

I enjoy the grammatical stuff too - the mutations etc. I'm doing that with my own language (an early form of) but for most folks without some linguistic background maybe it's better to progress a little step at a time - with some idea of pronunciation and vowel and consonant sounds, so that people can get an idea of how the language is on the ear and in the mouth.

Thereafter one can melt minds with nasalization and lenition and God knows what else!

Thanks again!
(Dank je wel!...is that right?!)
Beith

[ennys]

'dank je wel' is very right

Are you doing Old Irish Beith? Respect! I had to learn it, too, but it is a bit beyond me to read more than three lines in an hour or something .

What shall I do now? Some more pronunciation? What do you all want to know?

x
Ennys