Talk:Llywelyn ab Iorwerth

Page name
I've moved this back from Llywelyn Fawr ap Iorwerth, after Seancdaug moved it there, in accordance with the Manual of Style. &mdash; OwenBlacker 11:42, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Pronunciation
It would be nice if someone could add a pronounciation guide for Llywelyn. Ahassan05 12:59, 9 April 2006 (UTC)ahassan05 Llyw-el-yn rhymes with "Dew"-"tell"-"in" with the LL st the start proniunced by putting tongue at top of mouth and sort of breathing in.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.149.18 (talk) 17:08, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Lliterature on Llywelyn that is not Lloyd
Here's a quick list of works that could be used to bring the literature more up-to-date: Lampman (talk) 11:58, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Carpenter, Struggle for Mastery
 * Roger Turvey, Llywelyn the Great and The Welsh Princes, 1066-1282
 * David Walker, Medieval Wales
 * A number of books and articles by Rees Davies, in addition to the one book that's mentioned. Here's a pretty complete bibliography: http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/xSearch.asp?DATABASE=catalo&NP=31090&SRT0=D1&SEQ0=descending

Susanna ferch Llywelyn
If anyone has a source for this individual, please cite it. Lloyd and Turvey (the former the father of modern Welsh historiography and the latter Llywelyn's most recent biographer) make no mention of her, Pryce doesn't mention her in Acts of Welsh Rulers 1120-1283 (Univ. Wales Press, 2005), and she is not even in the comprehensive late medieval and early modern genealogies listed in Bartrum (Cardiff, 1973). (Even Tegwared ferch Llywelyn is listed there!) A note appended to her biographical entry mentioned that she was confused with Elen, but the only refs I've ever found to her are in fiction. Ynyrhesolaf (talk) 00:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Stone head listed under External Links
There is a stone head carving listed under External Links. The listing says the head is now thought to be a carving of Henry III. I followed the link to the Gathering the Jewels website. It still says the carving is thought to be a likeness of Llywelyn the Great. If the person that added this statement about Henry III has another source for the identification of the individual, they should add where they got that information. Apparently the Gathering the Jewels website still feels its Llywelyn. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninanta (talk • contribs) 21:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

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Gwenllian ferch Llywelyn
Gwenllian is listed under issue. However, there seems to be no reference to her anywhere. Have we got the wrong Llywelyn? Is this not Gwenllian of Wales (i.e. Gwenllian ferch Llywelyn, this Llywelyn being Llywelyn ap Gruffudd)? Hogyn Lleol (talk) 18:48, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
 * She's not listed in the Issue section and Gwenllian of Wales is in the family tree, so I've removed the Gwenllian from the infobox. Celia Homeford (talk) 08:39, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Llywelyn 'Fawr'?
After conducting research, I am asking the question whether 'Llywelyn the Great' was called Llywelyn Fawr, and not his adversary Llywelyn the Elder ap Maredudd ap Cynan ab Owain Gwynedd, the Elder. I've done research on the Dictionary of Welsh biography, Dictionary of National Biography, and online searches and all the evidence I've found so far points to two different people, and how Llywelyn the Elder is actually Fawr and not the one mentioned in this article (The Great). I would like to conclude in asking a consensus to change the 'Fawr' from this article to include simply 'Llywelyn I' or the Great, and for Llywelyn ap Maredudd to gain the title 'Fawr' as is written in the history books, and to ask administration to change the articles names to include the correct sourced names. Cltjames (talk) 02:50, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If i'm understanding you, you want to move Llywelyn the Great to either Llywelyn I or Llywelyn the Great (not move it, in other words), and move Elder Llywelyn to Llywelyn Fawr; am i correct? If i have misunderstood, please clarify.
 * Personally, i would probably ~ senza further information ~ oppose any move from the Great, as that is probably the most common name for this prince. The fact that he wasn't called Lewlini Magni until some thirty years after his death is not really relevant; what we are more interested in is what is his common name now?
 * As for the other Llywelyn ~ one of the many others, what a paucity of variety to names! ~ i see you've already moved him to Elder Llywelyn, which seems quite good; the previous title was very long. I think he could quite happily stay at that title, though i might like to see a little more clarity about fawr being translated to "elder".  Happy days ~ LindsayHello 08:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That is correct, I feel as if there might have been an error in judgement, as is the case with lots to do with medieval Princes in Wales, lots is lost in translation or difficult to decode. For instance a translation for 'Lewlini Magni' (Latin translation) assuming it is Latin comes up as 'Great', which further begs to the question, where did 'Fawr' come from if it was not already in use for a different Lord in the Kingdom of Gwynedd. It is fine to assume Fawr has been commonly adopted for the Great, however historically this wasn't the case and needs to be looked into for clarification, and maybe correction depending on consensus and citations to reference the historical naming. Cltjames (talk) 17:14, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "Llywelyn the Great" in English is equivalent to "Llywelyn Fawr" in (modern) Welsh. It might be that both are anachronistic names for Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, as Paul Remfry persuasively argues in an article you linked to on another user's talk page. Whatever the best title for this article is – and I note that we've got Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, not "Llywelyn the Last", for his grandson – Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, not Llywelyn Fawr ap Maredudd, is probably still the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Llywelyn Fawr", so that should at least redirect here, even if it is an invention of later historiography. There could be a hatnote along the lines of "Llywelyn Fawr" redirects here. For the 13th-century lord of Meirionnydd, see Llywelyn Fawr ap Maredudd. (That last link is the title "Llywelyn the elder" should be moved to.) Ham II (talk) 07:36, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks, here's a copy and paste of the the text I wrote on an editor's user page, I should have already left the information on this article's talk page : I would like to bring it to your attention that Elder Llywelyn is actually Llywelyn Fawr, and this name has been taken by Llywelyn the Great, who is not actually 'Fawr', and someone has potentially made a mistake in naming these articles. This assumption can be verified through references : Llywelyn Fawr - Llywelyn the Great -, ,  Officially at no stage in these references or any others found online is Llywelyn the Great name Fawr, however in the very few sources avaialble for Llywlyn the Elder he is named Fawr, eg.Myth of Llywelyn Fawr. There's some resarch into the topic, I've also opened discussions on relevant talk pages to try and get a general consensus. Cltjames (talk) 13:37, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 25 July 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. The work done by both User:A.D.Hope and User:Ham II demonstrates that – after the ab/ap typo (it's ab because "I" is a vowel in Welsh, basically) is resolved – the COMMONNAME is the Welsh form. (closed by non-admin page mover) Sceptre (talk) 22:50, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Llywelyn the Great → Llywelyn ab Iorwerth – I believe that 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth' is the name more commonly used in academia, by heritage bodies such as Cadw, and in the wider media. I am not certain about this, and the purpose of this discussion is as much to see where the land lies as to make a change to the article title. A.D.Hope (talk) 17:45, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

edited 08:34, 26 July 2023 (UTC) to create 'Opinions' and 'Discussion' sections and place appropriate comments into them. Previous version.

Opinions (support/oppose)

 * I agree with this proposal. WP:COMMONNAME enjoins us to avoid ambiguity and to remain neutral; in this case, the proposed target does this much more clearly. And since most f te RS that discuss the subject are any length, it is those sources that we should favour.  SN54129  18:48, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Wikipedia is not written for academics, but for general readers. Walrasiad (talk) 02:20, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not about the target audience, but the fact that Wikipedia is a work (or aspires to be) of academic scholarship.  SN54129  13:18, 26 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth' is unsuitable under COMMONNAME, would you mind expanding your point a little? Thanks, A.D.Hope (talk) 07:04, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose - 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth' seems to be slightly less common than 'Llywelyn the Great' (Scholar: vs ) (Ngram: - It is effectively even here, but looking at numbers 'the Great' has the slightest edge).--estar8806 (talk) ★ 12:14, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose because it seems that "Llywelyn the Great" is currently slightly more the COMMONNAME and "Llywelyn ab Iorwerth" slightly more the COMMONACADEMICNAME. While i believe that "the Great" is correct at the mmoment, the discussion below is very interesting and seems to point to the increasing use of Welsh names/spellings for Welsh figures (which is not a bad thing).  Thus, either name is acceptable, and "ab Iorwerth" may well become the COMMONNAME in the near future. Happy days, ~ LindsayHello 13:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This is the English language Wikipedia. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:55, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * But Llywelyn ab Iorwerth is just his name! Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your comment, but think it's worth noting that Wikipedia policy (WP:ENGLISHTITLE) on article titles is to treat words and phrases as English when they're commonly used by English-language sources. 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth' is commonly used, it's really a question of how commonly. A.D.Hope (talk) 21:38, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support - I was inclined to oppose based on lack of clear evidence to change, but the analysis from Ham II that combines ap and ab variants (which are functionally equivalent) shows that this is the COMMONNAME per ngrams, and the earlier analysis by the nom. shows this is so for academic literature in particular. Most such literature speaks of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great) - that is the name first and the title paranthetically after. Moreover he was only Llywelyn the Great when he came to power. He was, however, always Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. I thinks all things considered, this move is right. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I know I'm making too many comments, but for accuracy's sake I should mention that most literature seems to use either 'Llywelyn the Great' or 'Llywelyn ap/ab Iorwerth', but there are | a few examples of the two names being used together. A.D.Hope (talk) 23:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (general comments)

 * Some examples of bodies using 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth':
 * Cadw (their guidebooks also generally use 'ab Iorwerth', and they use 'the Great' sometimes)
 * RCAHMW/Coflein, and writing about Trefriw in 1956 and Criccieth in 1960 (also use 'Llywelyn Fawr')
 * Dictionary of Welsh Biography
 * Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
 * BBC Bitesize
 * BBC Wales (old page)
 * Bryan O'Neil, writing about Criccieth Castle in 1944
 * Britannica
 * I would have checked more of the sources used in this article, but they're not the most accessible in the world. It could well be that 'the Great' still has enough going for it to be the common name, but it's worth having the discussion. A.D.Hope (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment - Ngram viewer suggests Llywelyn the Great generally is more common but it is much of a muchness. This analysis is general and does not affect the point made above that it apears Llywelyn ab Iorwerth is more common in the Academic literature. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing the legwork there,, much appreciated. A.D.Hope (talk) 18:37, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I would also add that the ngram suggests the two are very close. I expect that most references to Llywelyn call him "Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great)". In this way you would get about as many hits for one as for the other, but if I am right about that formulation, Llywelyn the Great would be frequently paranthetical. I can't persuade ngrams to adjudicate on that point. The argument for common name here is a tricky one, which is why I am waiting to see what else is brought to the table. In posting the ngrams, I was not implying they settled the matter. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:00, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No, I understand your intent in posting the Ngram and agree that it's common for the two names to be juxtaposed. One thing I did notice from having a play around myself is that usage of 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth' in British English really picks up from the 1980s onwards. We can see from the links in my comment above that 'ab Iorwerth' was used in at least some English-language academic and technical contexts prior to that, so I wonder if the 1980s is when it began to enter more general use? A.D.Hope (talk) 08:14, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've had a look at three other prominent Welsh princes, just for context:
 * 'Llywelyn ap Gruffudd' is far more popular than 'Llywelyn the Last'
 * 'Rhys ap Gruffudd' and 'The Lord Rhys' are similar.
 * 'Owen Glendower' was massively more popular than any Welsh form of the name (possibly influenced by being a character in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 under that name), but since the 1960s seems to have been falling out of favour.
 * None of this particularly impacts the main discussion, of course, but it might be handy for context and general trends.
 * A.D.Hope (talk) 08:49, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No problem with the comment re-arrangement, which is clearer, although my "I would also add" was meant as a reply to the suggestion we have established what the COMMONNAME is. I think we are still discussing that. It is off topic but I would say that Glyndwr hits should be added to Glyndŵr hits which would establish this has now become the common name for that subject. I am sure you are right about the Shakespeare influence. Regarding the pick up since the 1980s of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, and your shorter range ngrams, that is indeed interesting, as is the sudden spike in interest after the Second World War. I would posit the hypothesis that the spike in Llywelyn the Great may be congruent with a rise in Welsh nationalism and discussion around it, and that the later reduction of Llywelyn the Great in favour of Lywelyn ab Iorwerth could be owing to increasing academic discussion of the subject. I still don't have a clear view on this though. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, please move your comment back if it's better where it was. Although this is a case where I do think discussion is needed I'm just mindful of BLUDGEON, which is why I've separated 'votes' from the debate down here.
 * If we do add all the Welsh variants of Owain Glyndŵr together it's clear they've overtaken 'Owen Glendower', and I think it's safe to say there's been a general shift over the past few decades toward using the Welsh name of figures who also have an Anglicised name or English nickname. It's mostly a case of how far that's progressed. A.D.Hope (talk) 10:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I've no problem with your 'oppose' vote, but your comment did make me consider a few things which are worth general discussion.


 * In your scholar results 'Llywelyn the Great' is sometimes counted despite not being the primary name in the relevant quotation; the third result on the first page, for example, is 'Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, called Llywelyn the Great after his death...' I don't think the reverse is as common, as I had to go to the third page of the 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth' results before I found 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great, d. 1240)' (RR Davies: Conquest, Coxistence, Change). It's therefore possible that the 'Llywelyn the Great' results are slightly inflated by its use as a secondary name.


 * It's also the case that the title of a work will sometimes use 'the Great' despite using 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth' within the text itself. I know this is the case with the Rachel Swallow article 'Gateways to power', the second 'Llywelyn the Great' result, as can be seen in its abstract. This might happen in the reverse, but I can't think of an example just now. The question there is how we weigh the title against the body of the text.


 * What I take from this is that, if the two names are used with very similar frequency (which it seems they increasingly have been over the past few decades), we might be better ignoring the raw numbers and focussing on criteria such as reliablilty and consistency. Also, I hope this doesn't come across as a WP:BLUDGEON, regardless of the result I genuinely do just want to get into the details. A.D.Hope (talk) 12:51, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

You've misread some of your links at the beginning of this section; the Cadw, Dictionary of Welsh Biography, BBC Bitesize, Bryan O'Neil and Britannica links use "ap Iorwerth" (or "Ap Iorwerth" in Britannica's case), not "ab Iorwerth"! So that variation needs to be considered. It seems to rank highest of all the likely options in an Ngram from 1994 to 2018, before dipping sharply to third place in 2019, the final year of the sample. An Ngram for Llywelyn ab Iorwerth+Llywelyn ap Iorwerth against Llywelyn Fawr+Llywelyn the Great shows the variations with the patronymic in the lead after 1980. Ham II (talk) 20:49, 29 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oh how funny, that seems to settle the issue in favour of 'Llywelyn ab Iorwerth'. I simply didn't think to separate 'ap' and 'ab', as both are contractions of 'mab' (meaning 'son of' in Welsh) and so the meaning is identical. So far as I can tell they're used pretty interchangeably for Llywelyn, certainly Cadw has used both in its publications. A.D.Hope (talk) 21:15, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree, this does change things considerably. Thanks for point that out, Ham II. Also, to add, I had always supposed, but without having any source for this, that it is ap before a consonant and ab before a vowel, which makes sense because B is a voiced P, and if you have the consonant between two vowels, it tends to get voiced, because all vowels are voiced by definition. This chimes with names: Bowen has a B but Price has a P etc. But... I may be wrong. :) Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 22:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's always been my understanding of the rule, but it seems a bit murky in the case of this name. The letter "i" would usually be considered a vowel in Welsh, but is it a consonant here because it's a yod? (I note in passing that Plaid Cymru's new leader is called Rhun ap Iorwerth, not "Rhun ab Iorwerth" as one would expect if "i" were treated as a vowel.)
 * Here's another Ngram cutting out the noise from the lower-ranking forms of Llywelyn's name and looking only at "Llywelyn ab Iorwerth" and "Llywelyn ap Iorwerth", in British and American English sources combined. As with my first Ngram, the "ap" form is on top for 24 of the last 25 years of the sample. If you switch to British English only, it's no longer so clear. Switch to American and "ap" is on top for most of the time. So is it American sources, perhaps less likely to know the Welsh grammatical rule above, accounting for the preponderance of "ap Iorwerth"? Add "Llywelyn the Great" to the British English Ngram and it's a pretty close run between that form, "ab" and "ap" (but not between that and "ab+ap"), with "Llywelyn the Great" ending slightly on top (and also having a clear lead from the 1960s to the mid-1980s).
 * What to make of this? Follow the last (British English) Ngram and continue to treat "Llywelyn the Great" as the WP:COMMONNAME? Or (quite reasonably), treat "ab" and "ap" as interchangeable, and title the article either Llywelyn ab Iorwerth or Llywelyn ap Iorwerth because forms with the patronymic are predominant? But if the latter, which of the two? Is "ab" more correct because "i" is a vowel, or does that not apply here because it's a yod? It's been noted above that the sources often have some variation on "Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great)", as if "Llywelyn the Great" is necessary for clarification, so it might be strange to change the article title from that when mentions of Llywelyn in the text of other articles would gravitate towards the titling of this article. Ham II (talk) 09:23, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are right that the fact that the first sound is yod in Iorwerth complicates things, although I suspect that pronunciation would still tend towards "ab" in natural speech, because yod is still voiced. It is that placement of an unvoiced consonant between two voiced sounds that would tend to cause drift to a voiced consonant. I do have references for that process, plenty of them, but one excellent and readable one would be Guy Deutscher's The unfolding of language. But... that doesn't really resolve the question you raised. Should we use ab, per the RM or ap? Or indeed, stick with the status quo? On the status quo, I have argued against it above, at least in part because he was not always known as Llywelyn the Great - but that argument has weaknesses in that this would also be true of any monarch but they tend to be commonly known by their regal names in their articles (although then again, "the Great" is not a regal name, it is an epithet). I also feel that the ngram evidence now shows that Llywelyn the Great is not really the common name, because ap/ab is just a spelling difference. Which to choose would depend on what the more historical sources are saying. That seems to favour ab... but it is not wholly clear - there are significant exceptions. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not saying we should use Reddit as a source, but the comment by ADozenPigsFromAnnwn in this thread seems to have a good grasp of the linguistics (better than anything else I've found from more formal sources) and might help point you in the right direction. A.D.Hope (talk) 10:10, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure of the intricacies of the grammar myself, but it is something like that, yes. To add to the above, I've run another Google Scholar search and 'Llywelyn the Great' returns 489 results and '"Llywelyn ab Iorwerth" OR "Llywelyn ap Iorwerth"' returns 787, and in both cases the vast majority of results appear to be in English. A.D.Hope (talk) 22:22, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.