Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 April 12

= April 12 =

Anglicizing Welsh names
In general, rh becomes r; final s can become ce after a sound that's a long vowel in English; a single f (not ff) becomes v; c becomes k before certain vowels. Any additions?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)


 * As in any adaptation of words from one language to another such changes would have been made randomly and on a whim. There were no rules and even if there had been they would have been unknown to most people or just ignored. Shantavira|feed me 08:33, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Between some pairs of languages, there are fairly well-known adaptation conventions, and equivalents are usually not chosen "randomly and on a whim". For example, the conventions governing the adaptation of Arabic words into Persian or Urdu.  In some contexts, some major languages of India traditionally have had conventions according to which many distinctive sounds of English are transformed into distinctive sounds typically found in subcontinental languages (so that fricatives become aspirated stops, etc), and those who speak such a pronunciation-adapted version of English can usually understand each other (though native English speakers may have great difficulty with it). AnonMoos (talk) 18:38, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * When Persian and Urdu adopt Arabic words, is the spelling changed? —Tamfang (talk) 01:53, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * The basic letters are not generally changed, though there can be some minor adjustments -- hamza dropped in Persian, etc... AnonMoos (talk) 21:31, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The Wiktionary category English surnames from Welsh and its subcategories of English given names from Welsh show many more processes at work, although generally not applied uniformly and consistently. --Lambiam 20:57, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's really not always predictable. Rhŷs is usually anglicized Reese with, while ap Rhŷs is anglicized Price with . I suppose it's possible ap Rhŷs was borrowed before the Great Vowel Movement and Rhŷs after it, but that seems unlikely. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:39, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Considering its vowel, the Welsh word "ffrind" was probably borrowed from late medieval English (not modern English), though it's not a name, of course. AnonMoos (talk) 18:38, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * the letters -dd- generally becomes -th-, as in Meredith or Gwyneth. Ll is such an  unfamiliar sound to English, it does a lot of different things in translation: it can become both just "l" (as in Lewellen/Llywelyn or sometimes "fl", (Floyd and Lloyd)-- Jayron 32 12:14, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Also -si- with the English "sh" or "j", like Jones perhaps from Siôn. If you haven't seen it already, take a look at Category:Anglicised Welsh-language surnames. Alansplodge (talk) 19:06, 13 April 2023 (UTC)