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Uniethog

Observed in The Halfway House,
Y Felinheli, North Wales, 20 September 2007.


Most signs in North West Wales are bilingual. This also applies to a lot of notices. Unlike the position in Ireland, where single language functional signs/notices are always in English (pace the recently arrived Poles), in Wales they can be in either English or Welsh depending on the expected readership.

This notice was at the entrance to Ty Hanner Ffordd, the Halfway House pub in Y Felinheli (Port Dinorwic) near Caernarfon. It is seeking extras of all ages for the filming of the seventh series of the of the Welsh language tv soap "Tipyn o Stad". The programme is shown on S4C (Channel 4 Wales) and is set on a Council estate.

Y Felinheli would classify as a breac-Ghaeltacht and the sign is clearly not aimed at the tourists.

Minor linguistic observation: the word "ty" should have a circumflex on the "y" but this is not available in the normal international fonts. An acute or an umlaut yes, but no circumflex. There are a number of other welsh vowels, such as "w", "a" and "o" which can take a circumflex but this accent is available only for those letters normally classed as vowels by the "international" community.

Just as the cló romhánach came into Irish to facilitate printing, can we now expect to the the circumflex to vanish in Welsh for those vowels which the international community class as consonants? Shame!



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