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I know nothing about Welsh. With white - gwyn and red - coch, gwyngoch looks like it's basically "light red". Similarly melyngoch (with melyn=yellow) looks like

by 1wd 11y ago

I know nothing about Welsh. With white - gwyn and red - coch, gwyngoch looks like it's basically "light red". Similarly melyngoch (with melyn=yellow) looks like it's basically "yellow-red", and a few others (cochddu, gwinau?) look "suspicious" as well. Would these be considered basic color terms [1]? Apparently the differente views have different definitions. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Basic_color_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_term#Basic_color_terms [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_color_naming_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_...

petewailes 11y ago
Welsh occasionally does things similar to German, where things end up squished together to make a new thing. Other examples would be Aberystwyth (aber - river mouth, Ystwyth - the river in question), rhagddodiad and olddodiad (prefix and suffix), trosgais (a converted try in rugby) and so on. So yes, it's a compounding of two other words, but that's kinda how it's done. Not entirely sure if that makes it an argument for or against what you're saying though.
- abrowne 11y ago
  I don't know if any language lacks compound words. Your first example is shard with English: (River) Dart + mouth -> Dartmouth (also Plymouth), Dart + moor -> Dartmoor.
  - petewailes 11y ago
    The difference is English compound words were historically actually separate words, which got compounded together through common usage. Brittanic and German style languages intentionally compound words to form new ones.
- 1wd 11y ago
  Ah, interesting thanks. German has hellrot for example. (And dunkelrot, hellblau, dunkelblau, ... even blaugrün) They don't "count" as basic color terms though. https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/hellrot https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/hellrot https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/blaugr%C3%BCn https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/blaugr%C3%BCn
abrowne 11y ago
It could also be a desire for linguistic purity: pinc may have been borrowed first but then someone though it wasn't "Welsh enough" so they coined (the rather logical) gwyngoch.

by 1wd 11y ago

petewailes 11y ago

Welsh occasionally does things similar to German, where things end up squished together to make a new thing. Other examples would be Aberystwyth (aber - river mouth, Ystwyth - the river in question), rhagddodiad and olddodiad (prefix and suffix), trosgais (a converted try in rugby) and so on. So yes, it's a compounding of two other words, but that's kinda how it's done. Not entirely sure if that makes it an argument for or against what you're saying though.

abrowne 11y ago
I don't know if any language lacks compound words. Your first example is shard with English: (River) Dart + mouth -> Dartmouth (also Plymouth), Dart + moor -> Dartmoor.
- petewailes 11y ago
  The difference is English compound words were historically actually separate words, which got compounded together through common usage. Brittanic and German style languages intentionally compound words to form new ones.
1wd 11y ago
Ah, interesting thanks. German has hellrot for example. (And dunkelrot, hellblau, dunkelblau, ... even blaugrün) They don't "count" as basic color terms though. https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/hellrot https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/hellrot https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/blaugr%C3%BCn https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/blaugr%C3%BCn

abrowne 11y ago

It could also be a desire for linguistic purity: pinc may have been borrowed first but then someone though it wasn't "Welsh enough" so they coined (the rather logical) gwyngoch.