Thursday, September 17, 2009

Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers)

In my last post I mentioned that the audience at the Victoria Welsh Choir concert joined in singing the Welsh National Anthem - in Welsh. Fortunately, we had a phonetic translation to help us. Even David said, "You know you're in trouble when wyf is pronounced oo." How would you go?


Welsh: Phonetic translation:


Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi
My hehn lard ver'n had I un ann-ooyl ee mee


Gwlad beirdd a chantorion enwogion o fry
Glard bey'rth ah chan-tohr-yon en-wog-yon oh vree


Ei gwrol ryfelwyr gwladgarwyr tra mad
Er goor-ohl ruh-vel-wirr glard-garr-wirr trah mard


Tros ryddid collasant eu gwaed
Tross ruh-thid kohll-ass-and ey gwide


Gwlad! Gwlad! Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad
Glard! Glard! Pley-d'yol ooy've eem glard


Tra mor yn fur i'r bur hoff bau
Trah more un vee'r ee'r bee'r horf by


O bydded i'r hen iaith barhau
O buthed eer hen-yithe barr-high

5 comments:

RachelD said...

One of my favorite memories of my beloved Fat Ladies TV cooking show is the one in which they made a lovely huge picnic, then rode the trolley car high into the hills as the choir sang.

They all got out and tramped up, the choir wearing their beautiful claret-colored blazers, and everyone carrying baskets and cloths and other parts of the array, and they all had a lovely lunch up there in the GREEEEEN.

Then, the choir rose and stood, throwing those magnificent notes out through those rolling hills, and I still think there was an echo to add to the magic.

Kerri said...

Oh, that looks easy...LOL
How did you go wrapping your mind around those syllables while singing along? I doubt if my muddled mind could do it :)
I once went to a Welsh sing-a-long and it was a lot of fun...even though I cannot, for the life of me, produce those guttural sounds.
You asked if I knew the tune and I wasn't sure, so I Googled it and found it on YouTube.
No, I don't know the tune.
But I followed along with your phonetic translation as they sang..and it was rather beautiful. And this was being sung at a football stadium!
Now, how about an English translation?
I then clicked on a video of Olivia Newton John singing the Australian National Anthem at a football stadium..and it was so good to hear it again..and sung so beautifully.
I could understand every word :)

Marlene Depler said...

I don't think I would do very well trying to sing this! I applaud all who tried!!!

diane b said...

Both look very difficult to me. It is such an unusual language.

Barbara said...

Through your post here I learned something new....that the Welsh language is also spoken in Australia not only in Great Britain. I didn't know this before I "googled".