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gothams3rdrobin) wrote2009-10-18 01:04 pm
gothams3rdrobin) wrote2009-10-18 01:04 pm
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My first linguistics assignment
I recently made a post to my LJ asking that the f-list help me with my research for my current Open University assignment, in which I had to write an essay on a specific word of my choice. Thank you ever so much to those who kindly responded!
As I quote a couple of people who are on my f-list, I thought I would post it up here before I submit it to my Tutor Group's online forum ready for tomorrow's deadline. Let me know what you think? :-)
Anyone who has spent any significant amount of time in South Wales, particularly amongst families with young children, is likely to have encountered the word 'cwtch'.
This is a Welsh English (or 'Wenglish', as coined by John R. Edwards, author of 'Talk Tidy') word, and is most commonly used to describe a particular kind of hug. Not the genial hug between friends, but the close, affectionate hug between a young child and a relative, or a courting couple. In speech it is often heard in phrases such as "Give us a cwtch!" or "Come cwtch with me while we watch telly."
Another use of the word is in relation to a specific storage location, such as the 'Coal Cwtch' - the coal shed, back when most households had coal fires - or the 'Cwtch Dan Star' - the place under the stairs where you might keep the coats and shoes, or the cleaning supplies.
Similarly, 'Cwtch' is also used when talking about a 'safe' place, where something is hidden away; "Keep that cwtched by there - don't want anyone seeing it..." Alternatively it can be used when ordering the family dog to lie down on its bed; "Go cwtch!"
Robert Lewis's book on the subject of Wenglish states that 'cwtch' comes from the Welsh word 'cwt', which means a 'hutch' or a 'kennel', which goes some way to explaining the use in relation to the family pet.
At one time the word was used in a warning to others, generally used by children out blackberry picking; "Bar Cwtch, Bar Cwtch! Don't come in my cwtch!" This now appears to have fallen out of popularity, except for as the name for a small, intimate pub on Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay.
My own personal experience with the word has been in its most popular context, as an affectionate hug, though I can remember family members resident in the South Wales Valleys - as opposed to my home city of Cardiff - also using it in the context of a cupboard.
When researching this word, I was delighted to find an article on the Wales Online archive regarding its inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary in August 2005, as a well-known colloquial word, stating just two definitions:
noun (Welsh) 1. a cupboard or cubbyhole.
2. a cuddle or hug.
Interestingly, the article suggests that the word actually comes from the Middle English word 'couche', meaning a resting or hiding place, which was then adopted into the Welsh language to mean a cupboard. However, Nicholas Shearing of the Oxford English Dictionary goes on to claim that the word also comes from the French 'Coucher', which means to lie down. This again confirms the use in context with instructing a pet dog to “go cwtch in the corner”.
Having discovered the word in written form for the first time only when reading a novel based in Wartime Liverpool, spoken by a Liverpool resident (the word having presumably crossed the Mersey due to the the popularity enjoyed by the seaside town of Rhyl in North Wales as a holiday destination at the time), I was curious to know how widely the word was known amongst my online friends. Most of the respondents to my query were local friends familiar with the word; including Frances, originally from Beckenham in Kent, but came to Cardiff to study, and Harold, born near Bromsgrove in the West Midlands but grew up in the Vale of Glamorgan. They both had the word explained to them by fellow university students. Hilary, from Oxfordshire, was unfamiliar with the word and chose to joke that it was a word with no vowels – incorrect, as 'W' is a vowel in the Welsh language, but amusing nonetheless.
Of my international friends, Lesley from Australia unsurprisingly admitted she had never heard of the word, as did Carol from Seattle in the USA. The most interesting response came from Rachel in Texas; she volunteered both her knowledge of the word, having known me for some years, but also what she would have thought the word meant had she not already known the answer:
“Pre-knowing you, I would've guessed that it meant 'catch' or 'crutch'. Mostly because that's how it would've sounded in my head when I tried to figure out what it was. It's hard to guess at a word's meaning without a sentence, so if I don't have context, I tend to go with "what does this sound like?" From there I start going through the words that it reminds me of, by sound or spelling.”
My experiment suggested that, while the word is sufficiently well known outside of South Wales to be chosen for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary, it is not commonly used outside of the region and has barely penetrated the rest of the world at all. I hope this will not remain the case, however, as the majority of people who hear the word for the first time in the context of a hug are very taken with the friendliness of it.
References:
Wales Online: Western Mail archive
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/tm_objectid=15843556&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=oxford-english-dictionary-realises-the-benefits-of-a-welsh-cwtch--name_page.html
Talk Tidy – The Art Of Speaking Wenglish, John R. Edwards – www.talktidy.com
Wenglish – The Dialect Of The South Wales Valleys, Robert Lewis
As I quote a couple of people who are on my f-list, I thought I would post it up here before I submit it to my Tutor Group's online forum ready for tomorrow's deadline. Let me know what you think? :-)
Anyone who has spent any significant amount of time in South Wales, particularly amongst families with young children, is likely to have encountered the word 'cwtch'.
This is a Welsh English (or 'Wenglish', as coined by John R. Edwards, author of 'Talk Tidy') word, and is most commonly used to describe a particular kind of hug. Not the genial hug between friends, but the close, affectionate hug between a young child and a relative, or a courting couple. In speech it is often heard in phrases such as "Give us a cwtch!" or "Come cwtch with me while we watch telly."
Another use of the word is in relation to a specific storage location, such as the 'Coal Cwtch' - the coal shed, back when most households had coal fires - or the 'Cwtch Dan Star' - the place under the stairs where you might keep the coats and shoes, or the cleaning supplies.
Similarly, 'Cwtch' is also used when talking about a 'safe' place, where something is hidden away; "Keep that cwtched by there - don't want anyone seeing it..." Alternatively it can be used when ordering the family dog to lie down on its bed; "Go cwtch!"
Robert Lewis's book on the subject of Wenglish states that 'cwtch' comes from the Welsh word 'cwt', which means a 'hutch' or a 'kennel', which goes some way to explaining the use in relation to the family pet.
At one time the word was used in a warning to others, generally used by children out blackberry picking; "Bar Cwtch, Bar Cwtch! Don't come in my cwtch!" This now appears to have fallen out of popularity, except for as the name for a small, intimate pub on Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay.
My own personal experience with the word has been in its most popular context, as an affectionate hug, though I can remember family members resident in the South Wales Valleys - as opposed to my home city of Cardiff - also using it in the context of a cupboard.
When researching this word, I was delighted to find an article on the Wales Online archive regarding its inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary in August 2005, as a well-known colloquial word, stating just two definitions:
noun (Welsh) 1. a cupboard or cubbyhole.
2. a cuddle or hug.
Interestingly, the article suggests that the word actually comes from the Middle English word 'couche', meaning a resting or hiding place, which was then adopted into the Welsh language to mean a cupboard. However, Nicholas Shearing of the Oxford English Dictionary goes on to claim that the word also comes from the French 'Coucher', which means to lie down. This again confirms the use in context with instructing a pet dog to “go cwtch in the corner”.
Having discovered the word in written form for the first time only when reading a novel based in Wartime Liverpool, spoken by a Liverpool resident (the word having presumably crossed the Mersey due to the the popularity enjoyed by the seaside town of Rhyl in North Wales as a holiday destination at the time), I was curious to know how widely the word was known amongst my online friends. Most of the respondents to my query were local friends familiar with the word; including Frances, originally from Beckenham in Kent, but came to Cardiff to study, and Harold, born near Bromsgrove in the West Midlands but grew up in the Vale of Glamorgan. They both had the word explained to them by fellow university students. Hilary, from Oxfordshire, was unfamiliar with the word and chose to joke that it was a word with no vowels – incorrect, as 'W' is a vowel in the Welsh language, but amusing nonetheless.
Of my international friends, Lesley from Australia unsurprisingly admitted she had never heard of the word, as did Carol from Seattle in the USA. The most interesting response came from Rachel in Texas; she volunteered both her knowledge of the word, having known me for some years, but also what she would have thought the word meant had she not already known the answer:
“Pre-knowing you, I would've guessed that it meant 'catch' or 'crutch'. Mostly because that's how it would've sounded in my head when I tried to figure out what it was. It's hard to guess at a word's meaning without a sentence, so if I don't have context, I tend to go with "what does this sound like?" From there I start going through the words that it reminds me of, by sound or spelling.”
My experiment suggested that, while the word is sufficiently well known outside of South Wales to be chosen for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary, it is not commonly used outside of the region and has barely penetrated the rest of the world at all. I hope this will not remain the case, however, as the majority of people who hear the word for the first time in the context of a hug are very taken with the friendliness of it.
References:
Wales Online: Western Mail archive
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/tm_objectid=15843556&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=oxford-english-dictionary-realises-the-benefits-of-a-welsh-cwtch--name_page.html
Talk Tidy – The Art Of Speaking Wenglish, John R. Edwards – www.talktidy.com
Wenglish – The Dialect Of The South Wales Valleys, Robert Lewis
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You know what I want to know the origin of? Cri. You know, when you'd play tag with other kids, and that was the designated safe spot, and you'd yell that out to say "I'm safe, you can't tag me here!" I have no idea where that word comes from.
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{ (raw) Cri is raw as unprocessed. }
Not sure how it became a 'safe space' substitute word though.
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That's fascinating, actually - the strangest words develop multiple, seemingly unrelated meanings....