Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 August 30

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August 30

(Welsh/Cymraeg) Mae vs ydy

I'm having real difficulty understanding when to use mae or ydy when asking present tense questions. I.e Ble mae dy fam di? Why is that mae and not ydy? From my admittedly shallow understanding of the language ydy is used to form questions which in English would be represented by is/are. So why is mae used in that question example I've given? Peter Greenwell (talk) 04:58, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Ble is always followed by mae. It's a common mistake for L2 learners to ask "ble ydy...?" and it may even be used colloquially in some parts but it's not correct. In standard Welsh, it's always ble mae...? As for why it is like that, I'm afraid I can't explain that. Here's a BBC Catchphrase page mentioning it. Here are a couple duoLingo forums discussing the distinction as well [1] [2].--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 06:44, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, thanks for that. I'm learning Welsh through Duolingo and I guess I should be reading their forums a bit better. The course notes don't always explain things like this very well. Peter Greenwell (talk) 10:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

The same applies to pryd? and pam?.----Ehrenkater (talk) 13:20, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

The same book says further (in 6.II.7): If the sentence is a question, and the interrogatory pronoun comes first and precedes the composite verb, the form of the 3rd person present singular of bod depends on the function of the pronoun: sydd if it is the subject; mae if it is the object; yw or ydyw if it is the complement.----Ehrenkater (talk) 13:42, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

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