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  5. "Morgan yw'r dala."

"Morgan yw'r dala."

Translation:Morgan is the tallest.

July 27, 2016



Why the mutation on 'tala'?


Remember that feminine nouns take a weak (x) soft mutation after the article 'r/y. In this case it depends on the gender of the person:

  • y tala - the tallest/taller (masculine)
  • y dala - the tallest/taller (feminine)

As explained in one of the early sets of course notes, Morgan is a name used by both men and women, so either version is valid in the phrase given.

(x) - no mutation of rh- or ll-


Ah.. :) I read my catchphrase-grammar and found just that, and then I looked up the name Morgan and it was listed as only male, so I got confused. Diolch.


I really can't get my head around Morgan being a female name - only ever heard of it with males or surnames. Evidently here it's assumed we'll know it's female, so I'm assuming that's the more common usage in Wales?


Where I am (in the US) it's overwhelmingly a female name.


Is this "tallest" or "taller"? It took "morgan is the taller" but now it's showing "morgan is the tallest" as the correct translation. And earlier, it told me that "morgan is taller" was not acceptable and I don't know if there's some kind of english dialect thing going on or what ("morgan is the taller" sounds weird and doens't mean anything different than "morgan is taller" to me)


In English we distinguish between, for example, 'the taller of the two' and 'the tallest of the three/four/.... Welsh does not make that distinction between 'the taller of two' and 'the tallest of three or more'; it just uses the superlative y tala (the tallest).

  • Morgan yw'r tala o'r ddau ddyn - M is the taller of the two men
  • Morgan yw'r tala o'r pedwar dyn - M is the tallest of the four men

But if we are comparing two things or people we do use the comparative *talach * (taller):

  • Mae Morgan yn dalach na Dewi - Morgan is taller than Dewi.


"Tala" means "taller". But "y tala", means "the tallest". The idea seems to be that, in this context at least, "the taller" means "the person who is taller than the rest of the group", with the "the" indicating that there is only one "taller" and therefore you are comparing to the whole group, rather than to one other person.


Thanks, that's helpful!

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