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BOTH: Gender female, supposed country of origin Welsh
I'm from Wales, a Welsh speaker, with a very Welsh-y background, and have always (probably naively) considered myself an expert on Welsh names. So I was surprised to learn I seem to have been wrong about one.
I was originally going to be named Alys, and my parents still regret not calling me that occasionally! (I am now Nia.) So I used it for a character in a story. There were triplets, Alys, Caitlin and Niamh. This was because Niamh is Irish, Alys (questionably) is Welsh, and Caitlin I thought was Scottish, though I now know it is also Irish. The idea was to have a name from each major Celtic name-origin-centre.
But, after posting a message about the names in the 'Writing Room', I was told that 'Alys' seemed very modern and like an alternative spelling of Alice, coined to try and look cool, and there was no reference to any Welsh origin. I checked on the database, where I saw that Alis was listed as the Welsh variant. I found this confusing, as being a Welsh speaker I cannot think of many instances where in the Welsh language 'i' is pronounced as in, say, 'tin'. 'Y' is more common, eg the word 'aderyn' meaning bird, 'nodyn' meaning note... Especially in the second syllable, 'i' is seldom used. (One exception is Catrin, however most other exceptions seem to be modern variants.) Instead, it's pronounced either 'ee', 'y', or, when following an 's', the two letters are together pronounced 'sh', eg. names Siors, Sieffre, Sian, Rhisiart or Sioned. The spelling of Alis seems very unnatural and not-Welsh to me, so I would appreciate some info about the origin of that too if that's possible.
On this website, Alys is listed simply as 'variant of Alice', in English, though in the comments it has been noted that it is also a Welsh name and a modern variant of Alice. Again I would disagree: using 'y' is much more traditional in Welsh as an 'i' sound, and though I have no evidence, I would guess that Alys is older, especially as most Welsh 'i' names tend to be variants. However it is beginning to look like I may be very wrong. Still I am confused on this pronounciation conundrum for 'i' and, what exactly the roots of 'Alys' are.
Thanks and any feedback or information would be brilliant!
I'm from Wales, a Welsh speaker, with a very Welsh-y background, and have always (probably naively) considered myself an expert on Welsh names. So I was surprised to learn I seem to have been wrong about one.
I was originally going to be named Alys, and my parents still regret not calling me that occasionally! (I am now Nia.) So I used it for a character in a story. There were triplets, Alys, Caitlin and Niamh. This was because Niamh is Irish, Alys (questionably) is Welsh, and Caitlin I thought was Scottish, though I now know it is also Irish. The idea was to have a name from each major Celtic name-origin-centre.
But, after posting a message about the names in the 'Writing Room', I was told that 'Alys' seemed very modern and like an alternative spelling of Alice, coined to try and look cool, and there was no reference to any Welsh origin. I checked on the database, where I saw that Alis was listed as the Welsh variant. I found this confusing, as being a Welsh speaker I cannot think of many instances where in the Welsh language 'i' is pronounced as in, say, 'tin'. 'Y' is more common, eg the word 'aderyn' meaning bird, 'nodyn' meaning note... Especially in the second syllable, 'i' is seldom used. (One exception is Catrin, however most other exceptions seem to be modern variants.) Instead, it's pronounced either 'ee', 'y', or, when following an 's', the two letters are together pronounced 'sh', eg. names Siors, Sieffre, Sian, Rhisiart or Sioned. The spelling of Alis seems very unnatural and not-Welsh to me, so I would appreciate some info about the origin of that too if that's possible.
On this website, Alys is listed simply as 'variant of Alice', in English, though in the comments it has been noted that it is also a Welsh name and a modern variant of Alice. Again I would disagree: using 'y' is much more traditional in Welsh as an 'i' sound, and though I have no evidence, I would guess that Alys is older, especially as most Welsh 'i' names tend to be variants. However it is beginning to look like I may be very wrong. Still I am confused on this pronounciation conundrum for 'i' and, what exactly the roots of 'Alys' are.
Thanks and any feedback or information would be brilliant!
This message was edited 4/25/2015, 12:11 PM
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