Sgwrs:Martial

"The British Martial" oedd llysenw John Owen (gweler Meic Stephens Cydymaith i Lenyddiaeth Cymru a gweithiau safonol eraill fel y DWB) - nid yw'n arfer cael ei gyfieithu.

Yes, that's true, but there are probably an awful lot of similar cases in wicipedia, eg. how often did Henry VIII actually get called "Harri VIII o Loegr"? It just irked me to see the English there -- but I won't object if you want to replace it. Deb 17:14, 22 Medi 2006 (UTC)

Deb, I think you'd probably agree that I don't exactly go out of my way to introduce English names in cy.wikipedia, just the opposite. However this is an exception which proves the rule. But to answer your first point, regarding Harri / Henry: Harri would have been used by 99.9% of the Welshmen of his period, quite naturally, and it's the accepted form in Welsh today. However, "The British Martial" belongs to another category. It's a nom de plume given to the poet by his contemporaries and seen in the titles of his published works. He was hardly a household name in Wales and never received a Welsh sobriquet. And it's the equivalent of a bardic name; even English reference works don't refer to Twm o'r Nant as "Tom of the Brook" (I hope!). In this respect see the Cydymaith again on Richard Lloyd (Bard of Snowdon). One could translate that easily enough, "Bardd yr Wyddfa", but Bard of Snowdon was his poetic name (he wrote in English) and he is never referred to as anything else. The second reason for using the English nom de plume is that it would be very misleading to translate into Welsh, the choice being between the obvious "Y Marsial Prydeinig" and "Y Marsial Brythonaidd". He was neither "Prydeinig" nor "Brythonaidd" in their modern senses. British generally meant "Welsh" rather than "British" in English usage at that time, and that is the meaning here. He was defnitely not "Brythonaidd" either, not being an "Ancient Briton" or Brythonic Celt of the Roman period. Where does that leave us? "Y Marsial Cymreig"? Rather confusing for someone who then looks up "The Welsh Martial" somewhere! Shame his real name wasn't so relatively common - then we could leave his pen name out of the heading - but there are a lot of John Owens in this world. There we have it - albeit with some reluctance, I have to make the case for our "British Martial" to stand! Fôn (Forgot the signature last time!) Anatiomaros 18:56, 22 Medi 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, of course! Deb 21:40, 22 Medi 2006 (UTC)