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My cousins in Pontrhydygroes said the same thing. They can speak English, but they think in Welsh. That sometimes causes a pause in response. I was out in the garden with my friends in Cwmystwyth one afternoon. A very beautiful bird landed on a nearby tree. My friends recognized the bird and knew what to call it...in Welsh. They didn't have any idea of what it was called in English.

I listen to Welsh music performed in the dialect that is common in the mid-valleys. My favorite folk group is "Plethyn". The lead singer in that group in Linda Healy. She has a number of her own albums. You can buy the music directly from Sain in Wales via their website. The Plethyn cassette "Teulu'r Tir" is a nice collection and representative of the typical fine quality of singing in very close harmony. Plethyn literally translates as "entwined".

Before I post this, I'll point out that Welsh is phonetic and those names have more vowels than are apparent. The name "Cwmyswyth" is approximately "koom UHST' with" for an English speaker. Pontrhydygroes is approximately "pont RID' uh groys". Stress is on the penultimate syllable. The "r" is always rolled.

Thank you VERY much for the information about Welsh, particularly that about phonetics. I am currently back in college to get certified to teach English (and History) and I have found myself really drawn to the folk tales of Great Britain--Anglo-Saxon, Irish and Welsh. I would LOVE to know the languages, but at this point, have limited myself to learning Old English. I just got a book yesterday on learning OE grammar.

Genealogy is my hobby and from what I can tell, almost all my lines lead back to either Anglo-Saxon England or possibly Celtish Cornwall. My husband's genealogy, from what we know, seems to be all German and English, yet he is dark enough that he was asked by a Morroccan if he was an Arab. When I mentioned this to our family doctor, he suggested that he looks like his Welsh patients, a group who recently immigrated to this country. I thought that was interesting.