pronunciations

[Dylan Lloyd]

I live next to this village in North Wales, we generally call it 'Llanfair
P.G.' It makes conversation easier!

Whilst helping to construct a national invertebrate database for Wales I
found such place names cause great confusion for the location of voucher
specimens. The database had at least six variations on the spelling of this
town!!! The Victorian collectors who used to visit North Wales often appear
to have simply made the spelling up.

I would imagine similar problems exist where Victorian collectors visited
other countries especially during the days of the British Empire.



>> > Matthew Smith wrote:
>> >
>> > > ...Woulds that be
>> > > Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogochii or
>> > > Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogogochiensis?
>> > >
>>
>> Now come on people lets get sensible about this. I understand that the
>> local people ie 'Resident subspecies' refer simply refer to the place as
>> 'Lannfairpwll' or sometimes just 'HOME'. So surely we could get away
>
>No it is definately TWO Ls. The double L sound is pronounced differently.
>(it can become one L and is pronounced so in certain gramatical
situations.)
>SO the locals wouldn't. This illustrates the point I am making about
>pronouncabilty. Most of you wouldn't get past the first syllable.
>The LL sound is said by putting your tongue in the same place as
>for L widening the mouth slightly and blowing through one side. It is
unvoiced.
>The original place name was Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. (LhahnVaheeRR Poolh
GwinGilh
>the Poolh is like put but different on the end. Guess what? It means pool.)
>It means the Parish of St Mary (Mair) of the white whirlpool.
>Someone had the bright idea of adding the rest after it in the last
century.
>People do refer to it as Llanfairpwll, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll or Llanfair
P.G.
>There are lots of Llanfairs in Wales.
>
>> with 'llanfairpwlliensis'. I always understood that the second half of a
>> scientific name should start with a lower case letter as in
>> 'llanfair...' rather than 'Llanfair'.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> PS At least it's better than shouting at each other about whether to
>> collect or not. And a lot more fun to read.
>> >