Welsh respellings

Christy MacHale wrote

Your recent article on Latvian spelling, together with the observation that Latvian generally insists on respelling loanwords according to its own conventions, set me thinking about the practice of Welsh in this regard, particularly with reference to geographical names. Being a Hispanist and a lover of Welsh, I remember tuning in a couple of decades ago to a series of BBC Cymru programs, about different aspects of the Hispanic world. It featured such spellings as Mecsico and Portiwgal […]

He (or is it she? sorry...) was also particularly dismayed to find karaoke rendered in Welsh as carioci, despite the fact that word-final e is perfectly at home in Welsh (as in bore ‘morning’) though not in English. But the item that most concerned him/her was the name of the Basque country (Gwlad y Basg), Basque Euskadi, rendered as Ewscadi. Even as a reflection of the Spanish or Basque pronunciation this is not accurate: s/he feels it ought to have -addi, reflecting the Iberian -aði pronunciation.

Christy wanted to know who was responsible.
I said

I suppose if anybody can make rulings on this sort of thing, it must be the Welsh Academy (Yr Academi Gymreig), with whose Dictionary (1995) you may be familiar.

Although Christy deplores the fact, it is very clear that loans in modern Welsh regularly come via English (rather than direct from, say, Japanese or Spanish) and that they are then respelt in accordance with Welsh orthographic conventions. Modern Welsh spelling does not use the letters k, q, v, x or z. The spellings complained of are very normal in Welsh.

In the Academy's Dictionary, under words spelt in English with ka-, you'll find Cabwci, cafftan, cacemono, Calahari, caleidosgop, Calefala, camicasi etc.

On the other hand the same dictionary gives Kafkaésg and kalmia, so evidently personal and Linnaean names are treated differently.

Under English Q- we find cwadrîl, cwaga, cwarts, cwasar, Cetshwa, cworum, cwoca. But Quaker is properly cymricized as Crynwr (crynu ‘tremble’).

Christy would be pleased to find that the dictionary also actually gives caraoce rather than carioci. (As readers will know, the Japanese word karaoke カラオケ is formed from kara ‘empty’ plus oke from English orchestra. It is usually pronounced in English as ˌkæriˈəʊki.)