A Small
Town with a Big Name
By Dave
Fox
If you
ask nicely, the lady at the tourist information office will
pronounce the name of her town. "We get asked that
about 30 times a day," she told me. Then, patiently,
she took a deep breath and recited the correct pronunciation
for the longest town name in Europe:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
Originally
the town had a shorter, easier to pronounce name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyll.
In the 1880s, in a joking attempt to attract tourists, a
tailor added the rest of the syllables, bringing the total
length to 58 letters, including four letter L's in a row.
"What
does Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
mean?" I asked the lady at the TI. Well, okay, what
I really said was "What does that thing you just said
mean?"
In English
it translates to "St. Mary's Church in the hollow of
white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St.
Tysilio near the red cave."
There's
not much to do in "Llanfair PG," as it is listed
on most maps, other than buy the T-shirt (£10 at the
TI), take pictures of the sign on the train station platform,
and pester the TI lady to say it again. But it's a scenic
15 minute drive from Caernarfon, home of one of the largest
castles in Wales. If you want to be able to say you've been
there, it's an easy side trip by car.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
is not the longest town name in the world. Thailand has
a town whose name has 163 letters:
Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnop-
paratrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathit-
sakkattiyavisanukamprasit.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch's
tourist office requires all employees to be able to say
the town name without flinching. (Photo by Marius Filtvedt)
So
How Do You Pronounce It?
The Welsh language looks daunting to English speakers, largely
because of its obsession with the letters L and W. But all
words are spelled phonetically — pronounced exactly
as they are spelled. Once you learn how to pronounce each
letter, it's not so bad:
•
A single Welsh F is pronounced like an English letter V.
•
A double F (as in the town of Ffestiniog) is pronounced
like an English F.
•
A single L is pronounced like an English L.
•
A double L (as in Llanfair) is pronounced like an English
L, but you blow air out along the sides of your tongue as
you say it.
•
CH is a heavily aspirated H, pronounced with the tongue
back in the throat, similar to the German CH.
•
The letter Y is an "uh" sound unless it is at
the end of the word. Then it's an "ee" sound.
•
In Welsh, W is a vowel with an "oo" sound. The
Welsh word for "bus" is "bws" (pronounced
"boos"). The word for "beer" is "cwrw"
(pronounced "cooroo")
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