Daily Photo 2022: June 16-30
Duolingo is a competitive language-learning service which is currently enjoying popularity on the internet. My brother is using it to learn Esperanto, my sister is learning Arabic, and I am giving Welsh a go. For this entry, I took photos based on words I've learned.
2022 Mis Mehefin 16
Hwylio: Sailing
This word is easy to remember because it's pronounced just like the Spanish name, Julio. In Welsh, the 'w' is what it claims to be in English, a double-u. I was surprised that this word popped up quite early in the lessons.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f22, 1/400 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 17
Cysgu: Sleep
I am always a little worried that one day I will actually try out one of these hammocks on the waterfront, and sleep through a workday afternoon! In Welsh, the letter 'u' is pronounced like the 'i' in English. Cysgu sounds like "kiss-key".
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f22, 1/125 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 18
Bachgen: Boy
My brother and his family came to visit, and we went climbing. They had a great time. My nephew is a bachgen, which is to say, a boy. Ripping the word apart, it means "small man" - a man is a dyn, and small is bach. Merch means girl, and menyw means woman. That's right, the Welsh word for 'woman' sounds exactly like the English word, 'menu'. Odd, but memorable!
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f4.8, 1/50 sec, ISO 6400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 19
Cerdded: Walking
It's nice to go for a walk in the park on Sunday. I've learned that Sunday is dydd Sul... And "Sunnight" is nos Sul. Unexpectedly, I haven't yet learned the words for park, tree, or bird. Given that I am early in the lessons, I imagine that 'woodpecker' is a long way off! Although cerdded means walking, the phrase 'going for a walk' is 'mynd am dro'.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f6.3, 1/1600 sec, ISO 6400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 20
Cinio: Dinner/Lunch
At the beginning of some words, 'c' often morphs into 'g'. I've listened to a radio programme called Dros Ginio ("Over Lunch"), and the Wicipedia article labelled "Canada" makes references to the country of Ganada. Whereas English might change one 'shelf' to two 'shelves' as part of a pluralization, Welsh mutates 'c' to 'g' to mark grammatical gender (and in a few other cases, which I have yet to study).
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f7.1, 1/640 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 21
Tegan: Toy
While I have yet to learn the words for chess or even game, I have learned that a tegan is a toy. A ball is a pêl, which sometimes becomes a bêl (There's that initial consonant mutation again!).
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f7.1, 1/500 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 22
Car: Car
Welsh has a close-but-adversarial relationship to English similar that of Quebec French. Despite that, there are quite a few cognates. A car is a car. A beic is a bike. Pys are peas. In all of those examples, the basic word is the same, but the vowel is held a little farther ahead in the mouth. That's true for Welsh vowels generally, as far as I can tell.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f8, 1 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 23
Mêl: Honey
I have learned a lot of food words, but few that I have had the chance to photograph. There just isn't much cennin in my life. Nor pannas, pys, bara, coffi, bresych or selsig. That's leeks, parsnips, peas, bread, coffee, cabbage and sausage. I do have dŵr, caws, and menyn (water, cheese, and butter), but those aren't very photogenic. Interestingly, Welsh has a single word for "a cup of tea", paned.
Olympus E-PL9, 60mm macro lens
f22, 1/160 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 24
Cwrw: Beer
I typically don't have a lot of beer on hand; these are for a party. Two local breweries, Propeller and Garrison, are supporters of the local climbing scene. Propeller provides refreshments at the annual Boulderfest, and Garrison sponsored last January's climbing competition at East Peak. The Garrison taproom is located next door to the climbing gym, and showing up there with chalky hands is good for a $1 discount.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f4.5, 1/160 sec, ISO 6400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 25
Liw: Colour
The colours in this snapshot are oren, glas, llwyd, brown, and du (Orange, blue, grey, brown, and black). Some other Welsh colours are gwyrdd, pinc, coch, gwen, porffor, and arian (Green, pink, red, white, purple, and silver). Dw i'n lliwio llun means, 'I am colouring a picture'. I would be remiss if I did not point out the famous Welsh 'll' phoneme. It's a semi-glottal sound not often encountered in English. I pronounce it like I'm about to say a 'c' but then have to clear my throat.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f11, 1/320 sec, ISO 800
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 Mis Mehefin 26
Croeso: Welcome
With this photo, I'm transitioning away from the focus on Welsh. My Ottawan friend Ben chose to spend his vacation in Halifax. I coordinated my vacation so we could spend the time together. My friends Erin and (another) Ben went with us to Point Pleasant Park, where we ate a picnic lunch of chicken rolls I'd made. After exploring that park, we went to York Redoubt, where I snapped this photo. After that Ben and I walked the Halifax Boardwalk and had supper at the Split Crow.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f3.5, 1/200 sec, ISO 6400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 June 27
On Ben's first full day in the city, we went to the Maritime Museum Of The Atlantic, followed by a lunch of delicious empanadas at Verano. This photo is of a lighthouse's Fresnel lens at the museum. Afterwards, we picked up some pizza from Sapori and hosted Erin, Jamie, and local-Ben for supper at my place. Then, the group of us went to the Halifax Central Library, where we played D&D.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f3.5, 1/250 sec, ISO 2500
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 June 28
On Tuesday we went climbing at East Peak. It was Ben's first time trying out the sport. Another first for him was our lunch afterwards: Halifax's official food at King Of Donair. We weren't done yet, though! In the evening we attended the Royal Halifax International Tattoo. Large cameras are not allowed at the spectacular event, so all I could get were a few phone-photos. This one shows the German national artistic cycling squad. To cap off the night we walked to the Black Sheep and had tea and desserts. I had pineapple tapioca pudding and masala chai; Ben had tiramisu and orange pekoe.
Palm PCG-100
f2, 1/33 sec, ISO 2500
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 June 29
Citadel Hill is the city's most venerable site. We viewed the firing of the noon cannon, saw the city from the ramparts, the museums, the historical reenactors, experienced the Juno Beach landing, and explored the fort. I'm including three photos. There's a detail of a piper piping and a drummer drumming, a very atmospheric one of Ben taking on the dark tunnels like the hero in a video game, and a hoverfly pollinating what may well be Canada's oldest green roof. Afterwards, we had phở at a Vietnamese spot.
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f6.3, 1/1000 sec, ISO 640
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
Olympus E-PL9, 12-200mm telephoto lens
f3.5, 1/15 sec, ISO 6400
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
Olympus E-PL9, 60mm macro lens
f6.3, 1/1000 sec, ISO 640
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
2022 June 30
On the final day of the month we took the ferry to Dartmouth, and then a bus to Shubie Park. That's where I snapped this dragonfly, which I suspect is a male chalk-fronted corporal. The walk along the historic canal and lakeside woodland was a lovely reprieve from the usual busy urban setting. When we returned to the Halifax side, we leapt right back into action. After eating at a pub on Argyle Street we went to a match between the Halifax Wanderers and Atlético Ottawa. I won't tell you who won, but Ben sure would if you asked him!
Olympus E-PL9, 60mm macro lens
f5.6, 1/1600 sec, ISO 200
IrfanView: Crop, Colour
My hope for our vacation was that Ben and I would have a chance to relax while also taking in as much as this city has to offer as we could. We didn't hit every dining spot on my list, nor the Museum Of Natural History (There are a few other places which will be in my next SnapDash entry, since the month changed mid-trip). Still, I'm hopeful that Ben has a whole lot of novel and exciting memories.