Especially for those readers of Not Thomas who aren’t familiar with Welsh…

Today’s Welsh word (or rather, phrase) is a bit of a weird one because half of it is in English – well, sort of.

On page 74, the lady next door is a little shocked when Tomos pops his head through the hole in the hedge and shouts ‘Hello’ at her. In her surprise, she yells: ‘Yessee mawr!’

‘Mawr’ is the Welsh word for ‘big’ – although here its meaning is more ‘great’.

‘Yessee’ isn’t a Welsh word, at least it’s not written in Welsh in Not Thomas, but many people from Wales, Welsh-speaker or not, will recognise its sound as ‘Iesu’ which is the Welsh name for Jesus.

The lady next door doesn’t like to ‘take the Lord’s name in vain’, and so, like the gran of a friend of mine, insists she’s simply adding some ‘ees’ onto the end of yes. That’s better for the soul, apparently. 

And much easier to read if you’ve never come across the name ‘Iesu’ before.

Thanks for reading – diolch yn fawr!

Sara x

P.S. This is the first Not Thomas #WelshWordWednesday that I’ve put on my blog, but there are others on my Sara Gethin Writer Facebook page. I’ll do a round up of them all here too soon.

Sara’s debut novel Not Thomas is published by Honno Press in paperback and as an e-book, and is available to buy direct from the publisher and from Amazon.