This week’s photo challenge: Let the alphabet be your inspiration: find a string of letters.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyll is a large village on the island of Anglesey in Wales. It is alternatively known as Llanfairpwll, Llanfair PG, or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. The long form of the name was invented for promotional purposes in the 1860s; with 58 characters it is the longest place name in Europe and the second longest official one-word place name in the world. (A bit of help here from Wikipedia.)
We visited Wales in 2013, and suddenly I understood where the inspiration for all the Hobbit words came from. At least, I imagined I did. To me Welsh is a bewildering spray of consonants.
This is the easy map of directions in the town of LLandudno (pronounced klan-DUD-nuh). See what I mean?
No scrapbook of Wales is complete without a few sheep.
Wales is quite a beautiful country, I think.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my visits to Wales but, sadly,have missed that town sign.
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As I recall we were on our way to a stone age settlement way up on the coastal cliffs called the “Hut Group”, referred to by the locals as “Clwstwr Cytiau”.
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I spent my time in north Wales in the interior and Snowdonia, which was ruggedly beautiful.
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We did visit Snowdonia too. It was soooo beautiful, but sooooooo cold!
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Ha that is the longest word I have ever seen! Such complicated spelling. Very interesting information and beautiful countryside MK. 🙂
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Thanks Karen!
I really liked Wales, and I really liked the Welsh folks.
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Great captures MK!
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Thanks Val. I assume you’ve seen quite a bit of Wales too, huh?
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I just had one wonderful trip to Wales MK in my younger days 🙂
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Awesome choice for the challenge! They say English is a tough language, Welsh and Gaelic seem pretty tricky to me as well. Something about those once-isolated islands, I guess. Great pics!
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Thanks Eliza. This was one of those challenges where you immediately say – “okay, I have just the picture!”
I sure did enjoy hearing the Welsh & the Irish speaking their native language.
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It is lyrical. I look at the way it is spelled and it sounds nothing like the letters used. Must be tough to learn!
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I agree, great choice for the challenge.
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Thanks David. At least no one acts like a smarty-pants and tells you “it’s pronounced just like it’s spelled”. Or perhaps they did say that in Welsh, but I wasn’t paying attention.
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I got to thinking that if there is a Welsh version of Scrabble I’ll bet they have some really high scoring games and just one game of Hangman could probably take hours. 🙂
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The board for Welsh scabble would be the size of a large family’s dining table, no doubt! If you write the short story of these Welsh playing scrabble or hangman, please send me a copy. I’d love to read it!
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Neis! Cael penwythnos neis.
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Diolch! Chi hefyd!
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How very lovely! Can’t imagine trying to learn to spell (or pronounce) in Wales!
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Ah, no pressure for hapless tourists! But I did notice a lot of pride in the language. It’s a lovely place.
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It’s one of the very few places I’d like to visit if only it didn’t involve flying. I used to thrill to fly places before they turned the planes into cattle cars with wings. 😦
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Talk about an alphabet soup -omg!!! Very cool indeed, great pics!
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Thanks Sue. Wales is very cool.
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