Is-deitlau Cymraeg 889 ar S4C
Welsh Language Subtitles on S4C
HELP
These notes have been produced mainly with Welsh learners in mind. They explain the nature of the new 889 Welsh Language Subtitling Service on S4C's analogue teletext service, known as SBECTEL. They will also be useful for those who are not familiar with the written forms of spoken Welsh.
For those familiar with the old 889 service which ran from October 1995 till June 2003, they also highlight the main difference between the two services.
Please select one of these headings:
Audience
The old 889 service, provided by Acen for S4C, was aimed primarily at Welsh
learners with a basic knowledge of the language.
The new 889 subtitling service, also provided by Acen, is aimed at all those
who need extra help in understanding and following Welsh language programmes
on S4C - be they learners, the deaf and hard of hearing, or those who feel
the need to hear and see the language together. Familiarisation with most
verb forms and basic language structures is necessary if the user is to
benefit from using these subtitles.
Welsh learners who are Beginners may find the amount of Welsh on screen too much at present and may therefore find the 888 English language service of greater use when trying to understand and follow S4C's Welsh language programmes.
Learners at Intermediate level and above, if they have had little contact with the language outside formal classes, may find the variety of spoken Welsh presented on screen a little overwhelming at first. The information in the On-screen Language section has been written to help you become more familiar with the most obvious differences between northern and southern speech patterns and language forms.
Viewers who have the necessary equipment to record subtitles, in addition to sound and vision, will find the 889 service a useful learning tool as they can then play back programmes with subtitles at their leisure.
On-screen language
The old 889 service conveyed the main points of the script of programmes
in simplified and corrected Welsh with English explanations where necessary.
The new 889 service aims to convey as much as possible of what is heard
on screen. It does so by reflecting the language heard in its variety of
spoken forms; it reflects different dialects and the type of Welsh used.
As the subtitles are confined to 2 lines, some words and phrases are omitted
because of the constraints of space on-screen; they can also be omitted
because of time constraints.
Learners in particular, who have been introduced to the written forms of standard spoken Welsh together with "correct" sentence patterns and idioms, need to be aware that Welsh speakers - both as characters in drama and as real people - vary in their use of what is generally accepted as "correct" Welsh. Variations from traditional grammatical forms have also been adopted as standard speech patterns in different areas. Generally speaking, people tend to speak more formally and "correctly" in formal situations and less "correctly" in informal situations.
The influence of English words and idioms is another factor in modern Welsh speech. The more formal the context, the more "pure" or grammatical the langauge used; informal contexts tend to display a greater influence of English words and idioms. Speakers' cultural and educational backgrounds are also reflected in their vocabulary and speech patterns.
Formal written Welsh is, for the most part, a phonetic language - that is, its written forms reflect the way the words are said. The spoken language, however, has many forms that range from standardised spoken Welsh - familiar to most learners - to regional accents and variations, and local dialects.
In introducing the new 889 service, the Acen subtitling unit - in association with S4C - has had to make certain decisions regarding the presentation of the spoken language on-screen. Were we to write all of spoken Welsh exactly as it is spoken, those written forms might well be difficult to interpret, in the time allowed on-screen, even by those who are most fluent in the language. Therefore, certain compromises have had to be made in order to keep a balance between what is actually said and what can be easily and quickly read by the viewer. Present analogue technology also means that we are unable to use accents on words; this, at times, can cause some ambiguity if words are not read within context.
In general, we have kept the standard dictionary spelling of most words. Where plural forms of nouns, particularly those ending in -au/-iau, tend to be spoken with regional variations, their on-screen forms will, for the most part, reflect traditional dictionary spellings. Phonetic rather than dictionary spelling is generally used for words which reflect a particular regional use.
We have chosen to highlight the main regional and local variations mainly in the way the personal forms of verbs and prepositions are written on screen. Those of you who wish to study and compare these forms with standard spoken Welsh should find the Variations section useful.