i have a welsh pony whose name is Oerfa Pengwyn please can somebody translate it from welsh to english?

Answer 1

As everyone has said, Pengwyn translates as Whitehead (and yes, people have suggested seriously that Welsh, Cornish or Breton might be the origin of the word penguin).

People are having more trouble with oerfa, however. This is because it's not an ordinary noun in Welsh. Literally it means "place of cold" or just "cold place". Oer means cold (adj.) and -fa is a suffix indicating place. For example, a meddyg is a doctor, so a meddygfa is a doctor's surgery. Sometimes the nouns thus formed become more abstract, however. Lladdfa (from lladd "kill") means massacre, which is less a place than an event.

However, the word oerfa is much less common, and only really appears in place names. I believe there's a Llyn Oerfa (llyn means lake) and a Bryn yr Oerfa (Bryn yr means "hill of the"), which is the summit of some hill or mountain in Powys. I've also seen houses with the name. I suppose an English equivalent would be something like Coldstead

So: Coldstead Whitehead is more or less what the name translates as, and just goes to show that names are sometimes better left untranslated.

In case you're interested, by the way: the words for fridge and freezer are oergell (cold cell) and rhewgell (ice-cell). The words for coldness are oerni and (less commonly) oerfel.

Oh, and finally (sorry to go on), just in case you didn't know, it's pronounced OYR-va pen-GWIN.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Oerfa (Oerva) is just the name of the horse like Dobbin.
Pengwyn means he has a white head.
Pen = head Gwyn = white.

White-headed Oerfa or Oerfa Whitehead is the nearest I can suggest.

Answer 4

I am not sure if I have it right, but Pengwyn means white head (or wise one, or wisdom depending on context) and I think Oerfa is Western (or from the west)
That would be really idiomatic.
Does your pony have white on its head like this one.
http://www.geocities.com/commonsenseponies/pengwyn.html

Answer 5

Joking
it sounds like
Oafish penguin.

Answer 6

Oerfa means coldness, pen means head and gwyn means white.(that's where the word penguin comes from.)

So it means white head coldness.

Or cold little fellow with the white head, which sounds better.

Answer 7

welsh pony

Answer 8

isn't gwyn white? and pen is head. so oerfa white head.

Answer 9

cute name! maybe its called penguin? is it black and white?

Answer 10

hahah guess what that means white c**t HAHAHAH NICE NAME LOL