LLANDDWYN 39 



There is another peculiarity that will arrest the 

 attention of the philologist in Wales the strangely 

 Spanish-like character of some of its words. Seeing 

 the word " Llanddona," a Spaniard might boggle at 

 the "dd," but when told that the doubling of the 

 " d " served to soften the sound of the single letter 

 into the exact equivalent of his own '' d," he would 

 pronounce it " Lyanthona " (with the soft "th"), 

 and consider it no bad imitation of his native tongue. 

 The Welshman, however, would tell him that though 

 they Welsh and Spanish, were, with the Bretons, 

 the only possessors of a consonant "11," yet whilst the 

 Spaniard pronounces it with the soft "ly" effect, 

 the Welshman renders it with a hard breathing that 

 makes it almost guttural. There would appear to 

 be nothing very strange in that until it was further 

 explained that the word Llan, so often in use as a 

 prefix in the formation of Welsh place-names, and 

 meaning primarily a "cleared space or area," was 

 the precise equivalent of the Spanish Llano. 

 (Compare also W. llawn, llenwi, full, to fill, with Sp. 

 lleno, llenar, of the same meaning). Both words 

 are derived from Lat. (planus, plenus), the Latin 

 "pi" having, curiously, been replaced both in Welsh 

 and Spanish by "11," though this consonant is so 

 differently pronounced in these two languages. The 

 case is still more curious because both tongues have 

 preserved the "pi" in other forms of the same words, 

 viz., Sp. piano, pleno; W. plan. 



Several detached rocks lie about Llanddwyn. 

 One, due south, called Ynys Grange or Crab Island, 

 is the constant perch of Cormorants that come to 



