Ooh, what are some of the ways to say 'arch enemy'?

Tell you what, we haven't done one of these in a while: let's do a poll game! Normally I do these with animal names, but eh. Today we're doing it with vengeful interpersonal statuses.

Linguistic Notes to Help You Choose:

As ever, all options were put into a random number generator to determine the order

Archelyn: Welsh got the 'arch' prefix from Greek, same as English (although it's pronounced differently); triggers a soft mutation. I suspect this one developed from the English word, though

Uwchelyn: 'uwch' - higher. It's a common prefix for this sort of thing - one of the options for 'superhero' is 'uwcharwr' (although I prefer gorarwr). It's also used for the preposition 'above'. Again, when used as a prefix it triggers a soft mutation

Gelyn pennaf: this is where the RNG is slightly working against me, because this would be better explained if 'pen-gelyn' went first, but ah well. 'Pen' means 'head', like the body part. The '-af' suffix means 'most'; for example, pwysig=important, pwysicaf=most important. So, 'pennaf' is actually like. Most head. Headest. But we use it like 'chief'. So, literally, your Most Head Enemy.

Carn-elyn: when I say 'peak', I mean 'mountain peak'. There are mountains in Wales with this in their name, e.g. Carningli in Pembrokeshire. Mountain peak enemy

Pen-gelyn: literally, your head enemy. Welsh has inherited a lot of the older Celtic cult of the head cultural points - 'pen' is Brythonic in origin, and gets used in a whole bunch of ways like this

Gelyn glas: lol okay. I could also have translated this as 'blue enemy', because in modern Welsh glas is used to mean blue; but once upon a time, before we developed a separate word for green, it meant both (like how in English 'red' was used for orange, pink and purple). Glas still gets used in literary Welsh to mean a natural green, though - the colour of nature. My guess as to why it crops up here therefore is that it's implying that nature itself designed us to be enemies. We evolved that way. We can never be anything else. You are my opposite in all things.

HA HAAAAAAAA I win again. Dramatically.

So, the option selected by Tumblr as false was carn-elyn, the mountain peak enemy, but NO you FOOLS. Wales has many mountains. Of course they are in our language in inexplicable ways. This is a 100% real term.

The second highest vote went to archelyn, and it was damned close throughout the day; there were points where it nearly went first! But it has finished in second place.

Which is irrelevant, because it's also real. Archelyn and gelyn pennaf are, between them, the two most common terms! Archelyn is the most likely first translation in a dictionary, and gelyn pennaf is the most common word used in 90s children's cartoons on S4C

So which is the impostor? Which did I invent out of whole cloth? Which was the lie...?

...

...

...

UWCHELYN!!! The one in LAST PLACE!!! I am a god of subterfuge and I shall never die

Thank you all for playing ily

Ooh, what are some of the ways to say 'arch enemy'?

Tell you what, we haven't done one of these in a while: let's do a poll game! Normally I do these with animal names, but eh. Today we're doing it with vengeful interpersonal statuses.

Linguistic Notes to Help You Choose:

As ever, all options were put into a random number generator to determine the order

Archelyn: Welsh got the 'arch' prefix from Greek, same as English (although it's pronounced differently); triggers a soft mutation. I suspect this one developed from the English word, though

Uwchelyn: 'uwch' - higher. It's a common prefix for this sort of thing - one of the options for 'superhero' is 'uwcharwr' (although I prefer gorarwr). It's also used for the preposition 'above'. Again, when used as a prefix it triggers a soft mutation

Gelyn pennaf: this is where the RNG is slightly working against me, because this would be better explained if 'pen-gelyn' went first, but ah well. 'Pen' means 'head', like the body part. The '-af' suffix means 'most'; for example, pwysig=important, pwysicaf=most important. So, 'pennaf' is actually like. Most head. Headest. But we use it like 'chief'. So, literally, your Most Head Enemy.

Carn-elyn: when I say 'peak', I mean 'mountain peak'. There are mountains in Wales with this in their name, e.g. Carningli in Pembrokeshire. Mountain peak enemy

Pen-gelyn: literally, your head enemy. Welsh has inherited a lot of the older Celtic cult of the head cultural points - 'pen' is Brythonic in origin, and gets used in a whole bunch of ways like this

Gelyn glas: lol okay. I could also have translated this as 'blue enemy', because in modern Welsh glas is used to mean blue; but once upon a time, before we developed a separate word for green, it meant both (like how in English 'red' was used for orange, pink and purple). Glas still gets used in literary Welsh to mean a natural green, though - the colour of nature. My guess as to why it crops up here therefore is that it's implying that nature itself designed us to be enemies. We evolved that way. We can never be anything else. You are my opposite in all things.