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muckefuckAlthough I've been interested in both Irish and Welsh for a long time, it's only relatively recently that I've tried to write much in either. This is particularly true of Irish, so it wasn't surprising when I started to find myself suffering interference from Welsh. They're the only two languages I speak any of where the default word order is verb-first, so it was particularly noticeable when I'd go to start a sentence with tá and mae (or oes) would come out instead. Now that I've done more Irish, the reverse is at least as common--not to mention that I keep wanting to import the Irish copular construction into Welsh.
Another source of confusion is pre-verbal particles. Both languages have a leniting affirmative particle, but the usage is completely different. Welsh fe (mi if you're a Gog) can appear before any conjugated verb in any tense (except mae, presumably because this form is already distinctively affirmative). Irish do, on the other hand, is only used in the past tense. Both are optional (and do is practically obsolete in colloquial modern Irish), but I prefer them in certain contexts. Just recently, though, I've noticed myself occasionally trying to insert do were it doesn't belong--namely, before non-past verbal forms--which is something I can only chalk up to Welsh influence. Fe wela i di fory is perfectly acceptable Welsh; *D'fheicfead thú amáireach, not so much.
But, as I said above, the confusion goes both ways these days. Both languages have consonant mutation in prepositional phrases, but different kinds and in different circumstances. In Irish, all nouns preceded by the definite article get eclipsed regardless of gender. But for Welsh, the rules for definite nouns are the same as they are (in both languages) for the casus rectus: Lenition for feminine nouns only. So no problem in a case like ar an gcathaoir/ar y gathair "on the chair". But when you have a masculine noun like bwrdd, I find myself wanting to write *ar y fwrdd (or even *ar y mwrdd) under the influence of Irish ar an mbord.
Another source of confusion is pre-verbal particles. Both languages have a leniting affirmative particle, but the usage is completely different. Welsh fe (mi if you're a Gog) can appear before any conjugated verb in any tense (except mae, presumably because this form is already distinctively affirmative). Irish do, on the other hand, is only used in the past tense. Both are optional (and do is practically obsolete in colloquial modern Irish), but I prefer them in certain contexts. Just recently, though, I've noticed myself occasionally trying to insert do were it doesn't belong--namely, before non-past verbal forms--which is something I can only chalk up to Welsh influence. Fe wela i di fory is perfectly acceptable Welsh; *D'fheicfead thú amáireach, not so much.
But, as I said above, the confusion goes both ways these days. Both languages have consonant mutation in prepositional phrases, but different kinds and in different circumstances. In Irish, all nouns preceded by the definite article get eclipsed regardless of gender. But for Welsh, the rules for definite nouns are the same as they are (in both languages) for the casus rectus: Lenition for feminine nouns only. So no problem in a case like ar an gcathaoir/ar y gathair "on the chair". But when you have a masculine noun like bwrdd, I find myself wanting to write *ar y fwrdd (or even *ar y mwrdd) under the influence of Irish ar an mbord.