Clap ’em on the back as Tube map’s in Welsh
THE London Underground map has been given a new twist after being translated into Welsh. Train-lover David Smith was travelling on the Tube with friends when the idea was sparked to give all the stations a Welsh name.
His Welsh-speaking friends jokingly started to translate the station names – but David thought they were on the right track and did the whole map.
He swapped Wimbledon for Brynwimbwl, Baker Street for Stryd Bacr, and Elephant and Castle for Eliffant and Castell.
David said: “We were on the Victoria
line one evening on the way back from the pub, looking at the map in the train, and we started translating the various places into Welsh.
“We liked the sound of it and talked about doing the whole map. I had a couple of days at home where the weather was miserable, so I started translating the Tube map.”
David’s love for the Welsh started when he began working as a guard on the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railways in Snowdonia.
Passengers started to speak to him in Welsh so David decided to learn it.
David, who lives in Birmingham, went through the etymology of each station with the help of the Londonist website – changing some names to what they “sounded” like.
He said: “It was quite an interesting process, learning stuff in English as well as practising Welsh.
“For instance, Bethnal Green might be along the lines of ‘Happy Corner Green’, which ended up as ‘Maestrohapus’ in Welsh.”
David says he was stumped by Harrow – which means “heathen temple”.
He said: “I kept searching and eventually came up with ‘Cangell,’ which means something along the lines of ‘sanctuary.’ Another issue was that there are an awful lot of place names in London ending in ‘wood,’ ‘Road’ etc, so I had to try to avoid things being too repetitive. One thing that really helped was having two of the friends, Lisa and Elen, who are both first-language Welsh-speakers.”
Other translations include Brixton to Maenbrics and Piccadilly Circus to Cyffordd Picadili.