Yr Wyddfa / Snowdon - 1,085 m (3,560 ft)
Following the discussion which started in April 2021 on whether Snowdon should be renamed Yr Wyddfa, we have decided to use Yr Wyddfa as the peak's primary name.
We will however normally refer to the peak as Yr Wyddfa / Snowdon as both names are descriptive and historic. In fact, according to Hywel Wyn Owen and Richard Morgan's Dictionary of the Place-Names of Wales, the name Snowdon is documented as far back as 1095, while the first known reference to Yr Wyddfa was in 1284. However, it is almost certain that Yr Wyddfa was the name used by the local population for the mountain from much earlier times, but there is no written evidence for this.
Below is what we thought was the best tweet that we saw during the Yr Wyddfa / Snowdon debate, which also helps non-Welsh speakers with how it is usually pronounced. Although I suspect this may not be correct as the 'Yr' implies that the 'W' is part of a vowel dipthong (sounded as 'Oy') and it should not be pronounced as a consonant. If it was pronounced as a consonant, the name should be 'Y Wyddfa. I believe the 'Wy' should be pronounced in a similar way to the dipthong in the name 'Llwyd' whose anglicised spelling is 'Lloyd'. So, I think it should be pronounced 'Er, oyth va' with the a hard 'th' similar to the one in 'with'.
Please click on Yr Wyddfa to view the page for Yr Wyddfa / Snowdon which provides interpretations of the names of both Yr Wyddfa and Snowdon.
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