That Welsh Tongue-Twister, Llanfairpwll, Tackled By Weatherman Is A 19th Century Joke [Video]

There is probably not a single word in any language that weatherman Liam Dutton can’t pronounce. The Welshman is now famous across the internet for effortlessly untwisting the tongue-twister place name of a small town in Wales — without skipping a beat.

Brace yourself for this name: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. That’s right This is an actual town, located on the island of Anglesey in Wales, and Liam impressed the world by pronouncing it correctly, the Daily North Post Wales reported.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch appeared on a Wednesday weather report not because of its long name, but because the village was the warmest place in the United Kingdom that day.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch appeared on the weather map, its 58 characters stretching out across the entire nation of England, into the North Sea, and across the Netherlands.

After receiving ample praise online for tackling Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch with ease, Dutton said simply, “It had to be done!”

The video of the weatherman pronouncing Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch has been viewed over a million times, the Huffington Post added.

So what exactly do all those indecipherable letters mean?

In English, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch actually translates to a wandering, rather poetic description.

“St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.”

And as your eyes stumble over the many “l’s” and “g’s” and “w’s” in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch you may feel like someone might be pulling your leg. And you’d be right. The name isn’t genuinely Welsh, historical, or legitimate — it’s a 19th-century publicity stunt and joke intended to bring some much-needed attention to the village.

Whoever came up with the idea, it seems to be working — at least this week.

And now Perez Hilton. It's been a surreal day… pic.twitter.com/TJJhCWlsqi

— Liam Dutton (@liamdutton) September 9, 2015

The short-hand name for the village is Llanfairpwll, or Llanfair PG. Now a small town of barely 3,000 people, it dates back to Neolithic times, was invaded by the Romans, then controlled by an early medieval kingdom called Gwynedd. By the 16th century, villagers toiled as tenant farmers, and by the 19th century, it was connected to the rest of Wales by a bridge; connection to London via bridge and railway followed soon after.

That brings us up to about the year some joker came up with the name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. By the 1860s, the village wanted to bestow some notoriety upon the village and its railway station to develop it as a commercial and tourist center.

By the way, its original name is actually Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll (“St. Mary’s in Hollow of the White Hazel Township”); Pwllgwyngyll is the original name of the medieval township.

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch combines the original name with the strait that separates the island from the mainland, and a neighboring town; “goch” at the end apparently means nothing.

The joke that is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is attributed either to a cobbler from a neighboring town or a local tailor. No one knows. But it worked, somewhat: the railway station bears the long name, but is officially known as Llanfairpwll.

And it’s not much of a tourist center, either. You can buy a T-shirt emblazoned with Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, take a picture at the railway station, and ask the lady at the visitor center to pronounce it. Because she probably doesn’t get tired of that.

Though that now-famous Welsh weatherman has no doubt earned his praise for pronouncing it beautifully, apparently Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch isn’t too bad to get through, because Welsh words are pronouncing phonetically. Trouble is, you have to figure out how to pronounce each letter, and that’s a bit of challenge.

(By the way, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is not the longest place name in the world. That honor goes to a place in Thailand, which has 163 letters.)

Try it if you dare, one section at a time.

“Llan – fair – pwll – gwyn – gyll – goger – y – chwyrn – drobwll – llan – dysilio – gogo – goch”

For help pronouncing Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, check out this video.

Or just let Mr. Dutton take care of it. He is the master, after all.

[Photo Courtesy YouTube Screengrab]