My son wishes to give a Welch love spoon to his lady engraved with
either the Welch or Gaelic phrase for "soul mate".  I am doing the
research because he is in Iraq. I can find no definitive answers on
the net or dictionaries.  Can you help?

Hello grey1

Since it is a Welsh love spoon, I went for the Welsh version. 

In the online English-Welsh dictionary provided by the Department of
Welsh, University of Wales Lampeter http://www.e-addysg.com/geiriadur/

“soul mate” is translated as “enaid hoff cytûn”.  

The individual meanings of the component Welsh words are given as:
enaid = soul, hoff = favourite, cytûn =  of one accord.

A very romantic Welsh friend of mine suggested another variant:

“enaid fy nghalon i”

which in literal translation means “soul of my heart”.
He speaks Welsh as spoken in the Rhondda (South Wales).  There are
some differences between this and the language spoken in North Wales.

He also said that the number of knots carved into the spoon represents
the number of children desired from the union.

Search strategy: 1. on Google: English Welsh online   2. Email to a
Welsh friend

---

Request for Answer Clarification by grey1-ga on 12 Aug 2003 17:09 PDT

Your answer is interesting; with costs as they are today, let's hope
for a consevative number of knots!

Someone from the vendor in Cardiff offered this:  "Fy ffrind
Mynwesol".  an you comment on this one?

---

Request for Answer Clarification by grey1-ga on 12 Aug 2003 17:30 PDT

Sorry,the vendor is in Pencader not Cardiff.

---

Clarification of Answer by tehuti-ga on 12 Aug 2003 19:00 PDT

Hello again grey1

From the Lampeter dictionary I cited before, 
Fy means mine or my
ffrind means friend

and from another glossary accessed from:
http://llyfrgell.cymraeg.org/concord/cdata/m/mynwesol.htm

mynwesol means bosom

So Fy ffrind Mynwesol means My bosom friend

Splendid cooperation.  Sincerely appreciated!

Glad to have been of assistance, and yes, two knots would be quite
enough for me!  :)