What it means
A filler word in South Wales that goes at the end of sentences for emphasis, reassurance, or just because it feels right. Like man but softer, warmer, and more musical. Come on, mun means hurry up. Alright, mun means I agree. It is not aggressive, it is friendly, and it turns any sentence into something that sounds properly Welsh.
Usage examples
"Just get in the car, mun, we're going to be late for your nan's birthday and she'll have our heads if the cake goes cold."
"Come on, mun, the bus from the village hall of Treorchy to the Cardiff city centre is leaving in ten minutes, the cousin is waiting at the corner of the Tesco Express of the Pontypridd road, and the football match at the Millennium Stadium kicks off at three sharp in the afternoon."
"Alright, mun, the new chip shop on the high street of Ystrad Mynach has a special offer on the Friday evening for the regulars of the rugby club of the valley, two portions for seven pounds and the manager of the takeaway is throwing in a free can of dandelion and burdock for every customer of the queue."
Where it comes from
Mun in South Wales English is a discourse particle inherited from the Welsh language word mwn, an emphatic particle attested in the Welsh literary tradition since the medieval poetry of the Mabinogion of the eleventh century. The shift from Welsh into Welsh English happened during the industrial revolution of the eighteen-fifties and sixties, when the coal-mining valleys of Glamorgan and the Rhondda absorbed thousands of Welsh-speaking workers into the English-speaking pit communities, and the bilingual generation imported the Welsh particle into their new language without translating it. The word has retained the same warm, conversational tone of agreement and encouragement across the generations of the Valleys, surviving the decline of Welsh fluency in the same communities.
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