kimkat2483e Some Dialectal Boundaries in Mid-Wales. Thomas
Darlington. Y Geninen. 1901
21-01-2018
● kimkat0001 Home Page / Yr Hafan www.kimkat.org
● ● kimkat1864e Gateway to this Website in English / Y Fynedfa
Saesneg www.kimkat.org/amryw/1_gwefan/gwefan_arweinlen_2003e.htm
● ● ● kimkat2045k
Welsh dialects / Tafodieithoedd Cymru www.kimkat.org/amryw/1_cymraeg/cymraeg_tafodieitheg_gymraeg_mynegai_1385e.htm
● ● ● ●
kimkat0934k Gwentian / Y Wenhwyseg www.kimkat.org/amryw/1_gwenhwyseg/gwenhwyseg_cyfeirddalen_1004e.htm
●
● ● ● ● kimkat2483 This page / Y Tudalen Hwn
|
|
Gwefan Cymru-Catalonia |
|
xxx
Erthygl gan Thomas Darlington (g. 1864, Burland, Swydd
Gaer; m. 1908, hynny yw, yn 43 neu 44 mlwydd oed)
“Some
Dialectal Boundaries in Mid-Wales”
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0385) |
THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF CYMMRODORION. SESSION 1900-1901. LONDON: ISSUED BY THE
SOCIETY. NEW STONE BUILDINGS, 64,
CHANCERY LANE. 1902. |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0357) |
CONTENTS. REPORT OF THE COUNCIL FOR
1900-1901.....v STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS AND
PAYMENTS FOR 1900-1901.....xi Art and Handicraft in
Wales: Some Criticisms and Suggestions. By Mr. W. GOSCOMBE JOHN, A.R.A......1
Some Dialectal Boundaries
in Mid Wales: with Notes on the History of the Palatalization of Long A. By Mr. THOMAS DARLINGTON,
M.A......18 The Diplomatics of Welsh
Records: with Appendices— i. Repositories of Welsh
Records. ii. A Classification of
Welsh Records according to their Repositories. iii. The Welsh Records
Classified Diplomatically. By Mr. HUBERT HALL, F.S.A., Director of the Royal
Historical Society.....40 Archbishop Peckham: with Appendix
containing an Extract from the Records of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.
By J. WILLIS BUND, F.S.A......58 Correspondence: "Owain
Lawgoch." By Mr. W. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS, B.C.L......87 “Owain Lawgoch: a
Rejoinder." By Mr. EDWARD OWEN.....98 |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0358) |
(x13) SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES: WITH NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF THE PALATALIZATION OF
LONG A.* * Read before the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion
at 20, Hanover Square, on Wednesday, 8th May, 1901. Chairman, Principal Rhys,
LL.D. BY THOMAS DARLINGTON, M.A. (H.M. INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS
FOR THE ABERYSTWYTH DISTRICT).•* *In the phonetic notation used in this paper all
symbols have their usual Welsh value, where the contrary is not indicated but
the distinction between and close vowel-sounds is expressed by printing the
former in italics; thus (ē)
represents the long open heard in English care, (ō) the vowel in Welsh dol, as pronounced in
Carnarvonshire. The extra symbols for English sounds are provided as follows:
- (ô) represents the long open vowel in E. shawl: (æ) the short Southern English a, as in man: (ə) the short English u, in cut; and ( THE district with which I
propose to deal in the present paper, and which is commonly, though rather
loosely, known as Mid-Wales, may be defined as comprising the whole of the
county of Merioneth with North Cardiganshire on the west, and the whole of
the counties of Montgomery and Radnor with the adjacent portions of Denbigh
and Brecknock on the east. The district thus belongs partly to North, and
partly to South Wales, but I need scarcely remind my present audience that in
the region of dialectal investigation this geographical distinction is quite
irrelevant, since many of the dialectal phenomena popularly |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0359) |
(x14) 14 SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES. supposed to be specially characteristic of South Wales are found to exist
equally in a large portion of Montgomery and Merioneth also. This is the ease
with respect to two of the three points I propose to consider this evening,
viz., the South Welsh pronunciation of
u and initial chw. As to the
third point, the palatalized or so-called “narrow” pronunciation of long a, I hope to show that any attempt to
discriminate between North and South Wales in this connexion would be
especially misleading, since this pro- nunciation was in its origin
characteristic of the border country of Mid and South Wales alike. I proceed to describe, in the first place, the northern boundary of
what is known as the South Welsh pronunciation of u (y), as in bu, llys, ufudd, hyn; that is to say,
the pronunciation which makes no distinction between i and u. Starting from
the coast near Tonfannau Station on the Cambrian Railway, this boundary-line
runs through Rhoslefain and Llanegryn, then passes to the south of
Abergynolwyn, and crosses the hill to Esgairgeiliog; thence leaving Corris
and Aberllefenni to the north, it runs down Cwmllecoediog to Aberangell. From
this place to Llanerfyl in the valley of the Banw, the boundary-line is
formed by the watershed which separates the valley of the Banw and those of
its tributaries from the valleys watered by the tributaries of the Dovey.
From Llanerfyl the line crosses the ridge between the Banw and the Vyrnwy
(here also called the Bechan), passes between Pont Dolanog and Pont Robert,
and then, leaving Llwydiarth and Llanfihangel-yng-Nghwynfa well to the north,
follows the watershed between the Vyrnwy and the Cain to Llansaintffraid,
where the English-speaking portion of Montgomeryshire is reached.
Llansaintffraid itself is for the most part English-speaking, but so far as
can be ascertained, the South Welsh pronunciation of u predominates |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0360) |
(x15) DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES
IN MID-WALES. 15 among those of the place
who still speak Welsh. Where in the above
statement the boundary-line is said to pass through a village it is meant
that the pronunciation of the vowel u
is found to be mixed, either in the sense that some of the inhabitants use
the S.W. vowel, and some the N.W. vowel, as is the case at Rhoslefain and
Bwlchycibau; or that an intermediate vowel, very like the ordinary English
(short) i, is used, as is the case
at Llanerfyl. There can be no doubt that
the area of the S.W. vowel is spreading northward. This is partly due the
spread of a knowledge of English, since careless bilingual speakers will not
trouble to distinguish sufficiently between the English i and the N.W. u. The
influence of the school often reinforces this tendency. Children who have
been taught in their English reading lesson to pronounce the English sit
correctly, tend to pronounce the Welsh
sut in precisely the same way, unless they have been systematically
drilled in the difference between the two sounds. But the spread of the S.W.
vowel is also due the influence of certain market-towns, such as Machynlleth
and Towyn. For instance, although in the above statement I have placed Corris
distinctly within the N.W. area, a tendency to use the S.W. vowel is to be
clearly traced among the younger inhabitants of the place. This is
undoubtedly due to the fact that the railway has brought the Corris people of
late years into much closer touch with Machynlleth, while their connexion
with Dolgelly has been proportionately weakened. I come now to the
pronunciation of initial chw as wh, i.e., as a voiceless w
plus an aspirate. On the western side of the country the northern boundary of
this pronunciation is a little difficult to fix with precision, as the ch |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0361) |
(x16) 16 DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES. before w is, in the district
of Aberdovey and Machynlleth, pronounced so weak as to approximate to the
S.W. sound, which frequently replaces In Machynlleth itself the S.W. sound
predominates, though not to the exclusion of the standard pronunciation,
which persists especially in an intervocalic position, as in tri a chwech. The influence of
literary Welsh also tends in favour of the introduction of the N.W. sound, even
where it is not native. For example, the N.W. sound is heard at Llanbrynmair,
but I am nevertheless convinced that the S.W. pronunciation is the normal one
at this place. This mixed pronunciation extends right up the Dovey valley as
far as Aberangell, from which point onwards the boundary-line becomes practically
coincident with that between the N. and S. pronunciations of u. There is always fringe of country,
however, to the north of the u-line,
where the ch is very indistinctly
pronounced. Thus, at Hafod in the parish of Llanerfyl, at Llangadfan, Pont Dolanog,
Llwydiarth and Llanfihangel, and again at Llanfyllin and Llanfechain in the
valley of the Cain, a weak ch is
usual. It is not, until we reach such places as Garthbeibio, Llanwddyn, Hirnant,
Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnaut, that a full and distinct chw is pronounced, as in Carnarvonshire or North Merionethshire.
Places on the u-line tend to the
South Welsh rather than the North Welsh pronunciation of chw; at Llanerfyl, for example, the weak ch sometimes heard appears to be exceptional. South and east of the
u-line, e.g., at Pont Robert, Llanfair Caereinion, Meifod, the N. W.
pronunciation of chw is never heard
in colloquial Welsh. I have now to describe the geographical limits within which “narrow”
long (as in glās, māes) prevails
in Mid-Wales. Both the northern and, up to a certain point, the southern
boundaries of this dialectal district are |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0362) |
(x17) comparatively easy to define, as they are for the most part
coincident with natural boundaries, such as watersheds or rivers. |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0363) |
(x18) evidence, which
is often meagre enough for the purpose, the Wye now becomes the boundary,
certainly as far as Builth, though the degree of palatalization is here
slight. The line then turns southward in the direction Brecon, where Llanfaes
is pronounced (Lanvēs). I am
unable to indicate precisley the direction of the boundary-line from this
point to the borders of Gwent and Morgannwg. But the enquiries I have made
leave no doubt on my mind that the palatalized pronunciation of long a, here equivalent to (ē). is normal in the
pronunciation Welsh place-names over the whole of English-speaking
Breconshire between the Wye and the Usk. This point appears to have been
missed by previous writers on the subject, and it is of course of great
importance, since the gap is thus bridged over between the two great
dialectal regions in which the narrow long a has been recognized as prevailing, namely, the Mid-Wales region
on the one hand, and that of Gwent and Morgannwg on the other. It therefore
follows that this this be regarded as the normal pronunciation of Welsh long a all along the border from Oswestry
to the mouth of the Wye. It should be added that a palatalized pronunciation
of ā (or āe) occurs sporadically in names of places which lie as far
outside the above defined area as, e.g.,
Llandovery, Aberystwyth, and Cardigan. |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0364) |
(x19) vowel-sound in E. care (y giēth
vēch).
Finally, over the whole of the anglicised portion of the district, it is a
close e-sound, like the vowel-sound
in E. Kate, when pronounced as a
monophthong, e.g., Vronlas (vronlēs), Maesmawr (mēsmor). The development of this
close e from the open e of the Welsh-speaking districts is
probably to be regarded as a purely English phenomenon. The same may be true
of the short (æ) as in man, which
is used in Radnorshire. There is no trace of this short (æ) in any Welsh-speaking
district, except in the solitary instance of mam, where presumably the palatalization has either been caused,
or preserved, by habitual collocations such as “tad a mam”, “mam bach” (mæm bǣch,
mem bēch). Short (æ) appears to be equally unknown to the dialect
of tho English-speaking districts of Montgomeryshire. The Severn valley
pronunciation of cat, catch, is
consistently (kiat, kiatsh),* |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0365) |
(x20) in the parts of the
district where Welsh died out earliest, the broad sound is preserved in
place-names in the first element of ae,
though the simple vowel has the narrow pronunciation. Examples from different
points along the border are: — Porth-y-Waen near Oswestry, Caegweision in the
parish of Kinnerley, Cae-gwy in the parish of Churchstoke, Maes-y-crwyn in
the parish of Chirbury, Maes-gwaster near Knighton (on the Salop side of the
border). In the foregoing examples, which it will be noticed are nearly all
from Shropshire, the ae is
diphthongally pronounced, viz., as (ai). Some instances from Radnorshire, on
the other hand, simplify the diphthong into ā; e.g., Maesgwyn
(two miles east of Llanbadarn-fynydd) pronounced (Mās-gwin), Blaencwm in
the parish of Llangynllo, pronounced (Blānkwm). Blaen-y-plwyf (blain
-plwiv or blein plwiv) in the parish of Bleddfa, retains the diphthongal
sound, but the occurrence of Cae Huw with the simple front vowel (k’ē)
in the same neighbourhood, suggests that the word meant is really Blaenau
plwyf, and if so, the treatment of the ae in the penultimate, where of course
the first element of the diphthong is not long, would be quite normal;
compare the pronunciation of Llaethty (leiti), commonly spelt Llaithdu, in the parish of
Llanbadarn-fynydd. In an unaccented position the diphthong ae frequently becomes a short
monophthong (æ): thus Blaen-y-cwm in the parish of Llandewy Ystradenny, where
blaen is pronounced (bl *Compare the following shortenings of the simple
vowel from the English-speaking region near Oswestry: Caeglas (Kaiglăs)
in Oswestry, Plas Griffith, Plas gwyn (Plăzgriffith, Plăzgwín), in
Whittington. |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0366) |
SOME DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES
IN MID-WALES 21 The instance of broad long a for ae from the neighbourhood of Llanbadarn Fynydd, given above, appears
to indicate that the palatalization of ae
is a very recent phenomenon, as the broad a
is only preserved in purely English-speaking districts, and the village of
Llanbadarn Fynydd, at any rate, did not become such until after the middle of
last century. The same conclusion is suggested by the occasional
pronunciation of ae as (ēĕ), which one hears from older people in the
Welsh-speaking districts of Mid-Wales. The tradition of the diphthong is, as
it were, preserved in this pronunciation, the two elements, similar as they
are, not yet having had time to become fused. Before proceeding further,
it will be well to call special attention to the extent of country over which
the long palatalized a has been shown to exist. It is used in the greater
part of Glamorganshire, throughout the whole of the counties of Monmouth,
Radnor, and Montgomery, Over much of Brecknock and Merioneth, and it also
affects portions of Cardigan, Denbigh, and Salop. By far the greater part of
the population of Wales use it, either in their everyday speech, or at least
in their pronunciation of local place-names. Although large tracts of the
country over which it prevails have been lost to the Welsh language, it is
probably still the habitual and natural pronunciation of nearly half the
Welsh-speaking population of Wales and the Marches. It is clear that we have
here to do with a most important and widely spread dialectal phenomenon. In
fact there is no other divergence from the normal Welsh sound-system of
anything like the same degree of importance, with the possible exception of
the two points we have already considered, namely, the i (for u) and hw (for chw) of South Wales. My reason for insisting upon the importance
of the long narrow a will be
evident in connexion with the discussion of the question |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0367) |
(x22) — to which I now
proceed — as to the period when this long palatal a was developed. It has hitherto been
assumed that the palatalization of long a, at any rate in Mid-Wales, is very
old, dating in fact to a period anterior to the earliest written monuments in
the Welsh language. I am heterodox enough to believe, on the contrary, that
it is not older than the 17th century. My reasons are, briefly, that prior to
that century, there is an entire absence of evidence of its existence, either
in the history of the language, or in the literature, or in the statements of
grammatical and phonetic authorities. I proceed in the first
place to give some reasons for supposing it to have been unknown to Old and
Medieval Welsh. Sometime before the 8th
century, all original long a's in
Welsh (in accentuated syllables, at all events) had become aw. The dialects of Mid-Wales formed
no exception to this rule. Here, as elsewhere, the old Welsh long a, whether native or borrowed, is
consistently represented aw, as in brawd, fffawd. Nor does the first
element of this diphthong, in its present day pronunciation, shew any sign of
palatalization, except only in open monosyllables, as llaw, rhaw, etc., where the first element was lengthened later,
and so became subject to the same influences as have affected the simple long
vowel. We find, then, no trace of
the palatalization of long a in
Mid-Wales up to the 8th century. At some time after the
change of original long a to aw was completed, or at least well
advanced, a new set of long a's
came into existence in Welsh, owing to the lengthening of original short a
before certain consonants, such as s, d;
e.g., glas, tad. But this
lengthening took place only in monosyllables, the original short quality of |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0368) |
(x23) the vowel being
preserved in all other cases: thus we have Glăscwm and Gwenlăs
corresponding to glās, tădau corresponding
to tād. The new long a's were also reinforced by the
introduction of Norman-French or English words containing long a, as plās. These foreign long a's
accommodated themselves in all respects to the native rule of correspondence between
longs and shorts, so that while the a
of plas retained its length in the
monosyllabic singular plās, it
became short in the dissyllabic plural plăsau. This law of correspondence
between long and short vowels was probably established early, though I am not
aware that we have the means of fixing the date with any approximation to
accuracy. It was, however, fully carried out in the Middle Welsh period. The
point of importance for my present purpose is that whensoever this
correspondence was established, the development of narrow long a in Mid-Wales or elsewhere must have
been posterior to it. The lengthening of short broad a in glas can only (at
first) have given long broad a, and
not a narrow long a, such us is
heard in Mid and South-East Wales. Again, the shortening of the vowel in plas must have taken place while it
was still broad, or we should have had a narrow short a in plasau. But the
correspondence of long narrow a
with short broad a in spoken Welsh
is, in the district under consideration, complete. The conclusion we are
entitled to draw from these phonetic considerations is that the development
of long narrow a must be at any rate later than the First Middle Welsh
period. This conclusion is
confirmed by the absence, so far as has been ascertained, of all trace of the
long narrow a, whether as a
monophthong or as the first element in a diphthong, in Mediaeval Welsh
literature. I do not claim my such first-hand acquaintance with this
literature as |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0369) |
(x24) would justify me in
speaking with confidence on this point of my own knowledge; but I am unable
to discover by enquiry from Welsh scholars that any mediaeval poet who wrote
in the districts which now use the narrow long a, shows any trace of this pronunciation, either in spelling or
rhyme. Now leaving the middle ages
behind us, we come to the 16th century, where at length we find something in
the nature of positive evidence that the long narrow a was then unknown in
Wales. Our first witness shall be William Saleshury. In “A playne and a
familiar introduction, teaching how to pronounce the letters in the Brytishe
tongue, now commonly called Welshe... Set forth by W. Salesbury, 1550. And
now, 1557, pervsed and augmented by the same:” we find the following
statement, under the heading “The pronounciation of a.” “A in the British in euerye
word hath ye true pronounciation of a in
Latine. And it is neuer sounded like the diphthong au as the Frenchmen sounde it commynng before m or n, in theyr toungue, nor so fully in the mouth as Germaynes sound
it in this woord wagen, .... But as
I sayd before a in Welsh hath
alwayes but one sound, what so euer letter it folow or go before, as in these
wordes ap, cap, whych haue the same
pronounciation and signification in both the tongues” — i.e., in Welsh and English. The identification of the
Welsh vowel with the Latin a, its slight differentiation from the German a in wagen, and finally its identification with the a of contemporary English
pronunciation, all make it certain that Salesbury's Welsh a was the broad guttural a of North Wales, and that he knew no
other. In the “litle treatyse of the |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0370) |
(x25) englyshe
pronounciation of the letters” which he prefixed to his Dictionary, published
in 1547, he had already stated the identity of the English and Welsh a as follows:— “A Seisnic sydd vn natur ac
(a) gymreic / val y may yn eglur yn y geirieu hyn o saesnec ale/aal: ac
ymhymraec kwrw; pale/paal: sale/saal.” I need scarcely remind the
members of this learned Society that at the time Salesbury wrote, and for
some time after, the English long a
retained its mediaeval value, that is, it was identical with the a of French,
Italian and Spanish. This is made quite certain by the statements of
contemporary authorities. It is also a necessary inference from the present
pronunciation in Welsh of those borrowed words, the date of the introduction
of which can be assigned with certainty to the Elizabethan period, such as tatws. A pronunciation such as
(potētoz) could only have given tetws
in Welsh, and not tatws. Salesbury, then, clearly
knew nothing of the long narrow a.
This, perhaps, would prove little as to its existence or otherwise, if we
were not able to point to the fact that Salesbury was an acute and precise
observer of phonetic and dialectal differences. In the treatises from which I
have already quoted he does actually make a point of noting variations from
standard pronunciation, both in Welsh and English, See his remarks in the
“litle treatyse “, s.v. gh* * “A vegys y mayn anhowddgar gan saeson glywed rhwnck
y llythyr hon gh / velly may Kymbry deheubarth yn gwachel son am ch, ond
lleiaf gallant. Can ti ay klywy hwy yn dywedyt hwaer a hwech lle ddym ni o
ogledd kymbry yn dywedyt chwaer a chwech.” and l (ll),* * “Ond yn rhyw wledydd yn lloecr val w y traythant l
/ ac ll mewn rhyw eirieu val hyn bowd yn lle bold: bw dros bull / caw dros
cal. Ond nid yw fath ddywediat onid llediaith / ac nid peth yw ddylyn oni
vynny vloysci y gyd a bloyscon.” and in the “Introduction”, |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0371) |
(x26) s.v. ch, f *, * “I my selfe haue heard Englysh men in some countries of England sound
f, euen as we sound it in Welsh. For I haue marked their maner of pronounciation,
and speciallye in soundinge these woordes: voure, vine, disvigure, vish, vox:
where they would say, foure, fine, disfigure, fish, fox, &c.” and u.’ * * Therefore who so euer wyll distynctlye learne the
Welsh sound of u let hym once gette care to a Northern Welsh man, whan he
speaketh in Welsh, the wordes that signifie in English obedient (or) chaff
singlerly: whyche be these in Welshe, uvudd, usun... Thys u is more in vre wyth vs of North Wales than
wyth theim of the South parteis; whose wryters abuse it, whan they wryte
thus, un yn for yn un.” (All the above quotations from Salesbury, as also
those given later from Wallis and Cooper, are copied from Ellis’ “Early
English Pronunciation.) His observations on the
Southwalian pronunciation of u and chw are especially significant in this
respect, for, important as these dialectal phenomena undoubtedly were, they
were, if anything, less likely to strike Salesbury’s atTention than the long
narrow a, if it existed. Assuming
it that it did exist, and had reached its present limits, it not only
occupied all the most accessible parts of Wales, but was actually used within
Salesbury’s own county of Denbigh. The presumption is therefore as strong as
it well could be that, as Salesbury is silent about any such pronunciation of
the long a, it did not then exist. A similar line of argument
is applicable to a passage in Dr. John David Rhys’ Cambro-Brytannicae Cymraecaeve Linguae Institutiones et Rudimenta (London,
1592), to which my attention was first called by Professor Anwyl. Speaking of
the letter a the author says (p.
7): “Hanc literam cymraei, oris
rictu mediocriter hiante, spiritusque conatu decoro et venusto, moderata
etiam vocis tum claritate, tum apertione pronunciant. “Cymraece igitur hoc elementum
proferre volenti, non minus A clausi crassive vitandus est obscurior sonus,
quam eius qui vel ab impense constrictis bronchi musculis formatur angustus
nimis |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0372) |
(x27) exilisque, et
puerirum vagitui non absimilis, vel qui a plus iusto nonnullorum affectata et
effeminata oris diductione audiri solet. “Itali praesertim Hetrusci
tum vernacle tum Latine loquentes, omnium optime hoc cymraecum, apertum et
clarum A proferunt, quod olim a nobis.... observatum est. . . “Angli istud A fere edunt
in vocibus Pale, ale, sale, wan, pan,
phan, &c. at non in vocibus hall, shall, call, mall: ubi A ante ll
geminatum crassius auditur: neque in dictionibus quibus mulierculae nonnullae
& puellae anglicanae nimis anguste ipsum A expediunt, quum pro shame shæme, pro marie mærie, pro Jane Iæne,
pro James Iæmes, pro chamber chæmber, etc., pronunciant.” The author’s description of
the Welsh a in the first paragraph
above quoted is hardly precise enough to satisfy a modern phonetician: nor is
the identity of the three sounds with which he proceeds to contrast it clear
beyond a doubt, though I think the sounds he probably had in mind were what
Dr. Sweet would call low-back-narrow,
low-front-wide, and low-back-wide
respectively. When, however, he tells us that the “clear, open Welsh a” was pronounced precisely as in
Latin and Italian, we know that we are following a safe guide: for John David
Rhys was a famous scholar both in Latin and Italian, and had resided long in
Italy, where he had taken his Doctor’s decree at the University of Sienna,
and had even written a learned book in Italian. His testimony, therefore, as
to the identity of the Welsh with the Italian a is unimpeachable. He recognises no other pronunciation of a in
Welsh; the normal English a, he
tells us, is practically the same, though he does mention, with a fine
scholarly contempt, another pronunciation, affected by a few women and girls
in England, in which the a was
being modified in the direction of e.
Now, assuming that the
palatalized pronunciation of long a
in Mid and South-East Wales was then in existence, is it conceivable that
John David Rhys should not have been aware of it, and being aware of it,
should not have mentioned it? It must be borne in mind that the |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0373) |
28 SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES. greater part of the years during
which he resided in Wales were spent in, or in close touch with, the very
region where the palatalized pronunciation is now in vogue. His childhood and
part of his adult life were passed at St. Donat's, in Glamorganshire. He
composed the major part of his Welsh Grammar at the house of Morgan Meredith,
near Beguildy, in Radnorshire, where he was frequent and a welcome guest. At
other times he lived on his own little property at Clun Hir, near the Brecon
Beacons.* * “A'mwyaf parth o'r llyfr yma a fyfyriwyd ac a
feddyliwyd yn gyntaf, ynn Nhy y Pendefic M. Morgan Meredydd o ymyl y Bugeildy
ynn Nyffryn Tafida o fywn Swydd Faesyfed: ynn y lle lawer gwaith y bu fawr fy
nghroeso, a'm hansawdd o fwyt a llyn, gan y gwrda a'r 'wreicdda. Eithr
diweddbarth y Llyfr hynn, a fyfyriwyd dann berthi a dail gleision mywn gronyn
o fangre i mi fyhunan a elwir y Clun Hir, ym mlaen Cwmm y Llwch, a thann
Odreuon Mynydd Ban-nwchdéni. Rhai a eilw y Mynydd hynn (Bann Arthur) eraill
(Moel Arthur)." Address to the Welsh people, prefixed to the
above-mentioned work. He must therefore have been
familiar with the palatal pronunciation of long a, if it existed, from a child, and it must, one would think,
have seemed to him the normal and correct pronunciation. Let us suppose,
however, that he was led to reject his native pronunciation in favour of one
which appealed to him as being more in harmony with Italian and English modes
of speech. Is it in that case likely that he would have failed to condemn the
despised pronunciation, when used by others of his fellow-countrymen? We have
seen that he does condemn a similar fashion of speech on English lips, though
only used by a few women and girls. How, while seeing so clearly the mote in
the eye of his English neighbours, could he have neglected to point out the
beam that was in his countrymen's eye? It is fairer to conclude that the beam
did not exist. It may serve to confirm the
conclusions we have already |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0374) |
29 SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES MID-WALES. reached, if we briefly
mention the fact that Dr. Davies, of Mallwyd, writing in the very heart of
what is now the district of: the palatal a,
makes no mention of it, though his reference on p. 3 of his Grammar to the
South Welsh treatment of chw shows
him to have been not unobservant of dialectal distinctions. Both in his
Grammar and his Dictionary, he equates Welsh a with Latin a, without
further explanation. Thus down to the end of the 16th century, and even for
some years later, there is no sign of the narrow long in Welsh. But when we
get to the middle of the 17th century, we at last begin to come upon its
traces. I have now to invite your attention to the statements made about the
pronunciation of the Welsh a by two
of the most famous English phoneticians of the seventeenth century, viz.,
John Wallis, author of the Grammatica
Lingvae Anglicanae (1st ed., 1653), and C. Cooper, author of a work with
the same title, published in 1685. Treating of the palatal
vowels, Wallis says about a: -
“Majori apertura formatur Anglorum a,
hoc est a exile. Quale auditur in
vocibus, bat, vespertilio; bate,
discordia; pal, palla Epis-
copalis: pale, pallidus; Sam (Samuelis contractio); same, idem; lamb, agnus; lame, claudus;
dam, mater (brutorum); dame, domina; bar, vectis; bare,
nudus; ban, execror: bane, pernicies, etc....
Cambro-Britanni, hoc sono solent suum a
pronunciare." Cooper's remarks, so far as
they concern us, are to much the same effect:— “A formatur à medio linguae
ad concavum palati paululum elevato.... In his can, possum, pass by, a
corripitur, in cast, jacio, past, pro passed praeteritus, producitur. Frequentisgimus auditur hic sonus
apud Anglos, qui semper hoc modo pronunciant a latinum, in amabam.
Sic etiam apud Cambro-Britannos....” In the passages just
quoted, Wallis and Cooper agree in describing the English short a as a palatal vowel, and there can be
no reasonable doubt that the sound they both indicate is (æ). This
sound, the ordinary Southern |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0375) |
30 DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES IN
MID-WALES. short a as in that, is a very
old one in English. It was the normal representative of Germanic short a in Old English times, and can be
traced in Southern speech as late as the middle of the 14th century. We then
lose sight of it for a time, though it doubtless continued to be used in the
spoken English of the South. The standard English dialect, however, preferred
the broad a still used in the
Midlands and the North of England. The latter is the sound recognised by
Salesbury, John David Rhys, and other writers of the 16th century. But
sometime during that century came in the tendency towards the palatalization
of English a referred to in the passage already quoted from J. D. Rhys, and
under the influence of this tendency short (a) was in the 17th century
deposed favour cf (æ): (ðæt) again became the standard
pronunciation, as it had been before the Conquest. A long (ǣ), exactly corresponding in quality, was used in
Wallis' time in such words as bate
(bǣt). By Cooper's time the a in bate had become an
open e, (bēt); but (ǣ) was used in such words as cast, barge, path, which
are now pronounced by educated Southern English speakers with the broad (ä)
.* *This long (ǣ) was
developed from original short (æ) before certain consonants and consonantal
combinations, and hence it never affected those English dialects which did
not use the short (æ). Similarly we find such words as father, cast, cart,
path, master, pronounced at the present time with the long (ǣ) in Radnorshire where the short (æ) is regularly
used, while the long (ǣ) is
unknown to the Montgomeryshire dialect of English, which uses the broad short
a. Now Wallis and Cooper both
proceed to state that this palatal English a, i.e. (æ) was also used in Welsh. Apparently, their statements
must be taken as referring to both the long and short vowel; to that we will
return directly. The important point to observe is that a palatal Welsh a which was unknown to Salesbury and
J. D. Rhys in the 16th century, and even to Dr. Davies, of Mallwyd, |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0376) |
SOME DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES IN
MID-WALES. 31 in the early part of the
17th, and made its appearance by the middle of the latter century. And as the
broad English a had developed in
the same direction at the same time, the inference is almost inevitable that the
two phenomena are connected together. My theory is that the
palatal a developed in both
languages pari passu in the mouths
of the bilingual speakers of the eastern border, and that its extension to
the Welsh hinterland was a gradual later process. The existence of a large
bilingual population on the eastern frontier of Mid and South Wales in the
17th century is scarcely open to doubt. It is equally certain that the
inferior of the country, with the exception of the market-towns, was almost
purely Welsh-speaking. John Penry's testimony, in his Humble Supplication (Oxford, 1587), is decisive for his own time
on both points. I quote the locus
classicus in full:— “Admit we cannot haue Welsh
preachers, yet let vs not be without English, where it is vnderstood. There
is neuer a market towne in Wales where English is not as rife as Welsh. From
Cheapstow to Westchester (the whole compasse of our land) on the Sea-side
they all vnderstand English. Where Munmoth & Radnock shiers border vppon
the marches, they all speake English. In Penbrok sheer no great store of
Welsh. Consider Anglisey, Mam-gymru,
Caernaruon, and see if all these people must dwel vpon mount Gerizzin and be
subiect to the curse, because they understand not the English toung.” The omission of any mention
of Brecknock in this passage is curious, unless we suppose that Radnock is an
error of the Oxford printer for “Radnor and Brecknock." It is more
probable, however, that Brecknock was in Penry's time shielded from
Anglicising influences by the fringe of Welsh-speaking country in
Herefordshire, and that its bilingual period began somewhat later. The two
Vaughans, born 1621 at Newton, in the parish of |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0377) |
32 SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES. Llansaintffraed,
Breconshire, spoke nothing but Welsh in their youth. The country about Hay
aud for some distance up the valley of the Wye, however, became Anglicised
early, and was probably in Penry's time as bilingual as Radnorshire. Welsh
was evidently loosening its hold at this time upon the borders of
Montgomeryshire, for Lord Herbert of Chirbury tells us that in 1592, when he
was a lad of ten, it was found necessary to send him to Plas-y-ward in
Denbighshire to learn Welsh, "to enable me to treat with those of my
friends and tenants who understood no other language.” The bilingual period,
however, lasted at other points of the border all through the 17th century.
Welsh services were not finally discontinued at Beguildy Church until about
1730. Vavasor Powell, who was born at Knucklas, certainly spoke Welsh, for
his license to preach, dated September 11th, 1646, sets forth that he was
authorised to “exercise his gifts in his own countrey of Wales, he also
having the language thereof". There is, however, little need to multiply
proofs of the existence of a bilingual belt of country along the border of
Mid and South Wales in the 17th century, since the very fact that a broad
strip of Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Monmouthshire, with probably a bit
of Brecknock, became exclusively English-speaking in the 18th century is
sufficient to shew that there must have been a preceding period of
considerable length during which the same districts were bilingual. Penry's account of the
linguistic condition of the interior of Wales tallies fully with the
statement of Salesbury forty years earlier, “odit o blwyf ynkymbry eb
Sasnigyddion ynthi," if we remember that Salesbury was thinking of
literate persons, and Penry of the unlearned many. There is evidence that
people throughout Wales were |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0378) |
SOME DIALECTAL IN
MID-WALES. 33 in the 17th century very
well acquainted with English, though we must not forget that Lord Herbert of
Chirbury had "friends as well as tenants", who understood only
Welsh. As to the mass of the Welsh people away from the borders, there seems
to be nothing to shew that English was better understood among them in the
17th century than in John Penry's time. But whatever the linguistic
condition of the interior may have been, there can be no doubt as to the
existence of a considerable bilingual population along the border of Mid and
South Wales in the seventeenth century; and these are precisely the
conditions under which a phonetic change, such as that with which we are now
concerned, would arise. It was not only natural, but inevitable, that a
sound, originally identical in both languages, should change on the lips of
bilingual people in one language when it began to change in the other. Such
changes are brought about by imperceptible degrees, and their beginnings are
not noticed. It is a matter of common experience that sounds which are
similar, though not identical, are with difficulty kept apart by uneducated
or half-educated bilingual speakers. It would be still more difficult for an
ordinary bilingual speaker to observe a very minute differentiation of two
sounds originally identical. Once the fashion of speech had established
itself among the bilinguals of the eastern border, the extent to which it
would affect their monoglot countrymen to the west would depend upon many
conditions, among which the direction of trade-routes and the influence of
market-towns would play an important part. There is, of course, no difficulty in
supposing that the palatalization of long a
spread over the Welsh- speaking back-country of Montgomery and Merioneth
during the period succeeding the 17th century. Fashions in |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0379) |
34 SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES. speech spread rapidly. This
very fashion did actually spread over the whole of England within the space
of a century. We have noted above that neither Wallis nor Cooper, in
asserting the identity of the Welsh with the English a, makes any distinction between the long and the short vowel. It
is possible that they may have had only the long vowel in mind; but it is not
necessary to assume this. As already stated, certain English-speaking border
districts of Mid-Wales which were bilingual in the 17th century do actually
use a palatal a (æ). The fact that all the Welsh-speaking, and some of the
English-speaking, districts which have adopted the long palatal vowel, show practically
no trace of a corresponding palatal short vowel, need not greatly trouble us.
Long vowels are much more prone to change than short ones; and in the absence
of evidence, it is equally easy to believe either that the palatalization of
short a never affected the monoglot
population of Wales, or that it affected them only temporarily. Those who
take the latter view will regard the solitary instance of mam as a survival
of a tendency which wag once more general. It may be asked how it was
that Wallis and Cooper give as Welsh without qualification a pronunciation
which on the theory just expounded was only used on the bilingual border. The
answer is that as neither of them, so far as is known, was personally
acquainted with Welsh, it was precisely from bilinguists that they must have
obtained their information; and that it did not concern their purpose to
enquire whether various pronunciations of the Welsh a might not exist. Another question which may
naturally be asked is whether other similar changes in Welsh vowel-sounds can
be shown to have taken place On the lips of bilingual speakers under similar
circumstances. Three cases suggest |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0380) |
SOME DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES
IN MID-WALES. 35 themselves for
consideration: viz., short w, as in
hwn, and the diphthongs ai, awe, as in craig, mawr. In
Salesbury's time the English equivalents of these sounds were u, as in cut, ai as in rain, and aw as in awe,
respectively. Since then, while the Welsh sounds have remained the same, the
corresponding English sounds have altered considerably, short u having been unrounded, and the two
diphthongs having been simplified into monophthongs. These cases are,
however, not quite parallel to the fronting of long a, for while the changes indicated were undoubtedly proceeding in
the 17th century in standard English, their operation in respect to
provincial dialects was partial and obscure. The unrounding of short E. u has not been even yet carried out in
the Northern and North Midland dialects: and in Herefordshire the diphthongal
pronunciation of ai, as in say, rain, is still heard. It may, however, be well to note such facts
as I have been able to ascertain with regard to the treatment of these three
sounds in the place-names of the English-speaking portion of the district of
the narrow a. Instances of the short w are hard to find; but in Knucklas (nәklәs),
= Cnwcglas, the unrounding has certainly taken place. In Bwlch the rounding
has been preserved by the analogy of English bull, full: e.g., Bwlch bach,
near Nantmel (bwlk bēk). The treatment of the diphthong aw is interesting. It is equated with
the English aw, as in awe, fall, by Salesbury. But in the next century the English diphthong
had been simplified by most spetakers into deep a-sound,* *The Northumbrian dialect preserves this sound
approximately: fall = (fâl) though Wallis implies that
the older diphthong was still used by others. By the end of the century the
diphthong had |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0381) |
36 SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES. disappeared, and the a-sound later on developed into the
present (ô). In accordance with these facts, we should expect the Welsh aw in place-names in East Radnorshire,
which was bilingual in the 17th century, to be pronounced as and this is
exactly what happens. Mawr is consistently so pronounced as (ô): e.g., Beili
Mawr (môr), Llanbadarn Fawr (vôr). Porthcawl and Brynmawr in South Wales are
pronounced with the vowel; but the late seventeenth-century stage of the
history of the sound has been preserved in the American Brynmawr (Brinmär).
Manaughty = Mynachty – a place-name which occurs twice in East Radnorshire -
is a specially instructive example. Here an u-sound was inserted before the guttural spirant, as was
regularly done in English; cp. taught
(O. E. tǣhte, M. E. tahte,
taughte). The diphthong thus formed then followed the normal English
development, and the guttural being also lost in the usual way, from
(Mynawchti) came (Mәnöti). The simplification of ai into e must have
been much later,* *But the simplification probably took place much
earlier in unaccented than in accentod syllables, since such a pronunciation
as (Kәrginant) for Craig-y-nant in Llanddewi Ystradenni could only have
come through an intermediate Cregynént. as the diphthongal
pronunciation is still used by some of the Older Radnorshire people, who say
(wai, rain) for way, rain; but ui is generally e in Radnor and the adjoining parts of Brecon, as I believe it is
also in many parts of Monmouth: thus Bryncraig
(crēg) in Llandewy, Graig (grēg)
in several places in Radnorshire, Parc y brain
(brēn) in Brecon. Rhayader, again, is locally pronounced
(rēadәr). It will be seen that the
above-mentioned facts, meagre though they are as a basis for positive
conclusions, involve nothing that would in the least invalidate the main
thesis of this paper, but confirm it as far as they go. |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0382) |
SOME DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES
IN MID-WALES. Let me now anticipate
another objection, which at first sight may appear a formidable one. It may
be asked why this fronting of a into
e, which was universal in England,
affected only a part of Wales, viz., the hmterland of the border between
Oswestry and Chepstow, and did not affect the hinterland of the border
between Chester and Oswestry. I do not think that this objection constitutes
a real diffeulty. In the first place, we hear remarkably little of
bilingualism on the eastern borders of Denbigh and Flint in the 17th century.
If a bilingual belt of country did exist there it was narrow and unimportant,
otherwise the inroads of the English language during the succeeding century
would have been as extensive in Denbigh and Flint as they undoubtedly were in
Montgomery, Radnor. Hereford and Monmouth. All available evidence goes to
show that in the 17th century English monoglottism marched closely with Welsh
monoglottism all along the fringe of the two northern shires, just as it has
continued to do almost down to our own day. But even if the linguistic
conditions prevailing in the 16th and 17th centuries could be shown to have
been uniform along the whole Welsh border, a study of certain phenomena
exhibited by the Cheshire dialect of English will suggest a very plausible
reason why Denbigh and Flint should have been otherwise affected than the
more southerly Welsh counties. Let me remind you that the
chief characteristic of the modern English vowel-shift, so far as it concerns
the series ā, ē, ē, ī is that the last of the series, i, became a diphthong, and that then each remaining vowel of the
series shifted one or more places to the right, each place as it became
vacant being filled up by the vowel standing to the left of it in the above
order. Thus, after the ī of
M. E. wīn had become diphthong, M. E. seme (ē) passed |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0383) |
38 SOME DIALECTAL
BOUNDARIES IN MID-WALES. into (sīm); M. E. seam (ē) passed through (sēm)
and also became (sīm); and finally M. E. same (ä) passed through (sēm) into (sēm). An analogous process has taken place in
connexion with the series ō, ō, ū. Now one of the most
remarkable peculiarities of the Cheshire dialect consists in this, that while
it has in respect of this vowel-shift proceeded generally along the same
lines of development as standard English, its vowel-sounds are in every case
one stage in advance of those of the latter. Thus seme not only reached the form (sīm),
but passed on into the diphthongal (seim); seam has also, through several intermediate stages, reached the
diphthongal (seiәm); same has
passed through the forms (sēm) and (sēm) into (sīm). The guttural series ō, ō, ū, has been analogously affected. Owing to the fact that the
phonology of English dialects has only in very recent times become the
subject of precise investigation, it is of course impossible to say with
certainty that the relative positions of the Cheshire dialect, and of
standard English speech were the same in the 16th century as they are to-day,
or as they were a hundred years ago, by which time the vowel-system of
Cheshire had reached its present condition. But the probabilities are that
they were; and if so, that means that the change of ā into ē was well advanced in the
Cheshire dialect before the end of the 16th century. In other words, the ā-sound had ceased to exist On the English side of
the Flint and Denbigh border before any considerable portion of the
Welsh-speaking inhabitants of that border became bilingual, and therefore its
later modification in the direction of ē
could exert no influence on the Welsh speech of the latter. It is necessary to add that
what I have for convenience sake here called the Cheshire dialect really
includes, for |
|
|
|
|
(delwedd B0384) |
SOME DIALECTAL BOUNDARIES
IN MID-WALES. 39 all the purposes of the
argument, most of the English-speaking portions of Denbigh and Flint. The
particular phenomenon which concerns us here, viz., the change of M.E. ā
into (i) has not, I believe, been observed further south than Hanmer, but its
range may have at one time extended still further to the south and
south-west. Dialect boundaries tend to shift owing to a variety of external
causes, and the influence of Shropshire habits of speech on this part of
Flintshire is at the present time very noticeable. |
|
|
|
Sumbolau:
a A / æ Æ / e E / ɛ
Ɛ / i I / o O / u U / w W / y Y /
MACRON: ā Ā / ǣ Ǣ / ē Ē / ɛ̄ Ɛ̄ / ī Ī / ō Ō / ū Ū / w̄ W̄
/ ȳ Ȳ /
BREF: ă Ă / ĕ Ĕ / ĭ Ĭ / ŏ Ŏ / ŭ Ŭ
/ B5236: 
B5237: 
ˡ ɑ ɑˑ aˑ a: / æ æ: / e eˑe: / ɛ ɛ: / ɪ
iˑ i: / ɔ oˑ o: / ʊ uˑ u: / ə
/ ʌ /
ẅ Ẅ / ẃ Ẃ / ẁ Ẁ / ŵ Ŵ /
ŷ Ŷ / ỳ Ỳ / ý Ý / ɥ
ˡ ð ɬ ŋ
ʃ ʧ θ ʒ ʤ
/ aɪ ɔɪ əɪ uɪ ɪʊ aʊ ɛʊ əʊ
/
ә
ʌ
ẃ ă ĕ ĭ ŏ ŭ ẅ ẃ ẁ Ẁ ŵ ŷ ỳ Ỳ
wikipedia, scriptsource. org
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ǣ
---------------------------------------
Y TUDALEN HWN /THIS PAGE / AQUESTA PÀGINA: www.kimkat.org/amryw/1_cymraeg/cymraeg_tafodieitheg_darlington_canolbarth_1901_2483e.htm
---------------------------------------
Created / Creuwyd / Creada: ??
Latest Update / Adolygiad diweddaraf / Darrera Actualització: 29-08-2017, 04-06-2006
Images / Delweddau / Imatges:
Source / Ffynhonell / Font:
|
Freefind: |
Ble'r wyf i? Yr ych chi'n ymwéld ag un o dudalennau'r
Wefan CYMRU-CATALONIA
On sóc? Esteu visitant una pàgina de la Web CYMRU-CATALONIA (=
Gal·les-Catalunya)
Where am I? You are visiting a page from the CYMRU-CATALONIA (= Wales-Catalonia)
Website
Weə-r äm ai? Yüu äa-r víziting ə peij fröm dhə CYMRU-CATALONIA
(= Weilz-Katəlóuniə) Wébsait