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INTRODUCTION
ORIGIN AND GENERAL HISTORY
§ 1. i. The Welsh Language is a member of the Keltic branch of the Aryan
(also called the Indo-European or Indo-Germanic) family of languages.
The languages of this great family are classified as follows, names of
branches' and groups being printed in spaced type :
(1) Indian, comprising (a) Sanskrit; (V) Prakrit dialects, from which are
descended numerous modem languages in India.
(2) Iranian : (a) Avestic (East Iranian, also called Zend or Old Bactrian) ;
(&) Old Persian (West Iranian), later Pehlevi; (o) Modern Persian.
(3) Armenian.
(4) Greek, which comprises many dialects, the most important being (ff)
Ionic-Attic ; (&) Doric ; (c) Aeolic : Lesbian, Thessalian, Boeotian ;
(d) Arcadian and Cyprian; (e) Pamphylian.
(5) Albanian.
(6) Italic : (a) Latin, from which are derived the modern Romance languages ;
(6) Os-can, Umbrian.
(7) Keltic: (ff) the Q division, consisting of dialects in Gaul
and Spain,
and the Goidelic group, comprising Irish, Scotch Gaelic and Manx ; (6) the P
division, consisting of Gaulish, and the British group, comprising Welsh,
Cornish and Breton.
(8) Germanic ; (a) Gothic ; (6) the Norse group, including i. Swedish,
Gutnish, Danish; 1. Norwegian, Icelandic; (c) the West-Germanic group,
including i. Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), now English ; Frisian; Old Saxon,
now Low German ;
Dutch, Flemish ; a. Old High German, now German.
(9) Baltic-Slavonic: («) the Baltic group : Old Prussian, Lithuanian,
Letti&h ; (b) the Slavonic group: Old Bulgarian;
Russian, Bulgarian, Illyrian ; Czech, Sorabian, Polish, Polabian.
(10) Tocharish, recently discovered in East Turkestan.
1(02 B
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3 INTRODUCTION
ii. All these languages are descended from a common ancestor called the Aryan
parent language. Primitive Aryan, or briefly Aryan. Similarly, the languages
of each branch may be referred to a common parent called Primitive Keltic,
Primitive Italic, Primitive Germanic, etc., as the case may be. Some of the
above branches are perhaps to be regarded rather as groups; Indian and
Iranian are often classified together as the Indo-Iranian branch ; and the
common features of Keltic and Italic are such as to render it certain that
the two branches were united and shared the same development for a period
after their separation from the others; hence we may classify them together
as Italo-Keltic; see § 86 ii (2), § 113 i (3), § 147 iv (a), § 203 vii (3).
iii. Our earliest knowledge of the various languages varies widely in point
of date, and naturally those of which we possess the most ancient records on
the whole bring us nearest the fountain head. But the Baltic group, of which
our knowledge is only recent, are of a remarkably archaic character;
Lithuanian, whose earliest text is dated 1547, and which has changed
comparatively little since, preserves to this day some forms which are
practically identical with those which we have to postulate for Primitive
Aryan itself.
From the cradle of Aryan speech various tribes migrated at different periods
in different directions, establishing themselves in distant lands, in which
their speech prevailed, though the aborigines cannot have been exterminated,
since the Speakers of Aryan languages in historical times belong to many
races, and it is still matter of dispute which of these has the best claim to
be regarded as representing the original Aryans. The dispersion commenced not
earlier than about 2000 B.C. according to Hirt, Die Indogermanen 22. The
centre of dispersion is now generally believed to have been somewhere in Europe.
A parent language is not necessarily isolated; analogy rather suggests the
contrary. As Latin, which is the parent of the Eomance languages, is derived
from Aryan and allied to the other Aryan languages, so Aryan itself must be
derived from some remote ancestor, and it is improbable that it is the only
descendant of it which survived. Sweet, by a comparison of the pronominal and
verbal forms of Aryan and Ugriau, has made out a strong case for supposing
that the two families are allied; see his History of Language pp. 112 ft. On
the other side Mol]er,in his Semitisch und Indogermanisch i (1907), has
compared the consonant sounds of Aryan in detail with those of Semitic, and
in KZ. xlii 174 ff. the vowels; and claims to have proved their derivation
from a common source. But none of these affinities can yet be regarded as
established.
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INTRODUCTION
§ 2. In the oldest forms of Goidelic found in the ogam inscriptions,
Primitive Keltic qu from Aryan qu remains; but in the oldest British it had
already become p, and it is p in Gaulish. Traces of a Keltic qu language in
Gaul are seen in names like Sequani; and in some recently discovered
inscriptions further evidence of the survival of such a language is believed
to have been found. As the change of qu to p is the earliest sound-change
known which is not common to the whole branch, it seems reasonable to
classify the Keltic languages as above § 1 i (7).
The more usual classification adopted in recent years is that in which the
Keltic languages are grouped into " insular " and "
continental". But this is a negation of all classification; it is as if
we were to group together English and Icelandic as insular Germanic!
Thurneysen now calls it a "geographic" classification (Gr. i),
which is equivalent to saying that it is no classification at all. It arose
out of the view put forward in Khys's LWPh.2 (1879) pp. 16 ff. that the
language of the 'ogam inscriptions in Wales is an old form of Welsli.
Thurneysen, KR. (1884) pp. 7 ff., adopts this view; dismisses Rhys's later
view, CB. (1884) p. 215, that the ogams are Irish; and concludes that, as the
ogams have q", the change q* > p in British is much later than the
same change in Gaulish. Of course, if the ogams, are Welsh, there was no
difference in the 5th cent. between Welsh and Irish, and both differed from
Gaulish, which alone had p. Hence the classification into insular and
continental. But the assumption on which it is based is groundless ; no one
now holds that the ogams are Welsh.
If it is denied that a systematic classification of the groups is possible,
it would be better to take them separately than to adopt a classification
which implies a close relationship between Goidelic and British. But there
seems no sufficient reason for separating British from Gaulish. It is now
admitted that Brit. p from q"< is ancient; and it is extremely
improbable that this p developed independently of Gaulish /). Tacitus,
Agricola xi, tells us tliat the speech of the Britons differed little from
that of the Gauls. The Gaulish forms IIei/i/o-oDivS-os, Vindomag(os), amhact(os),
Voretovir(os) are identical with the British forms which we have to postulate
as the originals of the "Welsh •penwyn ' white-headed ', gwynfa '
paradise', amaeth ' serf', gwaredwr ' saviour'. It is for those who would
separate British and Gaulish to prove that Tacitus was wrong.
For
the continental Q* dialect or group of dialects various names have been
suggested, as Scquanian (Nicholson), Pictavian, Geltican (Rhys), Ligurian
(Jullian). The language of the Coligny calendar contains both qu and p ; but
whether tlie latter is secondary, or borrowed from Gaulish, or represents
Aryan p, cannot yet be decided, since independent evidence as to meaning is
lacking. The presence of Ar. p, if proved, would constitute these dialects a
class apart. B2
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1INTRODUCTION
§3
§ 3. i. Welsh, Cornish and Breton are descended from British (properly
Brittish), the language of the ancient Britons. The speakers called
themselves Brittones, and their language *Brittoniika.
The Old English name 'wa.sBrittisc ovBryttisc,asOnBryttisc sprecende Guthlac,
Godw. 42, 17 (cf. .Rhys, OF. 676), which in later spelling was Brittish,
misspelt British9' under the influence of the Lat. Britannia. The
name continued to be used for the derived languages: "The Gaulish speach
is the very Brittish, the which was very generally used heere in all
Brittayue before the coming in of the Saxons; and yet is retayned of the
Walshmen, the Cornishmen, and the Brittons," Spenser, State of Ireland
(Lloyd's Enc. Dic.). It was commonly used for Welsh as late as the i8th and
beginning of the i9th cent.; "In these Schools . . . Men, Women and
Children being ignorant of the English Tongue, are taught to read their
native British language," Welsh Piety 1754 p. 53, i755 "' P. 47
etc. Cf. dedication of Grawn Awen (Caledfryn) 1826.
ii. The Welsh call themselves Cymry, from *'kom-brog1 'fellow countrymen';
but the use of this as a national' name is subsequent to the separation of
the Welsh from the Cornish and the Bretons. The old name, which survived in
poetry, was Brytlwn B.T. 13 from Brittones ', the corresponding name of the
language Brythoneg was superseded by Cymraeg, but some memory of it survived
(D.D. gives Brythoneg, but with no quotation). The Bretons call their
language Bresonek, and Cornish was called Brethonec', all these forms imply
an original *Bnttomkd. Sir John -Rhys in his L"WPh.2 16
adopted the names Brythoiis and Brythonic for the Brittones and their
language, remarking, however, that he would " like to have called them
Brittons and their language Brittonic ". I prefer to call the language
by its traditional English name British, whicli in this connexion involves no
ambiguity. The term Brythonic suggests a later period, and tends to disguise
the fact that the language meant is the speech of the ancient Britons.
iii. The name Britto, sg. of Brittones, probably owes its ft to its being a
formation of the type of Gk. NIKOTTO) etc., see § 93 iii (2), for an earlier
Britann(os), pi. Britanm. Similarly we have a late Bpfn-ta for Britannia. /
Brittw survives in Bret. Breis: 'Brittany',
and *Br!tanmd in MI'. W. Brydein used'as a variant of the more usual Prydein
as in B.B. 100, milvir Pridein 1. 5, imlguir Bridein 1. 7. Brztan- seems to
be for Pntan- by British alternation p:b § 101 iii (2) ; cf. paiT(AN)Nii
Holder i 564, PBITMIT do. ii 1046. Pritto also occurs as a personal name
beside Britto, and Prittius beside Brittius (see Holder s. vv.). Tlie view
now generally held that the members of these pairs are unrelated rests on no
other basis than the assumption that British p- could under no circumstances
pass into b-. The fact,
* It ia of course still pronounced Brittish, rhyming with skittish, not with
whitish.
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2INTRODUCTION
however, is that Pritan- and Bvitan- are synonymous. The P- goes back through
Diodorus Siculus probably to Pytheas (4th cent. B. o.). Polybius (2nd cent.
B. c.) seems to have used Bper^aviKal VTJO-OI; but Strabo and Diodorus have
UpeT^aviKal y^o-oi and IIpeT(T)aroi; later Ptolemy and Maician used n-.
Stephanus of Byzantium (o. A.D. 500) wrote BpeTTai/tSes r-iyo-ot and
Bperrwoi, remarking that Dionysius (Peiiegetes; Augustan age) wrote "one
(... Bperai/oi'" [read 'Bpfravvoi], and that otheis used " p,
UpeTaviSey vfja-oi, as Marcian and Ptolemy";
elsewhere Stephanus himself wrote TiperaviKrj and Uperavoi Holder i 560. The
e in IIper- s Brit. i, see § 66 i. Pritan- is an w-stem representing original
(^q^ri^n- or) *qwrit/t-•, for the nn see § 62 i (2).
The surviving forms show that the old P- forms had one (; thus W. Prydain '
Britain', Ml. W. Prydein, implies *Pritan(n')M and Ir. Cruithnech ' Pictish'
implies a Pictish *Pritemkos; hence the -TT- in UpeTTaviKai is probably a
misspelling of copyists, due to the Britt-forms which prevailed later. The forms
with -on- had -tt-; thus W. Brython < Brittones, Bret. Bresonek <
*Brittonikd, and Ml. Ir. Bretain ' Britons ' represents Brittones reguldriy.
As the new form Brittones spread, Britannia became Brittannia which survives
in Fr. Bretagne', later we find Brittania BpeTTai/tfo; etc. which were
substituted for older forms in MSS. There is no possible doubt that the
oldest B- form is Britann-: Catullus (died 54 B. c.), Propertius, Vergi],
Horace, Ovid, all scan Brztann-. The evidence of the dated coins and inscriptions
in Holder is as follows (the numbers in brackets refer to Holder i): coins of
Claudius A.D. 41, 46 have Britannia, Britanni., Britann, (564, 36, 37);
inscriptions: A. B. 41 Britannia (589, 52); time of Claudius Britannia (590,
37); A.D. 43 Britannic(um) (5981 24); A.D. 49 £ritan(nicis) (599, 34). In A.
D. 49 or 50, at least a century after the first evidence of Britann-, -tt-
appeals first in two inscriptions in the name of Claudius's son Britannicus :
Britta\nico\ (602, 18), Brittanici (602, 22); in eight other cases it is
Britannicus or BpETwriKos (602). The early appearance of tt in this name may
mean that Britto was in use as an abbreviated personal name earlier than as
meaning ' Briton'. In the national name the single t continued in use : A. D.
54 £ritan(nicum) (600, 22); A.D. 65 Britannico (599, 5); A.D. 80 Britannica
(598, 37). In A.D. 85 Brittones first appears in the gen. pi. Brittonum side
by side with Britannica (607, 41—2). In A.D. 90 first occuis Brittanniae
(588, 7) ; in A. D. 98 and 103 Britannia again (590, 2.5; 588, 9); in A.D. 99
Brittonum (607, 43); in A.D. 105 Brittan[nia~\ (588,10), in A.D. no
Brittanniae (590, 5) and Britannica (598, 40). In the 2nd cent. Britann- and
Brittann- are both common. Brittania first occurs on a coin in A.D. 185 (590,
50) and BrittanicM in A.D. 210 (599, gi).
The W. Pryden' Picts' § 121 iii from *Pritenes, Prydyn B.T. 13 ' Pict-land'
from *Pritem, and the Ir. Cruithen Cruithnech seem to have the F-grade -en-
of the stem-ending, probably a Pictish form. The Picts were Britons, as shown
by the fact that p < q* abounds in Pictish names. They kept in their own
name the P- which also survives in
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6
W. Prydain ' Britain', and so came to be distinguished from the Southern
Britons, who called themselves Brittones. Picti, which is not known to occur
before A. D. 297, seems to be a Latin translation of *Pritenes explained as
meaning ' figured ' (: W. pryd ' form', Ir. cruth), just as W. Brithwyr '
Picts' is a translation of Picti. This explanation of *Pritenes is probably
only a piece of popular etymology;
but even if it had some old tradition behind it, the name is equally
applicable to the other Britons, for they all piiinted or tattooed themselves,
Caesar B.G. v 14, Herodian iii 14, 7. Indeed the objection to accepting it as
the true explanation is that at the time when it was first applied it could
not be distinctive.
The etymology of a proper name is always uncertain, except when, like Albion, it hardly admits of more than one meaning, and
that meaning (its. Britain
like Albion must have been a name given to
the island by its Kcllic invaders, and Albion
suggests the feature most likely to impress thorn. There is an Italo-Keltic
root of some such form as *yurel- which means ' chalk ' or ' white
earth ', giving Lat. creta, and W. pridd ' loiim ', Irisli ere.; tlio attempt
to derive the Welsh and Irish words from tlic Liitin is a failure—tlio root
must be Keltic as •well IIB Italic ; and it limy have yielded tlie name
Pritannia meaning ' the island of tlie wliitr fliH'H '.
§ 4. i. Gaulish and British are known to us through names on coins, and words
and names quoted by Greek and Latin authors. No inscriptions occur in
British, but British names are found in Latin inscriptions. A number of
inscriptions in Gaulish have been preserved. Goidelic is known from the ogam
inscriptions, of which the oldest date from the 5th century.
ii. The scanty materials which we possess for the study of Gaulish and
British are sufficient to show that these languages preserved the Aryan
case-endings, and were at least as highly inflected »>s, Bay, Latin. Tlie
great change which transformed British and converted it into Wclxli and its
sister dialects was the loss of tlio endings of ntonin und words, by which,
for example, the four syllables of tlie British May/o-ruuM wore reduced to the
two of the Welsli Muel-gwn.. By this reduction distinctions of case were
lost, and stem-forming Hiiflixos became a new class of inflexional endings;
see § 113, § 111) i.
§ 5. The history of Welsh may be divided into periods as follows:
(i) Early Welsh, from the time when British had definitely become Welsh to
the end of the 8th century. Of the forms of this
§5
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7INTRODUCTION
period we have only echoes, such as the names found in Bede,
§113i(4).
(a) Old Welsh (0. W.), from the beginning of the 9th to the end of the nth
century. The remains of this period are a number of glosses, and some
fragments of prose and aponymous verse. But 0. W. forms are preserved in
later copies in the genealogies, the Book of Llandaf, the Laws, the Book of
Aneirin, etc.
(3) Medieval Welsh (Ml. W.), from the beginning of the lath to the end of the
i4th century and somewhat later. The orthography varied much during this
period, and was at first in an unsettled state. It will be convenient to
refer to the language of the lath and early i3th century as Early Ml. W.,
and'to that of the T4th and early l5th as Late ML W.
(4) Modern Welsh (Mn. W.), from Dafydd ap Gwilym to the present day. Though
D. ap Gwilym wrote before the end of the i4th century, he inaugurated a new
period in the history of the language, and is in fact the first of the
moderns. The bards of the l5th and l6th centuries wrote the bulk of their
poetry in the cywydd metre popularized by Dafydd ; and the forms used by him,
with some alterations of spelling (ai, au for ei, eu § 79), were preserved
unchanged, having been stereotyped by the cynghanedd. The language of this
body of poetry may be called Early Mn. W.
At the introduction of printing, Wm. Salesbury attempted in his works,
including the New Test. (1567), to form a new literary dialect, in which the
orthography should indicate the etymology rather than the sound. His practice
was to write Latin loanwords as if no change had taken place in them except
the loss of the ending, thus eccles for eglwys ' church', descend for disgya
' to descend' ; any native word with a superficial resemblance to a Latin
synonym was similarly treated, thus i ' his, her ' was written ei because the
Latin is eiits (perhaps eu ' their' suggested this). But Dr. Morgan in his
Bible (1588) adopted the standard literary language as it continued to be
written by the bards, though he retained some of Salesbury's innovations
(e.g. ei for i ' his'). Some dialectal forms used by Morgan (e.g. gwele for
gwelai ' saw ' § 6 iii) were replaced by the literary forms in the revised
Bible (1620), which became the standard of later writers. Thus
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7 INTRODUCTION § 6
Late Mn. W., which begins with the Bible, though influenced to some extent by
Salesbury, is based upon Early Mn. W., and forms a continuation of it. In the
l9th century several neologisms were introduced, chiefly under the influence
of Pughe; the language of this period will be referred to, when necessary, as
Recent Welsh.
§ 8. i. The spoken language has four main dialects, as follows :
(i) Venedotian, the dialeet of Gwynedd or North West Wales. (Gwyn. dial.)
(a) Powysian, the dialect of Powys, or North East and Mid Wales. (Powys
dial.)
(3) Demetian, the dialect ofDyfed or South West Wales.
(4) Gwentian, the dialect of Gwent and Morgannwg, or South East Wales.
N. W. is used as an abbreviation for ' North Wales' or ' North Walian', S. W.
for ' South Wales ' or (South Walian '.
ii. The two N. W. dialects differ from the two S. W. chiefly in the choice of
words to express some common ideas, the most noticeable difference being the
use of o, fo in N. W., and e,fe in S. W., for the pronoun ' he ' or ' him'.
iii. In the final unaccented syllable the diphthongs ai and an are mostly
levelled with e in the dialects. In Powys and Dyfed, that is, in an unbroken
belt from North East to South West, the three are sounded e ; thus cader,
pei/ie, bore for oadair ' chair ', pethau ' things ', bore ' morning''. In
Gwynedd and Gwent they are sounded a, as cadar (Gwent cd\far), petha, bora.
When ai is significant (e.g. as denoting the plural) it is ai in Gwynedd, i
in Gwent, sometimes i in Powys, as Gwynedd defaid ' sheep', llygaul (when not
U'gaSa) ' eyes'; Gwent defid, lly\cid ; Powys ' defed, llygid; Dyfed defed,
llygecl.
Dialectal forms, chiefly Demetian and Powysian -e, begin to appear in the
MSS. of the l5th century; but the rhymes of the bards of the l5th and i6th
centuries, with the exception of some poetasters, always imply the literary
form, which is still used in the written language except in a few words. See
§ 31 ii.
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8PHONOLOGY
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PRONUNCIATION
THE ALPHABET.
§ 7. i. Welsh, in all its periods, ha$ been written in the Latin alphabet.
" f
The ogam inscriptions are Irish. The letters of the ogam alphabet consist of
scores and notches on the edge of the stone; one to five scoies, cut at right
angles to the edge on either side, or obliquely across it, form 15
consonants; one to five notches on the edge form 5 vowels.
The " alphabet of Nemnivus", contained in ox., dated 812, and
reproduced by Ab Ithel in Dosp. Ed. 10, ii, is stated in the MS. to have been
formed by Nemnivus " ex machinatione mentis suae " in answer to a
Saxon's taunt that the Britons had no letters. Mobt of the signs are forms of
Latin characters made to imitate runes; two (•^ n and A u) are runes, while
others seem to be arbitrary inventions. There is no evidence of the use of
this alphabet. The "winged alphabet" given by Ab Ithel ibid. 12
consists of two classification'? of Scandinavian tree-runes, the top line
representing the two schemes of classification. The reason given for
supposing the scribe to be a Welshman is too ridiculous to need refutation.
Among the "traditions " invented by the Glamorgan bards in support
of their claim to be the successors of the druids was the " wooden book
";
though all the accounts of it are in lolo Morgannwg's handwriting,
contemporary evidence of its existence in the early i^th cent. is afforded by
Ehys Cain's satirical englyn (Ab lolo, Coel. y B. go); but it cannot be
traced further back. The ' bardic alphabet' called coelbren y beirdd was a
conventional simplification of ordinary chaiacters adapted for cutting on
wood; its letters are derived from the handwriting of the period, as V b, )
S, -4 f (= e), Y\ h, V\ n, V r, except where it was easier to adapt the Latin
capitals, as A A, (/ G. With one or two exceptions, such as U IL, the "
derived characters " denoting consonant mutations, so far from proving
the coelbren's antiquity, are its very latest development, Pughe
acknowledging himself to be the author of five of them (L GC. 260 footnote).
lolo's memoranda (Coel. y B. 27) refer to an old form given by Gwilym Tew in
his grammar;
but this work is pieserved in G.T.'s own hand in P 51, which does not mention
the coelbren. The famous transcriber of MSS. John Jones
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10
PHONOLOGY
of Gelli Lyfdy compiled two collections of the alphabets known to him p 307,
IL 144, but neither contains anything like the coelbren. No MS. is written in
it, for the simple reason that it was easier to write ordinary characters
than the coelbren caricature of them. The writing in P 54 pp. 359 ff., stated
in the B. to be in " ' bardic ' characters, which are widely different
from Roman characters ", bears no resemblance to the coelbren, and is no
more " widely different from Eoman characters " than the coelbren
itself is; it is the hand of an illiterate peison ; the letters are written
separately, but all are clumsy copies of tlie script characters of the
period, mostly formed with awkward curves, the antithesis of the coelbren
angles. There is a somewhat similar scribble written upside down on the
bottom margin of B.CH. = p 29, p. 19.— The wooden book consisted of squared
inscribed sticks in a frame; it was called peithynen from its resemblance to
a weaver's reed, and not the reverse, as lolo asserted, for peithyn(en) comes
regularly from Lat. ace. pectin-em ' comb, weaver's reed'. The absurdity of
the supposition that such a device ever served any serious purpose of
literature is manifest when one considers what a cartload of wooden books
would be required to carry the contents of a small manuscript volume.
ii. The earliest "Welsh alphabet given as such is that found in the B.G.
col. 1117: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, I, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, y,
w, ft. It contains q, which is not used in Welsh, and omits all the digraplis
except II; they could not be included in the traditional number, 24.
Sir J. Price's alphabet in T.L.H, (1546) is as follows: a, b, c, d, d,
^ffi /- ff, h! i, k,l, l\ m,
n, °, P, r! rh, s,t,v= u, v, y, w.
W. Salesbury gives the following alphabet in his Playne and Familiar
Introductio, 1567 (written in 1550): A, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f,ff, g, h, i,
J(, I, II, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, th, v, u, w, y. He distinguishes between v,
and v, using the latter for Eng. v, Welsh/.
G.E., (1567), who uses d, I, u for dd, II, w, gives the following alphabet:
a, b, c, ch, d, d, e,f, g, i, h, I, I, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, th, u, u, y,
omitting ng and ph (botli of which he uses, the latter to the exclusion
oijf), to make the number 24.
S.V., (1568), gives the following alphabet of 24 letters: a, b, d, dd, e, f,
ff, g, i, Jc, I, II m, n, o, p, r, 8, t, v, w, y, ch, th, adding that h is
tlie sign of a breathing, J 9/3.
J.D.R., (1592), used h to form all his digraphs, thus bh =/, dh = dd, gh ==
ng. His alphabet is as follows: a, b, bh, c, ch, d, dh, e, g, gh, ghh, h, i,
Jh, I, m, mh, n, nh, o, p, ph, rh, r, s, t, th, u, v, y, y. It contains a
character for each simple sound in the language, including the two sounds of
y ; but it was too cumbrous to win general adoption.
The alphabet of the present day is first met with in D. (1621), with the
single difference that D. has two forms of the letter y ; thus, a, b, c, ch,
d, dd, e, f,ff, g, ng, h, i, I, II, m, n, o, p, ph, r, s, t, th, u, w, y/y.
It omits mh, nh, nyh, rh. The names now given to the letters are, in the
above order, in Welsh spelling (all vowels not marked long to be
§§8,9
THE VOWELS
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read short): a, ffi, eo, ech, d1, edd, e, ef, eff, eg, eng, aets, z, el, ell,
em, en, 6, pz, yff ovffz, er, es, t1, eth, u, w, y. The names ha, he, hi
given to the letter h by some wiiters on Welsh grammar and orthography» •me
figments. The name is aets, borrowed from Eng. or Fr. (Eng. witch, Fr. ache,
Span. atche):
H. arall it sy—Hwri Wyth yw'r dyn a'th ewra di.—T.A., c. i 340.
' Thou hast another H.—Henry the Eighth is the man who will ennoble
thee.'—The first line is to be read Aeta arall it sy Harri, as shown by the
cynghanedd: t s r—t s r.
Lhuyd, (1707) used ^ for ch, \ for II, and b for dd. The last has survived in
the form 8 in ordinary han4writing, but manuscript 8 is printed dd. 5,
§ 8. The orthography of Mn. W. is almost purely phonetic :
each letter of the alphabet has one standard sound, except y which has two.
It will therefore be convenient to give the values of the letters in the modern
alphabet, and then, using the modern characters to represent the sounds of
the language, to show in detail how each sound was written in earlier
periods, noting any changes which have taken place in the sounds themselves.
THE VOWELS.
§ 0. The letters a, e, i, o, u, w, y represent vowel sounds. The following
diagram shows the approximate relative positions of the vowels at the present
day. y and y denote the two sounds of y. Vowels pronounced with rounded lips
are enclosed in brackets. The more open the sound the less the rounding.
The vowel sounds i, e, a, o, w, except in certain diphthongal combinations,
have probably undergone no material change from
' G.E., Rowland, Silvan Evans, Tegai. Rowland's liaitch is a S.W. vulgarian).
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PHONOLOGY
§§ 10-14
the 0. W. period to the present day; the Bounds a, e, o, have always been
represented by the characters a, e, 0s and the sound » always by
i, with some exceptions in Early Ml. W., § 16 ii (2).
§ 10. The sound of a is that of the English a in father. It occurs long as in
tad ' father', medium as in td\dol' fatherly', and short as in warn '
mother'.
The sound does not occur short in English, the a of Eng. man being a more
forward sound, which may be denoted by ce. This sound as is heaid in Welsh in
a narrow strip stretching from the English border to Harlech, and in
Glamorganshire.
§ 11. The sound of e, when long or medium, is the middle c, as in the Eng.
men, let; thus gwen ' smile', gwe\nu ' to smile ' ;
when short it is generally more open, tending towards the Eng. e in there ;
thus gwenn ' white '. For its sound in diphthongs, see §§ 29, 79.
§ 12. The sound of i is the close i of the French^?, si, or the North Eng. i
in king, machine. The Southern Eng. i is more open. It occurs long as in gwin
' wine ', medium as in gwi\mec1cl' wines ', short as vciprin ' scarcely'.
§ 13. The sound of o, when long or medium, is the middle o, midway between
the close o in Eng. note and the open o in not;
thus ton ' tune', t6\nau ' tunes'; when short it is more open, tending
towards the o of not, as tonn ' wave ', fonnau ' waves'.
§ 14. i. The sound of w is that of the French ou in sou, or the North Eng. oo
i-afood, book. The Southern Eng. sound is more open. It occurs long as in gwr
' man ', medium as in gw\rol ' manly •', shoit as in trwm ' heavy'.
ii. (i) The sound w was written u in O.W., and thus could not be
distinguished (except by the context) from the sound »,§ 15 i, • which was
also written u (though sometimes i, § 15 ii).
(2) In Early Ml. W., the sound w, both vocalic and consonantal was written u
(or v) and w, and as the former also represents the sound u, and both
represent the sound f, the spelling is often ambiguous. In Late Ml. W. the
uncertainty is partly removed by the restriction of w and the use of 0 (a
peculiar shape
a Here and in the following sections up to § 26, a letter printed
in heavy type represents the written letter; a letter printed in italics
represents the sound.
§ 15
THE VOWELS
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of v) to represent the w sounds. The characters w and 6 repre^ sent both w
and w almost indifferently. Theoretically perhapa w stood for w, and the R.B.
scribe wishing to distinguish between gwyr ' men ' and gwyr ' knows' writes
them gwyr, g6yr respectively, li.o. 1118 ; there seems to be a slight
predominance of the w value for w, but no systematic distinction is made
between the sounds, whole pages frequently occurring, e.g., in W.M., where 6
is used exclusively for both.
iSSf In this work Late Ml. "W. 0 is transcribed w, as nothing is gained
by reproducing a distinction which would often be misleading
. if taken to have a phonetic significance.
^ (3) In Mn. W. the sound is represented by w.
G.R. uses u; and J.D.R. a peculiar character based on 6, a late script form
of 6; § 7 ii.
§ 15. i. (i) In Late Mn. W. the sound ofu, long, medium, and short, is the
same as the clear sound of y, § 16 i; thus the words hun ' sleep' and fiyn '
older ' have now absolutely the same sound. But in 0. and Ml. W. u had the
sound of the French u, that is, an i pronounced with rounded lips. In
accented syllables it retained this sound down to the end of the i6th cent.,
as is shown by the fact that J.D.R. (pp. 33, 34) debcribes both v, and y, and
distinguishes between them with a phonetic truth which could only be derived
from actual acquaintance with both as living sounds.
(2) In the final unaccented syllable the original u sound became if a&
early as the i4th cent.; see ZfCP. iv n8. Hence we find u and y confused from
the 14th century on. Kymry ' the Welsh, Wales ' often appealed as Cymru; see
y Cymru 'the Welsh', G.R. p. [v];
M.IL. (3 Ader.—Title). Later, the misspelling Cymru came to be used for '
Wales', the true form Cymry being retained as the pi. of Gymro. In the 3rd
pi. of prepositions, arnunt ' on them', etc., in dywedud ' to &ay ',
anoddun ' deep', credadun ' believer', arofun ' intend', munud ' minute', y
is in Late Mn. W. wrongly written for u; foi iestun ' text', ysgrythw '
acriptuie', see § 82 hi (3). The converse error was fiequent in the i6th
cent., Dr. M. writing fellu, i fynu, gorthrymmudd, etc.
The view that the distinction survived in monosyllables down to a, late date
is corroborated by the fact that out of about 140 monos. in use containing
either u or if only one, crud 'cradle' (crut IL.A. 72, B.P. 1418), is now
commonly misspelt; and even this misspelling is due to Pughe's bringing the
word under the same head as cryd.
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PHONOLOGY
§16
D.D. and
L .
' quaking, fever' obviously on a false etymological theory. Kicharda have
crud ' cradle ', cryd ' fever '.
ii. The 0. and Ml. W. sound above described was written u. It was therefore
not distinguished in writing' in the 0. and Early Ml. period from the sound w
which was also written u. We may call 0. W. u the front u, or it, when it
corresponds to Mn. W. 11, and the back u when it represents Mn. W. w. It is
certain that the two sounds were as distinct then as they were later, for in
O.W. we find the it sound written i, as in scipaw JUV. ' barn ', Mn. W.
ysgubor. Still earlier evidence of u is furnished by Bede's spelling Dinoot
of a name which was later Bunawd.
§ 16. i. y has two sounds, the clear and the obscure. The clear sound of y is
a peculiar t'-sonnd very difficult to acquire. It is a dull i produced
further back than ordinary i. The sound is very similar to French u in its
effect upon the ear, and has the same absolute pitch ; but it is produced
quite differently. The French u is an i pronounced with rounded lips, but
the Welsh y is an i pronounced further back, but with open lips; see the
diagram, § 9. Ml. W. had both sounds, written u and y respectively ; but
gradually the rounded sound, which was written u, was replaced by the
unrounded sound, though still continuing to be written u, the result being
that Welsh has now the unrounded sound only, written u and y.
The sound y is long as in dyn, ' man' or short as in 6ryn ' hill'. It cannot
be medium except when written as w, as in uno ' to unite ', and in the word
gyda for gyd a, § 82 ii (2). In S. W. dialects both M and »/ are sounded as i
or nearly go. The obscure sound of y is the sound of the Eng. o in ivory. It
is medium or short in the penult, or short in an unaccented syllable. It is
long in the penult before a vowel or A as cy-oedd, cf-hoedd, and in the name
of the letter y.
W In this grammar the character y is used as in ordinary written Welsh to
represent both the clear and the obscure sound ;
but when it is required to distinguish between them, the character q is used
to denote the clear, and yto denote the obscure sound. —Note that y is the
clear y in the diphthong wy, and when cir-cumflexed, y.
§ 18
THE VOWELS
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A special character for the sound y was used by some i6th century scribes,
and is regularly employed by J.D.R. and Dr. Davies in their grammars. A
distinctive character is also needed for the clear sound;
and •u* is convenient because it suggests u which has now the same sound.
NOTE.—The idea that y has borrowed its clear sound from u, which, as we have
seen, is the exact reverse of the truth, has led some writers to call y the
primary, and i{ the secondary sound of y. The former is of course secondary,
being the obscured form of y and other sounds.
^T On the use of the two sounds of y see § 82.
ii. (i) In 0. W. the sounds of y are denoted by i, and are therefore not
distinguished in writing from the sound i. That y and i -were then distinct
requires no further proof than that they are different in origin, and if the
difference had been lost it could not have been recovered.
(2) In Early Ml. W. MSS., as in the B.B., y and i are used indifferently to
express the i sound and the sounds of y. In B.CH. (=A.L. MS. A.) y is used in
some parts almost to the .exclusion of i, as lirenyn, tyr for brenin' king',
tir ' land '; yuc p. 9 for ise' nine ' (printed nau in A.L. i 18 !) shows
that the scribe treated y and i as identical. In some early MSS. the sounds
of y were represented by e; see the passage in ancient orthography in A.L.
ii 36-8, where y He, y dyn appear as elle, eden ' the place ', ' the man'.
(3) In Late Ml. MSS., as in Mn. W., the sounds i[,y are written y, and are
not confused with i which is written i (except that y also represents (', §
25 iii).
In a few monosyllables of frequent occurrence, y by constant repetition
advanced to the easier front position of i, towards the end of the Ml.
period. These are y ' to ', y ' his' or ' her', ny, myt ' not'. The latter
often appears as ni, nit in W.M., see 46, 48, showing the thinning of the
vowel to be so early. That the sound was once y is shown by the fact that
nyd, written nifdd (dd = double d, not S) by J.D.R. in 1592, may still be heard
in Anglesey.
®s- In this grammar the Ml. W. y ' to' and y ' his' or ' her' are dotted
thus, y, to distinguish them from the article y =. y. As the y was probably
sounded i some time before it came to be so written, it may be read i. [There
can be no confusion with y =. t, which never stands by itself, § 25 iii.]
iii. Though not indicated in writing, the difference between i[ and
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PHONOLOGY
§16
y goes back to the 0, W. period. That 0. W. i represented not only the clear
y but niso the obscure y is shown by such forms as cimadas (= ff/fiiildah')
M.C. Here cyf- comes from *kom-; tlie y results from the indibtmct
pronunciation of o, § 65 iv (2), and was never sounded y; hence the written i
must have meant y. Sue also § 40 iii (2). In Ml. MSS. generally, as in Mn.
W., no distinction is made between y and y. But in some parts of B.CH., e
slands for y, and y for y regularly; thus Tiety yv, ety muyhafene tref
ukevnerueduf ac y kyd ac ef erey auenno or feylu, A.L. i 12 sy letif yw y ti/
mwi/haf yny dref a chymherfeSaf, ag y gyd ag efy rei a vynno or teilu, ' Bis
lodging is the largest and most central house in the town, and with him such
as he may please of the household.' The scribe's observance of the rule is
remarkable; and though there are many slips due to mechanical copying, his
spelling in some cases helps to decide the sound in obsolete forms.
iv. (i) In Early Ml. W. if and y were probably nearer e than at present. If
we assume the Hue a—y more inclined towards the line a—i in the diagram p. n
above, it will be seen at a glance not only why both were written e at that
time, but why tlie B.CH. scribe uses y to represent both i and y, and e to
represent both e and y.
(2) The sounds y and y in these forward positions weie less stable, being not
merely felt to be near enough to e to be represented by e in writing, but
also liable to be confused with e in speech. Some examples of this confusion
survived, and arc met with in the later language: (a) Interchange of y and e:
Myrddin, Merdilin D G. 471 ;
tymesti, temesti &. 153 ; ystifn v. 24, esti/n; cyhyddiaeth, u
chebySyaet/i BJ.A. 144 ; ybellynm'c IL A. 126, i46,pellennig ; ketymdeitit,
cydymaith;
ynnill, ennill; cynfigen, cenfigen; Tal-y-bolwiz M.A. i 3150, explained as
tdl ebolyon w.M. 43; Pen-^-goes for *Pen-y'-goes, see § 46 ii (3).— (/?)
Interchange of y and e: velle IL A. 148 forfelli/; Late Mn. W. wele 'behold'
for (a) wely 'dost thou see?' § 173 iii (3); Mercher for Merch^r B.A. 17, B.B.
48, see § 69 v; hwdt[ c.M. 31, hwde E.M. 173;
mifwn, mewn; Lli[qn, Lletfn. Dial. edrech for edrych, -ech tor -ycA 2nd sg.
pres. subj. § 176 iv.—(y) In Ml. "W. y 1mn 'himself, herself is written
e hun, the e modification being preferred owing to the difficulty of sounding
unrounded y and rounded u in consecutive syllables, cf. § 77 viii.
Dissimilation also occuis in e IwerSon. •W.M. 59 for y IwerSon. Similarly
te\yrn for *<y[ym § 103 ii (i);
diell foi di-hyll § 146 ii (2).
In Breton *y has generally become e; thus news == W. newydd;
pemp == W. pymp; kevrann == W. kywan; ened = "VV. ynyd.
(3) y before a nasal tended to be lowered towards a, and is sometimes
written a in the B.CH., as cantaf A.L. i 84 for cyntaf; kannal, do. 154 for
kynnal', kafreiht do. 130 for kyvreith. Hence y and « interchange before a
nasal: Tngharad, Angharad', ymherawdr, am-herawdr; ymddzfad, amddifad',
canhorthwy, cynhorthwy; mynach, manach, etc.
Unaccented a is sometimes weakened to y in the dialects, but
§ 16
THE VOWELS
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examples are rare in Jit. W.: rhyglyddu ' to merit', for rhaglyddu, see
raclySei w.M. 428.
(4) In Mn. W. since y has become quite neutral, it is apt in some cases to be
coloured by neighbouring sounds: after w or followed by w in the ultima, it
becomes w, § 66 ii. When immediately followed by another vowel it is
assimilated to it, § 82 ii (3).
v. (i) In Ml. W. an inorganic y is written between two consonants at the end
of a word in the following groups : i. cons. + r, 1 or a ;
2.rm,rf,lm,lf; 3. 8f; 4. rarely rch, Ich; thus pobyl for poU' people', vy
maryfw.w. 59 for/y marf 'my beard'. In 0. W. it appears as i, as in reafir
JVV; Mn. W. rhaeadr ' cataract', but is of rare occurrence, being usually
omitted as in Mn. W., thus cruitr, disci JVV. dati, scribi ox. It occurs
medially as i in cenfhilyt JW. ' singer' for centhliat, as o in cenitolaidou
ox., Mn. W. cenedldethau ' generations'. In Early Ml. W. it appears as i, y,
and e, as perygil B.B. 31 ' danger', cathil do. id 'song', autyl do. 15
'ode', coloven A.ii. i 10 'column'. It occurs sometimes in initial groups: o
gynaud B.B. 84 ' of flesh'; kelewet A.L. i 40 s clywed ' to hear'.
(2) Tlie sound intended to be represented was the glide between the
consonants, which was becoming perceptible as a dull sound resembling y. It
was naturally written i in 0. W., e in B.CH., these being the signs for y,
see iii above. It was not written where no audible glide developed, as in nt,
rth, r8, and was rare where the glide was voiceless, as before ch. It did not
form a full syllable in Ml. W., at least in the standard pronunciation, for
(a) it is occasionally written in groups where it is generally omitted, and
which seem never to have been syllabic, as in meirych W.M. 41 ~=.m.ewch E.M.
28 'horses'; (j3) it is sometimes found medially where it could not be
syllabic, as in kenedyloeS s-i.A. 11 s kenedloeS Ei.A. 169 'nations', dadeleu
A.ii. i 20 s dadkv, ' lawsuit'; (y) it does not affect the accentuation; thus
in
c6\lofyn gwe8 e\ofyn y gwe\8t\eu,—E.P. 1239 ' Upholder in fearless manner of
prayers', the e of iofyn is accented to correspond to the i of gweSwu; (S) it
does not count as a syllable in Ml. verse; the above is a line of nine
syllables; in the following cywydd. couplet the cynghanedd requires chalych
to be read as an absolute monosyllable, as it is pronounced at the present
day:
Pwy a allei, pei pennsaer,
•peintyaw a chalych pwynt vy chwaer/—I.G.,E.P. 1408.
' Who could, though he were a master, paint with chalk my sister's mien ?'
W In the quotations in the present work this non-syllabic y is represented
thus, y.
(3) In Mn. lit. W. the epenthetic y is simply dropped; thus pdbl, Q'emstr,
ofn. The non-syllabic pronunciation continued to be the only one admissible
in cynghanedd, and so remained the standard literary form; and the mute y
came to be dropped in writing to prevent ambiguity. [In one form of
cynghanedd, however, exemplified by—
KOl C
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PHONOLOGY
§17
Da os6diad hyd i sawdl.—D.N"., a. 158,
-1 answers a syllable -iad in the cynghanedd, though it does not count as a
syllable in the metre, an inconsistency which shows that such a word as this,
treated as a monosyllable in verse generally, sounded like a disyllable when
it ended a sentence.]
In the spoken language, when the word was disyllabic the final liquid was
lost, thus perig, jfenest for perigl ' danger', ffenestr 'window', or
metathesized as in ewyrthforewythr'uncle'. In monosyllables the glide was
assimilated to the vowel of the syllable or the second element of its
diphthong and became syllabic ; thus pobol, cefen, llwt{b'i{r, sowdwl, bara'
for poU ' people', cefn 'back', llwybr 'path', sawdl 'heel', barf 'beard'.
Some examples of this assimilation already appear in Late Ml. W., as budur
IL.A. 18 'dirty', Jcwbwl C.M. 87 'all', vy maraf E.M. 42 ' my beard'.—The
colloquial syllabic pronunciation is the one generally implied in recent
verse in the free metres; thus Anne Griffiths's Llwybr cwbl groes i natur,
though so printed in all hymn-books, is intended to be sung Llwybyr \ cilibwl
\ grdes i \ ndtur. But in N. ~W. dialects the parasitic vowel did not arise in
groups containing /; thus in the greater part of N. W. ofn, 'fear', cefn
'back', llyfr ' book', barf ' beard' are purely monosyllabic to this day.
Forms like march, calch are everywhere monosyllabic.
^1 For prosthetic y- see § 21 iii, § 23 ii, § 86 vi (4).
THE CONSONANTS.
§ 17. The values of the letters representing consonants in the Mn. alphabet
are as follows :
i. Voiceless explosives (tenues): p 3 English, p ; t, normally more dental
than Eng. t, but varying' to Eng. t; c = Eng. k, having two sounds, front c
(A) before i, e, like k in Eng. king, back c (q) Taefore a, o, w, u y', like
c in Eng. coal.
ii. Voiced explosives (mediae): b = Eng. 6; d corresponding to W. t as above
; g front and back (g, g), like Eng. give, go.
iii. Voiceless spirants: ff or ph = Eng. f, labiodental; th 5 Eng. th in
thick (which may be denoted by /); ch = Scotch ch in loch, German ch in wach
(}(), but not German ch in ich (y\. Even after e and i, as in llech ' slate',
gwioh ' squeak ', the ch is the back sound \.
i + back ^ is an awkward combination, and becomes, difficult in-the short
time available when the i is the second element of a diphthong; hence baich,
braich are generally pronounced bayy, brayv (vdth the short a of the original
diphthong). This pronunciation is condemned by D., p. 10; but the spelling
ay is common earlier, e. g. J.D.B, 271. But beichiau, br«ichiavi are BO
sounded, with back ^ (not ^),
§17
THE CONSONANTS
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19
iv. Voiced spirants: f = Eng. \, labiodental; dd. = Eng. th in this (8). O.W.
had also the guttural voiced spirant, which may be represented by 5,
corresponding to ch; see § 19 i.
v. Voiceless nasals: mh; nh; ngh. The nasals can only be made voiceless by a
strong emission of breath, which causes a distinct aspirate to be heard as a
glide after the consonant. Thus nh is somewhat similar to Eng. nh in inhale.
vi. Voiced nasals: m; n ; ng. The last has two positions corresponding to
those of g, namely front w, back w.
vii. Voiceless liquids: 11; rh. The former is a voiceless I pro-nounced on
one side. It is produced by>. placing the tongue in the I position,
raising it so as to close the passage on one side, and blowing between it and
the teeth on the other. The common imitation thi conveys the effect of the
" hiss " (voiceless spirant) in the th, and gives the side effect
in the I. But 11 is of course a simple sound, which may be described shortly
as a " unilateral hiss ". The sound of rh is the Welsh trilled r
made voiceless by a strong emission of breath, causing an audible aspirate
glide after it. Briefly, it is r and h sounded together.
viii. Voiced liquids : 1; r. The latter is trilled like the strong Scotch r,
or the Italian r. The trilled r is a difficult sound to acquire; young
children usually substitute I for it. A few never acquire it, but substitute
for it a guttural r (=. 5). This is almost the only defect of speech to be
found among speakers of Welsh ; it is called tafod few ' thick tongue '.
ix. Sibilant: s. Welsh has no s; such a pronunciation as zei ' zeal' is pure
affectation; unsophisticated persons say sel, selog. Before i as in eiswu, s
now tends to become Eng. sh, and in some S.W. dialects after i. But many old
speakers cannot pronounce shibboleth at all. Standard Welsh s is the ss in
hiss.
x. Aspirate: h. The aspirate is distinctly sounded, and is never misused
except in Gwent and Glamorgan. It is really the voiceless form of the vowel
which follows it, or the glide between a voiceless nasal or liquid and a
vowel.
xi. Semi-vowels: i; w. As these letters also represent vowel yolinds, they
will be marked »', w in this work where it is neces-niiry to point out that
they are consonantal, z is the sound of the Eng. y in yard; w is the Eng. w
in will. c2
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PHONOLOGY
§ 18
H "Welsh w is the same sound as that which is written u in the hypothetic
forms of Ar., Kelt., Brit., etc. Thus Mn. W. wir ' indeed' is identical with
the first syll. of Kelt. *uw-os ' true' < Ar. *uer-os.
§ 18. i. The
characters p, t, o had the values in O.W. of modern p, t, c. They also
represented the mutated sounds 5, d, g, see § 103 iii; as in scipaur JUV. =
scubawr, Mn. W. ysgubor ' barn', creaticaul ox. •=. creadigawl, Mn. "W.
creadigol ' created '. When they have this value they are sometimes doubled ;
thus in M.c. we find catteiraul, Mn. W. cadeiriol ' cathedral' adj., carrecc,
Mn. W. carreg ' stone ', hepp, Ml. W. 1ieb' says'. Possibly this is due to
the influence of Irish spelling. [In Old Ir. original *nt > *d-d written t
and sometimes tt.]
ii. In Ml. W. p, t, c no longer represent I, d, g medially, but finally after
a vowel they continued to do so even down to the Mn. period. The facts are
briefly as follows: In the B.B., late l2th cent., the final labial is written
p, but often b {mab 27, a8, 39) ;
the dental is always d, because t is used for the soft spirant § ;
the guttural is always c. In the l4th cent. the labial very generally appears
as b, though often as p ; the dental is always t, the guttural always c. In
the i5th cent. (e.g. IL 38) we have b, d, c. In the 1630 Bible b, d, g, but c
in many forms, waic, lluddedic, etc. The final c is still written in ac and
nac, which should be ag, nag, § 228 i (i), ii (3). On the sound of the
consonant in these cases see § 111 v (4).
Finally after a consonant p, t, c have always represented the voiceless
sounds.
iii. In. Ml.W. and Early Mn. W., initial e is generally written k. The chief
exceptions are the combinations cl, or. Medially we find c, k, cc, ck.
Finally after a consonant, though we generally have c, wo also find k (or
even ck); as grafangk, oer-drangk E.P. l3»l, diagk etc. do. 1314, digelk do.
1364, lork &.B.B. 397, carfimck, IL.A. 170. In these words the sound was,
and is, voiceless. Note that after a vowel, where the sound is now g, it is
never written k in Ml. W. Thus k, which represents the tenuis only, is clearly
distinguished from c, which also finally represents the media.
NOTE. In 0. W. and the carlie&t Ml. W., as in L.L. (about 1150), c alone
is used; k appears in B.D. and was general in Ml. and Early
§ 19
THE CONSONANTS
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21
Mn. ~W. G.R. discarded k on the principle of " one sound one letter
", p. 20. But the decisive factor in its banishment from the "Welsh
alphabet was its replacement by c in Saleshury's N. T., published the same
year (1567). This being one of the many innovations '' quarrelled
withall" in his orthography, Salesbury,' in the Prayer Book of 1586 gave
his reason for the substitution : " 0 for K, because the printers haue
not so many as the Welsh requireth," Llyfryddiaeth 34. It is curious to
note that a letter which was thus superseded because of its greater
prevalence in Welsh than in English was classed 160 years later among-
"intruders and strangers to the Welsh language", Gor-mesiaid a
dieithriaid i'r Iwith Gymraeg, S.R. (1728) p. i.
§ 10. i. The characters b, d, g, in Q.W. represented initially the modern
sounds b, d, g ; but medially and finally they stood for the mutated sounds
f, 8, 5, as in gilbzii JUV., Mn. W. gylfin 'beak', gwirdglas u.c. =
gwyrb^las, Mn. W. gwyrddlas 'greenish blue '. Medially and finally/"was
also represented by m, though in this case the spirant was doubtless
nasalized then, as it is still normally in Breton ; thus nimer ox. = nirer,
Mn. W. nifer ' number', heitham ox., Mn. W. eithaf ' extreme '.
ii. (i) In Ml. W., b represented the sound b, but no longer the sound/".
(3) The sound/ was written in Early Ml. W. u or v, w and f;
thus in B.B., niuer 'Jenifer; vaur 31 =.fawr 'great', sew 45 s sef ' that is
'; dzhafal 30 •= dihafal ' unequalled'. We also find ff, as ajfv 31 s a fu '
who has been', barijfoin 53 = barfwyn ' white-bearded ,' tiff 50 s tyf '
grows '.
As •u. and v also represented the vowel zi, and as u, v, and w represented w
as well, the oithography of this period is most confusing.
(3) In Late Ml. W. the sound /was written medially u or v and fu, finally it
was represented by f regularly (the few exceptions which occur, e.g. in W.M.,
being due to mechanical copying). Thus, IL.A., vy 3 =-fy ' my'; llauur 3 =
llafur ' labour' ;
kyfuoethawc 55, Mn. W. cyfoethog ' rich '; gyntaf 3 ' first', dywedaf 3 ' I
say', ef 3 ' he', etc. u and v continued to be used medially for/during the
Early Mn. period ; but G.R. has f everywhere, and was followed by Dr. M. in
the 1588 Bible, which fixed the Late Mn. orthography.
As u and v also represented the vowel u, the word/u, may be found written wv,
vu, uv, uu. But there is much less confusion than in the
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PHONOLOGY
§ 19
earlier period, for (i) w is distinguished from u; (2) finally -u and V are
distinguished; thus new means neu 'or ', not nef 'heaven '.
The distinction between the characters u and v is a modern one;
double v (i. e. w) is still called " double u " in English.
6s* In the quotations in this grammar the letter u or v (for it was one
letter with two forms) is transcribed u when it stands for the vowel, and v
when it represents the consonant f, irrespective of the form in the MS. ,
which depended chiefly on the scribe's fancy at the moment.
(4) The sound which is now the labiodental f (= Eng. v) was in 0. W. and
probably also in Ml. W. a bilabial S, like the South German w. It was the
soft mutation of 6 or m, and resulted from these bilabial sounds being
pronounced loosely so that the breath was allowed to escape, instead of being
stopped, at the lips. It was sometimes confused with w, § 26 v; and was so
soft that it might, like w, be passed over in cynghanedd, e.g.jowynt •vy
cJiwaer p. 17 above; see Tr. Gym. 1908-9, p. 34.
iii. (i) The letter d in Ml.W. stands for both d and dd (8).
(a) In some Early Ml. MSS., of which the most important is the B.B., the
sound 8 when it is an initial mutation is generally represented by d, but
medially and finally is represented rather illogi-callybyt; thus B.B., dy
divet 19 =.dy Siweb 'thy end'; imtuin 32 =ymowyn 'to behave'; guirt ^^^gwyrS
'green'; tetev 6a = SeSew ' graves'. Medially, however, we also have d, as
adaw 41 = A^af ' Adam '; and occasionally, by a slip, finally, as oed I = oeS
' was' (conversely, by a rare slip, final t s d, as i'mbit 70 ^.ym mgd ' in
the world '). In B.CH. usage is still looser.
(3) In the Late Ml. period the sound 8 is represented by d, rarely by dd, see
IL.A. p. xxii. Initially and medially d and 8 cannot be distinguished at this
period, but finally they can, since final d is written t, § 18 ii, so that
final d must mean the sound 8. But it often happens that -d for -d and -t for
-8 are copied from an earlier MS.
While w. is distinctly Late Ml. W. in the representation of w, ify, it has -d
for -d and medial and final t for 8 ; also occasionally dd, as ar dderehet
iwa^arSerc/teb.
(4) dd came generally into use in the i5th cent. In the i6th Sir J. Price,
1546, used d;; G.R., 1567, used <jl; Salesbury, 1567,
§ 20
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23THE CONSONANTS
83
used dd and * ; Dr. M. in the Bible, 1588, itted dd, which in spite of
J.D.R.'s dh, 1592, has prevailed.
<W In this grammar Ml. W. d when it stands for dd (8) is transcribed 8.
iv. (i) In Ml. W. the letter g stands initially and medially for the sound g.
The voiced spirant 5 had then disappeared.
(a) But g is also used as well as ng for the sound iig (») (as in Eng. song).
When final, g must mean the nasal, for the explosive is written c, § 18 ii;
thus Hog B.B. 90, W(M. 180, E.M. 87 must be read Hong ' ship '.
W In this work Ml. g when it represents the nasal ng (w) is transcribed g.
(3) Medially ng sometimes stands for n\g (pronounced K>g like the ng in
the Eng. finger) ; thus Bangw, pronounced Bawgor. The simple sound represents
original v>g as in angel ( s awisel §54i(2))< Lat. angelus ( =
awgelus); the composite sound occurs where the nasal and explosive came
together later, and the g is the soft mutation of c, as in Ban-gor, radical
cor; un-glust' one-eared', dust' ear'. In 0. W. the composite sound appears
as nc, as uncenettidon M.C. =. un-genedigion, gloss on ' solicanae'. Cf.
Bede's Bancor, doubtless the Early W. spelling.
§ 20. i. (i) The sound ^f is represented in O.W. by f, asfiwn, fonowsi.G. =.
ffyvtfi' sticks',, ffionou 'roses'; sometimes medially by ph as in ciphillion
M.C. ' sprouts', grephiou M.C. ' pencils', Griphmd A.C. 814, § 36 ii, and p
or pp as Gripiud B.S.CH. i, Grippi(ud) GEN. xxx.
(a) In Ml. W. the sound ff is represented initially by f, both when it is
radical and when it is a mutation of_p, though in the latter case ph is
perhaps more usual; rarely we have f£; thus tanfoher B.B. 5 'when they are
put to flight' ,fort do. 33 = fforb 'way', nyforthmt do. 34 'they did not
cherish', WJ phercheiste do. a i 'thou hast not respected'; A fa Ie e maynt
A.L. i 160, MS. A., a pJiy . ., ES. D., ' and where they are' ; Jieb bant yn
y fenv, W.M. 453 . . .yny plienn E.M. 101 'without a tooth in her head' ;
ffoes B.B. 44 ' fled'. Medially and finally it is generally ff, as diffuis
B.B. 35 s diffwys 'steep', projfwid do. 85 'prophet', ''graft K.M. 5a '
croft', anffurvaw do. a9 ' to disfigure ', gorff'en.do. 5 ' to finish', sarff
do. 186 'serpent', haff w.M. 73 ' desirable'. It also appears as ph, as corpA
B.B. ao ' body', (g)wphen do. 76 ' end'; and often as f, as dew gorf E.M. 5 '
two bodies', awfuryf do.
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PHONOLOGY
§ 21
39 (.=anff'itrf) ' disfigurement', yn traf W.M. 53 (s^ ^ff^') '
strong'', groft do. 73 ' croft'.
(3) In Mil. W. ff and ph are used, the latter generally as a mutation ofp
only ; but G.R. and J.D.R. use ph exclusively.
Many modern writers use ph in all positions where they perceive that it is
derived from p, as in corph < Lat. corpus, writing ff where it does not
appear to them to be so derived, as in cyff ' stem, trunk', ffon ' stick '.
It is mostly a distinction without a difference: cyff comes from Lat. cippus,
and ffon is from Pr. Kelt. *spoiid-, § 96 iv (i). The attempted
differentiation is a useless one ; and as the etymology of too many words is
still uncertain, it cannot be carried out. It is better, therefore, to write
ff always where the sound is immutable, and ph only as a conscious mutation
of initial p; thus cor^f, cyff, ffon; chwe phvitt, chwepfiunt ' £6', gwragedd
aphlant' women and children', filith draphlith ' higgledy-piggledy'.
ii. (i) The sound th (f) is represented in 0. W. by th, as brith JUV. '
variegated'; by d, as papedpinnac M.c. '^.pa bei/i bynnag 'whatsoever' ; by t
after r, as gm't ox.=gwrt/i, Mn. W. wrth ' against'; and by ]p, as papef JUV.
= pa let/i. ' what'.
(a) In Ml. W. the sound is generally written th, though in some early MSS.,
as B.CH., sometimes t (after i) as kemyrt A.L. i 4 =. Jcymyrth ' took '. In
Mn. W. it is always written th.
Such a form as per/feidyaw JL.A. 19 is no exception to the rule. The th had
been voiced to dd, and the word was perjfeiddww. It is so written in Early
Mn. W., and the Late Mn. W. perffeithio is a re-forma- . tion. See § 108 iv
(2).
iii. (i) The sound ch (^) is written ch in 0. W., as Uchan ox. =. tychan'
little'. Once we have gch, in iuigchell M.C. ' fawn', Mn.W. tyrcJiell.
(a) The sound is written ch consistently in Ml. and Mn. W., and there seem to
be no variations to note.
§ 21. i. The sounds mh, nh, and ngh were written mp, |it, and no in 0. W.;
and mp, nt and no, ngk, or gk in Ml. W. 'These combinations continued to be
written throughout the Ml. period, though the modern signs appear as early as
W.M. or earliei; see § 107. (
§ 22
THE CONSONANTS
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25
<*»In Early Ml. W. we also find m for mh, n for nh, and g for ngh; see §
24 i.
ii. The letters m, n, ng have always represented the sounds m, n, w; but m also
represented w in. 0. W., § 19 i; ng may represent v>g in Ml. and Mn. W.;
and w was also written g in Ml. W.; § 19 iv.
iii. Initial n has sometimes a prosthetic y-; as yrwng e yniver ef ac yniver
y Uys . . . yr yniveroeS W.M. 40 ' between his host and the host of the court
. . . the hosts'. It is also written a as &nadre8 C.M. 21 'snakes',
smniver W.M. 65.
§ 22. i. In 0. ~W. the sound II was written 1 initially, and 11 medially and
finally; as kill ox. ' others', lenn M.c. ' cloak ' guollung JUV. •=gwollwng
' release'. In dimthruim JUV., if rightly analysed into llwyth ' weight' and
rhwyf ' oar', we have dl- for pi-, the usual imitation, of the II sound, § 17
vii, proving the sound to be as old as the 9th cent., though then usually
written 1- initially. The imitation thi is common in the earliest Norman
records, but has not been used by Welsh writers.
ii. In Ml. W. the II sound is represented by 11 ; in some MSS., e.g. the
E.B., it is ligatured thusH, enabling it to be distinguished from double 1 as
in callow E.M. 106 ' heart', lollo R.P. 1369,1407, kollyn E.B. 1073 'pivot',
which we now write colon, lolo, colyn, § 54 ii. The ligatured capital Id has
been used from the Ml. period to the present day in lettering done by hand.
iii. In Mn. W. 11 is used.
Several attempts have been made from time to time to find substitutes : G.R.
used 1, Sir J. Price and J.D.E. used Ih; Ed. Lhuyd used Ih and \; hut 11 has
held the field.
iv. The sound rh was written r in 0. and Ml. W. The scribes use r for rh even
when the ft has a different origin, and sometimes even when it belongs to
another word, as in y gwamcyn ara/'E.B.B. 194 for y gwanwyw a'r haf 'the
spring and summer'. @s" Ml. W. r for rh is transcribed r in our
quotations. v. In the late l^th and early 16th cent. the &ound rh was
represented by rr and E,; it was not until the middle of the 16th cent. that
the present digraph rh, which seems to us so obvious and natural a
representation of the sound, came into general use.
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PHONOLOGY
§ 2S
vi. The sounds I and r have always been represented by the letters 1 and r.
§ 23. i. The sound s haa always been written s. In 0. W. it is sometimes
doubled as in (him JUV. = dryssi ' thorns', iss-M.C., M1.W. ys ' is'. In Ml.
W. it is usually doubled medially between vowels, as in lessu B.B. 25, 50,
IL.A. i, 19, etc., Saessoit B.B. 48, messw B.B. 3 ' measure', etc., but
sometimes written single as in Saeson B.B. 60. Initial ss also occurs, as
ssillit B.B. 99 £ sylly^, Mn. W. sylli ' thou g-azest'. z for s is rare :
tryzor IL.A. 17 ' treasure '.
ii. Initial s followed by a consonant has developed a prosthetic y- (written
y, e, i, etc. § 16), as in ysgol' school'.
It is not derived from the late Lat. prosthetic i- as in iscola, sinca Corn.,
Bret., Ir. scol do not show it, and it appears in native words ifl W., as
ystrad. It arose in W. for the same reason as in late Lat., a syllabic
pronunciation of s- after a consonant. The earliest recorded examples are
Istrat, -Estrat, beside Strat in ii.L. see its index s.v. Istrat. In the
spoken language it is not heard except in words in which it is accented, as
ysgol, 'ystrad, ysbryd, etc., and sometimes in derivatives of these, as
ysgolwn; but sgiibor, strodur, sgr"ifen, str'i[d. In 0. W. it ia not
written : scipaur JUV., strotur M.C., scribenn M.C. In Early Ml. "W. we
have gwastavel A.L. i 4 s gwas-stavell foi the later gwas ystavetl 'W.M. 183,
B.M. 85. In the oldest verse it does not count as » syllable:
Stavell GynSylan ys tywyll heno (10 syll.) E.P. 1045.
' The hall of Cynddylan is dark to-night.' In later verse it usually counts
after a consonant and not after a vowel:
Mi Iscolan yscolheic (^Mi 'Scolan yscollw\ie, 7 syll.) B.B. 81.
'I am Yscolan the clerk.' But in B.B. 91 we seem to have swiheie after wyd,
see § 41 ni (2).
Mac sgrifen uwchben y bedd.— L.G.C. 20. ' There is a legend above the tomb.'
Damasg a roed am i sgrln.—T.A., A 31101/115. * Damask was spread over his
coffin.'
Ac ysgrin i geisio gras.—D.G. 60.
' And a coffin to seek grace.'
19
The y- was geneial in late Ml. MSS., but it is possible that when unaccented
the actual spoken sound consisted of a gradual beginning of the s, which like
a vowel preserved the r of the article, etc. G.R., 1567, says that yr is used
before st, sc, sp, as yr stalwyn, though some.
§§ 24, 25
THE CONSONANTS
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write yr y stalwyn, p. 68. He himself also writes ag scrifennu, p. 69, etc.
In the 1620 Bible we find seder, sclyfaeth, scrifennedic, but yscubor,
yspeilio, yscrifen, each word generally written in the same way whether it
follows a vowel or a consonant. The r of the article is retained before forms
without y-, as yr scrifenyddion Barn. v 14, Matt. vii 29. The y- is
introduced more freely in the 1690 edition;
but its insertion everywhere is late^ and of course artificial, since it
never became general in natural speech.
§ 24. i. The letter h has always been employed to denote the aspirate ; but
it was not used to represent the aspirate glide after r until the modern
period, § 33 iv; and in some Early Ml. MSS. mJi, wh and ng/i were written m,
n and'g, as emen (=ymhen) A.L. i 84, ewenynes {=.y vrenhlnes) do. 4'; vy
gerenhyt W. y ( s vy fig/ieremnAyS); yg gadelhy do. w (sywg Ifghadelling).
ii. In 0. and Ml. W. h seems also to have been used to denote a voiced
breathing; see § 113.
§ 25. i. Consonantal z is represented in 0. W. by i, as iar JUV. = idr (
hen', Jie&torlou ox., pi. of hestawr, cloriou ox., Mn. W. cloriau
'boards', mellliwnou M.C., Mn. W. meillipn 'clover'. Before -ow it is also
found as u (once iu), as enmeituoii ox., Mn. W. amneidiau ' beckonings',
damcirc/iinmuow JUV. ' circuits';
dificiuou JUV. ' defects' ; here it was probably rounded into ii in
anticipation of the final ii; cf. § 76 iii (3). Where it is the soft mutation
of front g it appears as g in 0. W., as in Urbgen in Nennius s Urfwn, Mn. W.
Urzen; Morgen GTSS. xxv s Morien. Here the i was doubtless heard with more
friction of the breath being the spirant 5 corresponding to front g ; see §
110 ii.
ii. In Early M1.W. ^ is represented by i, except in MSS. where y is used for
i, § 16 ii (a); thus tirion B.B. 36, pi. of tir ' land', dinion, do. 45 (s
dynmi) ' men '.
iii. In late Ml. W. it is represented initially by i, rarely by y ;
as lessu B.B. 25, 50, IL.A. I, 19, etc., leuan IL.A. 78, iartt, iarlles W.M.
136 'earl, countess', iawn B.M. 16 'right', yawnhaf do. 34 ' most proper ',
Tessii, Tiessu, IL.A. 100. Medially it is written y, as Synnyon W.M. 33
'men', becfySyaw do. 33 'to baptize', mebylyaw do. 34 ' to think ', etc.,
etc., rarely as i, as ymbilio B.M. 3 ' he may entreat.'
ts" When y represents % it will be dotted as above in the quotations in
this book.
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PHONOLOGY
§ 26
iv. In Mn. W. i is written i ; but often j in the l8th cent., see e. g.
Llyfryddiaeth 1713, 4 ; 1748, 4, 8 ; i749> 2-
v. Voiceless » occurs where the word or syllable preceding' z causes
aspiration, and is written hi (also by in Ml. W.), as y hiarllaeth E.M. 178 '
her earldom ', kennJiyadu IL.A. 79 ' to consent',
If pronounced tensely hz becomes the palatal spirant j( as in the German ich,
but this does not occur in Welsh: hi remains a voiceless semi-vowel. Cf. § 17
iii.
§ 26. i. Consonantal w is written gu in 0. W. as in petgmr ox. =. pedwar
'four'. See § 113 ii (i).
ii. In Early Ml. W. w is represented by u, v, and w; in Late Ml. "W. by
w and 0. Its representation is the same as that of the vowel w; see § 14 ii
(2). In Mn. W. it is written w. *
The letter w sometimes appears in the form uu, as in keleuwt A.ii. i 40 ( s
cylywed) ' to hear'.
iii. Initial w- had become gw- in the Early Welsh period ; gee § 112 ii (i);
but it is w- under the soft mutation, thus gwallt ' hair,' dy wallt' thy hair
'.
Initial gw may come before I, r or n, as in gwlad ' country', gwraig ' wife',
gwn&f ' I do ', each one syllable. The initial combinations are
practically gl, gr or gn pronounced with rounded lips, the rounding taking
place simultaneously with the formation of the g, so that the off-glide of
the g is heard as w. When the g is mutated away the initial is I, r or n with
w as an on-glide ; thus dy wlad ' thy country' sounds like dyw lad, except
that the syllabic division is dy \ wlad.
iv. In Ml. and Early Mn. W. final w after a consonant was consonantal; see §
43. Now the w is made syllabic.
The exceptions to the rule were forms in which -w represents earlier -wy, as
fi'tcnnw; Mn. W. acw, Early Ml. W. raccw, Ml. W. ractco; assw, gwrw, bamo^ 78
i (2). It may have been made consonantal in the last three by analogy, coming
after s, r, single n.
v. Medial w is liable to interchange withy; thus cawod, cafod ' shower' ;
cyfoeth, cywaeth § 34 iv; diawl ' devil' for *diafl. The old verbal noun from
lliw ' colour ' is llvfo ' to dye', a newer formation is lliwio ' to colour
'. The reason for the interchange is that f was once a bilabial, 5, § 19 ii
(4), and so, very similar to w, being in effect w with friction of the breath
at the lips instead of at the back.
vi. (i) Voiceless w, by being pronounced tensely, has become
§ 36
THE CONSONANTS
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a rounded cJi, written ohw. It is the result of pronouncing Voiceless w with
the mouth-passage narrowed at the back so as to produce audible friction,
which is heard as ch (\) accompanying the w. In S.W. dialects the loose
voiceless w (written wh or hw) prevails initially. In, O.W., in rov. and
M.C., cJiwi ' you' appears as Jim; later this word was everywhere chm, the ch
being still heard even in S.W. (though now unrounded in this word, thus cAi).
Initial chw prevails in Ml. W. and later, as chuerv B.B. 83, %^.=chwerw
'bitter', chuec do. 84 'sweet', chitant do. 34 ' lust' ; chwythu W.M. 47 ' to
blow', chwaer do. 41 ' sister', chwedy-l do. 42, E.M. 29 ' ia\.e',,chwythat
IL.A. 9 ' breath', chwant do. n ' lust', and so generally in Mn. W.; but wh
frequently occurs in Ml. MSS. and sometimes in Early Mn. poets, as whechet
IL.A. 147 ' sixth ', whennydiu do. 149 'to desire', whaer E.M. 28, wJiedlQ.
147.
(2) Initial rounded ch is heard with w as an off-glide, as in cJiwaer;
final rounded ch has w as an on-glide, as in iwch ' to yon', ewch ' go ye'.
In the latter case the sound is ch in all the dialects, not h.
(3) Initial chw sometimes interchanges with gw; as G-wovre dy chware E.M. 154
'play thy game', chwith, gwith do. 301 'sinister';
this is due to the variability of original initial s-, § 101 ii (i);
*su- > chw-; *u- > gw-. nghw for chw is due to a preceding n {nhw >
whw), as chwaneg, anghwaneg ' more'; yn chwaethach B.M. 7, yghwaethach do.
85, io8 'rather'.
(4) Initial chw has often a prosthetic y-, as ychwaneg ' more', ychwanegu
W.M. 44 'to add'.
(5) Final rounded -ch, of whatever origin, becomes unrounded if the syllable
is unaccented; thus welewch W.M. 50 'ye saw' is welech. But -ifweh gave -wch,
as in cerwch 'ye love' for *ce'n{wch,.see § 173 viii; so peswch for
*pes'i{wch: pas, § 201 iii (2). The form ydych is due to the analogy of ydym;
so Late Mn. W. gwnych after the ist pi. for Ml. and Early Mn. gennwch.
NOTE.
TSANSCEIPTION.—By means of the devices mentioned in the above sections (the
use of 8, g, r, etc.) the forms of Late Ml. W. can generally be transcribed
so as to indicate the approximate sound while preserving the exact spelling
of the MS. But, as we have seen, the orthography of 0. and Early Ml. W. is so
irregular that no such plan is possible. Accordingly, for these periods, the
form in the MS. is given, followed, where necessary, by a transcription
introduced by the sign =, giving the probable sound in modern characters.
The works of Early Mn. poets are often found in late MSS. and
PHONOLOGY
§21
29 (^awffmf) 'disfigurement', yn ~braf w.M. 53 (=yn ^ff) ' strong ', groft
do. 73 ' croft'.
(3) In Mn. W. ff and ph are used, the latter generally as a mutation ofp only
; but G.B. and J.D.R. use ph exclusively.
Many modern writers use ph in all positions where they perceive that it is
derived from p, as in corph < Lat. corpus, writing ff where it does not
appear to them to be so derived, as in cyff ' stem, trunk ',ffon 'stick'. It
is mostly a distinction without a difference: cyff comes from Lat. cippus,
and^cw is from Pr. Kelt. *spond-, § 96 iv (i). The attempted differentiation
is a useless one; and as the etymology of too many words is still uncertain,
it cannot be carried out. It is better, therefore, to write ff" always
where the sound is immutable, and ph only as a conscious mutation of initial
p; thus corff, cyff, ffon; chwe phunt, cJiwephunt ' £16', gwragedd aphlant'
women and children', UitJi draphlitfi' higgledy-piggledy'.
ii. (i) The sound tJi (/) is represented in 0. W. by th, as brith JUV. '
variegated' ; by d, as papedpinnac M.c. ~=pa teth tymnag 'whatsoever' ; by t
after r, as gwt o's..-=gwrth, Mn. W. wrth ' against'; and by ]?, as papep
JUV. = pa lieih ' what'.
(a) In Ml. W. the sound is generally written th, though in some early MSS.,
as B.CH., sometimes t (after r) as kewyrt A.L. i 4 =- kymyth ' took '. In Mn.
W. it is always written th.
Such a form as perffeidyaw IL.A. 19 is no exception to the rule. The th had
been voiced to dd, and the word was perffeiddiaw. It is so written in Early
Mn. W., and the Late Mn. W. perff'€ithio is a re-formation. See § 108 iv
(2).
iii. (i) The sound ch (x) is written oh in 0. W., as Uchs.n ox. =. lyuhan'
little'. Once we have gch, in iwgchell M.C.' fawn', Mn.W. vyrcliell.
(a) The sound is written ch consistently in Ml. and Mn. W.,
and there seem to be no variations to note.
i
§ 21. i. The sounds mil, nh, and ngh were written mp, yk, and nc in 0. W.;
and mp, nt and no, ngk, or gk in Ml. W. ' These combinations continued to be
written throughout the Ml. period, though the modern signs'appear as early as
v.M. or earliet; see § 107. . {
§ 22 THE CONSONANTS 25
In Early Ml. W. we also find m for mi, n for n1i, and g for wjh; see § 34 i.
ii. The letters m, n, ng have always represented the sounds M, n, w; but m
also represented v in 0. W., § IQi; ng may represent wg in Ml. and Mn. W.;
and so was also written g in Ml. W. ; § 19 iv.
iii. Initial n has sometimes a prosthetic y-; UK yrvw/ e yniver ef ac yniver
y lli/s . , , yr yww(wS w.M. 40 ' lietwcyii his liost and the boat of tlio
court . . . (lir lioxtH'. It in ulno written a as anadreS O.K. 21 'miiikcH',
annivrr W.M. 65.
{ 22. i. In 0. W. tlio sound U was written 1 initially, and 11 mixliiilly und
finally; \w Ic'ill ox. 'others', lenn M.C. 'cloak' ffUolluHiJ iuv,
sffyollwHff ' release '. In dluit7iruim JUV., if rightly fttlftlyMxl into
llwyth' weight' and rliwyf ' oar', we have dl- for //-, tlio umal imitation
of the II sound, § 17 vii, proving the wound to be as old as the 9th cent.,
though then usually written I- iiulitlly. The imitation thi is common in the
earliest Norman iworda, but hoe not boon used by Welsh writers.
11. In Ml. W. the // sound is represented by 11; in some MSS., f.lf. tho
n.D.i it in li^ntm-ed thusH, enabling it to be distinguished ft«»m iloublo 1
— in riillmi u. M. 106 ' liciirt', lollo R.P. 1369,1407, l^iiHyn II,R. 107'!
' |iiv"l ', which w« now writifl fa/ou, Jolo, colyn, | 64 Ii Tliii
lignliirMi c«|iil«l IL huN hcun >in<'<l from the Ml. |w«l<») i..
ihft ixpwoiii ilny In leUfrlntr done by hiiinl.
(*l 1« UM \\. UtouMd.
ftl*—«J «««IMH|>I* lev IMIOU inaile liuin time to time to find
suhsti-(•(•» «JJL WMKI ), NIr J. I'riflfl nii<l .t.D.Jf. used Ih; Ed.
Lhuyd used Ml «-1 HJftiK II ||M Mil the fluhl.
(». 'ttw kouiiil rfi wan written r in 0. and Ml. W. The scribes — f ^St fA
ovun when tlio h lias a different origin, and some-Unxw <»VB wlion it
belongs to another word, as in y gwamvyn, <H^/'Kli.U. 194 {orygii'iiMi'ffi
a'r liaf 'the spring aud summer'. <» Ml. W. r for r/i w trunHrribed /'• in
our quotations. V. In U>o late l.';t.h und eiirly i6th cent. the &ound
rh was lv|irWBt<«l by rr and B; it was not until the middle of the t^lh
cent. that the present digraph rh, which seems to us so »(>*louii und
natural a representation of the sound, came into ircirmi uw,
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PHONOLOGY
§27
printed books containing not only dialectal forms inconsistent with the forms
implied by the rhymes of the bards, but also late inventions, such as ei,
eich, etc. In these cages the spelling has been standardized in the
quotations in this work. The spelling of the MS. is here of no importance, as
the cynghanedd, rhyme or metre is in every case relied" on as showing
the exact form used by the author.
All quotations are given with modern punctuation, including the insertion of
the apostrophe, and the use of capital letters.
SOUNDS IN COMBINATION.
Syllabic Division.
§ 27. i. In Welsh a single consonant between two vowels belongs normally to
the second syllable; thus ca nu ' to sing', gws\le\dig ' visible '; when
there are two or more consonants the first belongs to the first syllable, as
can\tor ' singer', caa\zad, 'song', tan\wi[dd 'fire-wood', can\fref ' hundred
(district)'. A double consonant belongs to both ; thus in can nu ' to whiten
', the first syllable ends after the stoppage of the month-passage for the
formation of the ft, and the second begins before the opening of the passage
which completes the formation of the consonant. Thus a double consonant
implies not two independent consonants, but a consonant in which the closing
of the passage takes place in one syllable and the opening in the next, and
both count. This is seen most clearly in a word like dryeilt ' storm', where
the c closes as a velar q and opens as a palatal & (drfq^in), and yet is
not two complete consonants. The consonants p, t, c, m, s, ng, 11, are
double after accented vowels, though written single; thus ateb, canasant =
at\teb, ca\nas\sant. See § 54.
ii. A consonant which is etymologically double is simplified after an
unaccented syllable; as cy\a.^\fn B.M. 183 'familiar' (cy'a-'a.ef-m <
*koia-6Lom-mo-: Lat. domus); w1>e\a.y\cJiu K.B.B. 89 (from chwaut) ' to
desire '; ym^y^Waw, do. 49 (from cyuaull) ' to gather together'. But this
phonetic rule is not regularly observed in writing, except in the final
unaccented syllable, calonn ' heart' (pi. calonnau), Galann (from vulg .Lat.
Kalanc!-), etc., being generally written calon, Calau, etc.
iii. In modern writing the division of syllables where required, as at the
wd. of a line, is made to follow the etymology ratl»er than the
§§ 28,29
SYLLABIC DIVISION
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sound; thus it is usual to divide can-u ' to sing' so, can being the stem and
u the ending, instead of ca-nu, which is the true syllabic division. In the
case of more than one written consonant the division is usually made to
follow the sound; thus, carwu ' to whiten ', plen-tyn ' a child', the
etymological division being cann-u, plent-yn. Ml, scribes divided a word
anywhere, even in the middle of a digraph.
In this grammar syllabic division is indicated when lequired hy as above ;
and the hyphen is used to mark off the formative elements of words, which do
not necessarily form separate syllables.
Diphthongs.
§ 28. A diphthong consists of the combination in the same syllable of a
sonantal with a consonantal vowel. When the sonantal element comes first the
combination is a falling diphthong. When the consonantal element comes first
it is a rising diphthong. " Diphthong " without modification will
be understood to mean falling diphthong.
Falling Diphthongs.
§ 29. i. In 0. W. falling diphthongs had for their second element either i,
front u, or back u. The 0. W. diphthongs with their Ml. and Mn. developments
are as follows;
Front u
Back u
O.W. ai oi ui ei
on (au) an eu
iu
|iu
OT1
M1.W.
au, ae
ou, oe
wu
el
eu
aw
ew
iw
uw, yw
yw, ew
Mn.W. (an), ae (ou), oe wy ei,ai eu, au aw ew iw
•uw, yw yw, ew
ii. (i) As i in 0. W. represented both i and i{ the exact value of the second
element in 0. "W. ai, oi, ui cannot he fixed; hut it was probably
receding in the direction of if. In wy it has remained y. The former
diphthongs are generally written ae and oe; hut the spellings ay, oy are commonly
met with in Early Ml. W., and sometimes in MSS. of the Mn. period; as guayt
'blood', coyt 'timber', mays 'field' ii.L. 120; croyn 'skin' A.I. i. 24, mays
do. 144; Yspayn 'Spain', teymassoyS ' kingdoms' P9B. In B.M. 118
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PHONOLOGY
30, 31
we have haearn, in 119 hay am. 'iron'. Though now always written ae, oe, the
sound in N. W. is still distinctly ay, o^; thus maes, coed are read mays,
wi{d. In Mid and S. Wales the sound approaches the spelling ae, oe. In parts
of 8. W. the diphthongs are simplified into d, o in the dialects: was, cod.
In Pembrokeshire oe becomes w-e and even we.
(2) Ml. W. ae and oe are derived not only from O.W. ai and oi, but also from
O.W. disyllabic a e and o|e ; thus saeth < sa\eth < Lat. sagitta; maes
< ma\es (rhyming with gormes, B.T. 25) < *may,s; troed pi. traed (rhyming
with vrithret / bryssyet E.P. 1042) from *troget-, *traget-, § 65 ii (i).
They may also represent a contraction of a|u, o|il as in daed § 212 iv,
tr6ent, § 185 i (i).
iii. Ml. W. ei had an open and a close e according to position;
these developed into Mn. W. ai and ei; see § 79 i. The present sound of the
form ei is 9i, where 9 is an obscure vowel which is hardly, if at all,
distinct from y.
iv. O.W. ou (= ou) occurs once as au, in anutonau JUV. ' perjuria ', which in
ox. is anutonou. The o was unrounded in Ml. W., becoming an indistinct vowel,
open and close, written e; the two forms became Mn. W. au and ev ; see § 79
ii.
v. O.W. au and eu (back u) have remained the same phonetically, the back u
being written w in the later language. O.W. iu represented three distinct
diphthongs according as i represented i or either sound of y. The diphthongs
ijw and yw are even now of course both represented by a single group yw in
ordinary writing. The rules^or distinguishing between them are those that
apply to </ and y generally;
§ 82 ii (4).
vi. O.W. ou (back u) represents the diphthong yw, written yw and also ow at a
later period, § 33 iii (a). Thus diguolouichetic ox.;
Ml. W. llywychedic E.M. 84 ' shining', llywych E.P. 1153, which appear beside
llewifch E.P. 1154, Mn. W. llewych corr. into llewifrch 'light';
§ 76 vi, viii.
§ 30. The diphthongs ae or aq and oe or oq followed by w form the falling
triphthongs aew, oew or aqw, ouw, in gwayw 'spear', gloifw ' bright', /toyw '
s-ipiightly', ao//w 'clear', which remain strictly monosyllabic in the
cynghanedd of the Early Mn. bards. In late pronunciation the w is made
syllabic, except when a syllable is added, as in the pi. gloywon which is
still disyllabic. In dd^wch, contracted from da ywch, the ayw has now been
simplified into aw ; see § 313 iv.
§ 31. i. Unaccented ae in the final syllable was often reduced to e in the
Ml. period, especially in verbal forms and proper names ; as in adwen for
adwaen ' I know', chware for cJiwarae ' to play ', ItJiel for Ithael, 0. W. ludfiail
(•=. y^-liail}. -
§ 32
FALLING DIPHTHONGS
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Pan aeth pawb allan y chware E.M. 116 ' When everybody went out to play'; see
also E.M. 15, 38, 84, §7, 153, etc. Lloches adar i chwarae,
Llwyn mwyn, llyna'r llun y mae.—D.G. 37.
'A retreat for
birds to play, a pleasant grove, that is the manner [of place] it is.' See
also D.Q. 40, 58, 465 (misprinted -au in 169). Nid gwr heb newid gware:
Nid llong hebfyned oh Tie.—G.G1. o. i 197.
' He is not a man, who does not change his pastime; it is not a ship, that
does not move from its place.'
For examples of adwen, see § 191 ii (2).
ii. (i) The simplification of final unaccented ai and au to e are dialectal
and late. Such forms as llefen for llefain, gzoele for gwelai are avoided by
the Early Mn. bards in their rhymes, but they begin to appear in MSS. in the
late i5th cent., and were common in the 16th and lyth cent. But the literary
forms never fell out of use, and ultimately supplanted the dialectal foims in
the written language, though some of the latter have crept in, as cyfer for
cyfair, Ml. W. Jcyveir § 215 iii (9), ystyried for ystyriaid § 203 iii (2).
(2) The levelling in the dialects of the sounds mentioned gave rise to
uncertainty as to the correct forms of some words. The word bore 'morning'
began to be wrongly written boreu or borau in the i5th cent^; see o. 190. The
forms camrau, godreu, tyiau are later blundeis for the literary forms cawre
'journey', godre ' bottom edge', pi. godreon, E.M. 147, and tyie 'hill;
couch'. The new ychain for ychen 'oxen' § 121 iii is due to the idea that -en
is dialectal. In Gwynedd ychain is heard, but is a dialectal perversion like
merchaid for merched. Tesog fore gwna'r lie 'n lion, Ac annerch y tea
gwynwn.—B.G. 524.
' On a warm morning make the place merry, and greet the white houses.' See
tore B.B. 31, 55, 82, 92, 108, W.M. 56, 73, etc.
Ni adewais lednais Ie
Tnghymry arfy nghamre.—I.G. 201. 'I left no noble place in Wales on my
journey.' See kamre, E.P. 1269.
Lluwch arfre a godre gdllt,
A brig yn dwyn barug-wallt.—D.Q. 508. ' Snowdrift on hill and foot of slope,
and branch bearing hair of hoar-frost.' See also E.P. 1036.
A phan edrychwyt y dyle E.M. 146 'And when the couch was examined.'
§ 82. The diphthong ai is wiongly written ae by most recent writers (under
the influence of Pughe) in the words a/with
* There is one example in O.tt. 5, which stands quite alone in the E.B., and
so ia prob. a scribal error.
noa I)
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PHONOLOGY
§33
' delight', araith ' speech', cyffaiffi ' confection', disglaw ' bright',
goddaith ' conflagration', gweniaitJi, (or gweiniaitK) 'flattery',
rJif/ddiait/t 'prose', talaHh 'crown; realm'. See §202 iv (l). The word
diffaith. Ml. W. diffeitfi, ' waste, wild, evil' (from Lat. defect-us) is
generally written so in the good periods (e. g. (1'iffeWi B.B. 106, B.M.
183); hut some early examples occur of a new formation bomffaeth
'cultivated' (from Lat. foetus), tt.P. 1047, 1. a.
Yn y nef mae 'n un aflaith Tn s6n archangylion saith.—Gr.H. G. 101.
' In heaven in pui e rapture there speak archangels seven.' See D.G. 358,
where afiaith is printed afiaeth in spite of its rhyming with gobaith. See
also G. 122.
Ef a g&r awdl ae araith,
JSf a wyr synnwyr y saitfi.—H.D. p 99/469.
' He loves song and speech, he knows the meaning of the seven
[sciences].' See G. n8; areith B.B. 9, 15.
Disgleir Siweir Veir vorwyn.—Ca., K.P. 1247.
' Blight chaste virgin Maiy.'
Coed osglog, caeau disglair, Wyth ryw ffd, a thri o wair.—D.G. 524•
' Branching trees, bright fields, eight kinds of corn and three of hay.' See
D.G. 54, i20, 209, 404. See B.CW. 8, early editions of Bible, etc.
Fal goddaith yn ymdaith iios.—D.G. 13. ( Like a bonfire on a
night's march.' See goSeith E.P. 1042, B.B. 73.
Gwenwyn ydiw eu gweiniaith, Qwywt i gyd gennyt eu gwaith.—I.F. M 148/721.
' Their flattery is poison, to thee their work is all wind.'
Twysog yw, enwog i waith, Teilwng i wisgo talaith.—E.U.
' He is a prince whose woik is famous, worthy to wear a crown,'
Troes dilyw tros y dalaitb, Torri M rif tyrau'r iaith.—GU..O. A 14967/62.
' A deluge has overflowed the realm, thinning the number of the
nation's towers.' See G. 80, 87, 199, 2i8, 257. Tro 'n d'6l at yr 'hen
dalaith ;
Digon yw digon o daith,—E.P. Tii 124/283 B.
' Turn back to the old country ; enough is enough of travel.'
§33. Late Contractions, i. (i) We have seen that a-e and o-e were contracted
early into ae and oe ; § 29 ii (a). This contraction also took place later,
as in Cymraeg ' "Welsh ', Groeg
^ 33
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35
' Greek', and in verbal forms such as aed ' let him go', rfioed 'let him
give', r/ioes ' he gave'; see § 185.
In E.P. 1189 ffro-ec is a disyllabic rhyming with chwec, ostec, Cym\ra\ec,
tec; in the B.C. 1119 it is stated to be a monosyllable;
D.G. uses it as a monosyllable, 53, as well as rhoes 6 ' gave', troes 68 'turned',
gwnaed 149 'let her do', doed 145, 228 'let him come', ffoes 191 'fled', hut
jf6\es 61. He uses Oym\rd\eg as a trisyllable rhyming with teg, 2, 179 ; so
G.Gr., D.G. 243. This form persisted in the 15th cent.; as
Cymro da I G-ym.|ra|eg, Gymered air Gymru deg.—G.GL, M 146/281.
' A Welshman of good "Welsh, let him take the praise of fair
"Wales.'
In the 15th cent., however, we meet with the contracted form; see T.A. G.
251. Later, this was usual:
Da z G-ymjraeg, di-gymar 6edd, Di-dldwd ym mhob dadi ydoedd.—W.IL. 120
(m.S.B.).
' Good [in] his Welsh, incomparable was he, lesourceful in all debate.'
(2) The contraction of the accented penult with the ultima results in an
accented ultima § 41 iii. But in newly-formed compounds, contracted forms
such as macs, troed are treated like other monosyllables, and the accent
falls on the penult; thus glyn-faes D.G. 135 ' vale', mein-droed do. 262 '
slender foot', deu-drwd ' two feet'.
ii. The E.G., 1119, states that ey is always a disyllabic. This is not
necessarily the case in the penult, for in such forms as keyrifi, § 122 ii
(3), pi. of kaer 'fort', trei[tJii[ch B.P. 1153 from traethaf 'I treat',
etc., it is an old affection of ae. In other cases, however, the diphthong is
late, and the disyllabic form is used in poetry down to the i6th cent. Thus:
Lloer yw a dawn llawer dyn, Lleuad rhzanedd I»le|-qn.—G.GL, M 148/191.
' She is the moon and the grace of many women, the moon of the ladies of
Lleyn.' See also I.G. 388, 405.
Salbri ieuanc sel bre|ur Sydd i gael swyddau a gwyr.—Gu.O. 4. 14967/94.
' Young Salesbury of the stamp of a chieftain [is he] who is to have offices
and men.'
Nid di na chawr na dyn, chwifrn, Heb haint Duw, a'ft pen te|qrn.—T.A. c. ii
81.
' Neither a giant nor a violent man, without the scourge of God, could take
our liege lord.' See G. 176, r. 14, 33. See hejiirn / tehirn / kedifrn E.P.
1226.
D 3
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PHONOLOGY
§83
The contracted form sometimes occurs; as
Penfar heurn pan fo 'r hirnos.—D.G. 267. ' A head-dress of iron spikes when
the night is long.'—To the holly.
The name Lleyn is now pronounced Llifn, and regarded as an exception to the
rule that Welsh is written phonetically. Llyn, as the name should be spelt,
is a contraction of Llyyn, which also occurs, E.B.B. 307, 342 ; and has been
written in the contracted form from the 16th cent. The contraction is as old
as the i4th, for we find tlyyn in E.P. 1360, where the metre proves the sound
to be 1.li]n,
0 Iiyn i Dywyn, yn daw, 0 Dywyn i dir Deau.—W.IL., G. 297. ' From Llyn to
Towyn, we two, from Towyn to the land of the south.'
iii. (i) The Mn. W. diphthongs oi, ou and ow are always late contractions; as
in r/ioi for r1io\i from rJioddi ' to give';
yw.arJi6us c.o. 330 for ymcw1w\us ' dilatory'; rJmsch for r?io\wch i
give ye'; rhoist for rJto\ei8t ' thou gavest' ; rJi.di for r!io\ei ' he
gave'.
These contractions occur in common words in the i4th cent.; see roi E.P.
1206, i2io, rhoi D.G. 206, 521, 524, rhois do. 206, rhoist do. 2, E.P. izii;
rout (printed roit) D.G. 206, roi, rwwn do. 243. But micontracted forms occur
even later ; tro\ais D.G. 307, tr6\i I.G., cyjJ'r6\l L.G.C., i). 16.
(2) The diphthong ow is pronounced with the o unrounded, thus 9i,v, where the
9 is closer than the first element in the Eng. ow, and is scarcely
distinguishable from the obscure y ; in fact the yw in cywydd and the ow in
rhowch are identical. Hence in the igth, i6th and .i7th cent. the old
diphthong yw was often written ow; as in cowydd or Icoioydd for cywtfdd, see
Mostyn E. pp. 2, 3, etc., 26, 27, etc. etc.
iv. A late contraction may take the form of one of the old diphthongs, or
even of a simple vowel; as gld\nhau for gla\n/id\u 'to clean'; plan K.I'.
1323 for pld\eu 'plagues';
cli\Ieu for di\le\u 'to delete'; awn for d\ww 'we go'; gla\n1idd for gla
nM\ad ' cleansing'; (g}zcnai W.M. 54, 350 for gwna\ei 'did', cf. B.B. 64;
cy\tun for cy\f,u un ' united'; Mm for M'\um ' I have been'; gwy\b'am for
gwy\bu\um ' I knew'; can for cae\u ' to shut'. These forms occur nncontracted
in Ml. W.: gunaun B.B. 81 ( =gwna\wn rhyming with wn) ' I would do'; yn
gyttuun E.B.B. 338; cayu IL.A. 167 (^cdy\u), Jcaezi W.M. 34 (=Me\v).
Uncontracted forms are met with as late as the i6th cent.
Dy garu a wybu|um ;
DarUain dy hylgain y bUm.—H.S. 5.
§34.
PALLING DIPHTHONGS
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'I have known [what it is] to love thee; I have been reading thy vigil.' See
D.G. 38. ' "
v. A late contraction usually takes place when a word ending in a vowel is
followed by i ' his' or ' her', Ml. y, and often when it is followed by the
preposition i 'to', Ml. y. Ac, ag lose their final consonant and form a
diphthong with the former, as a'i Ml. W. ae, ay ' and his, with his ', but
not with the latter : ac i ' and to'. Ancr wyffi'n cyweirio ifedd.—7 syll. §
44 vi. Da i Gymraeg, di-gymar oedd.—7 syll., i above. Nos da i walch oiiest y Waun.—7 syll. G. 177. ' Good
night to the honest fellow of Chirk.'
Rising Diphthongs. ^
§ 34. i. The rising diphthongs in the Mn. language are as follows :—
la as in caumd, zAr ;
ie as in zec1ii[d ;
10 as in rJiodw, wr ;
rw as in zwrc/t, rKodnca;
ly as in lyrcliell;
•wa as in anwar ;
we as in adwen;
wi as in cedwir;
wo as in gwaiwor , wu as in galwut;
wu as in edwi/ii;
wy as in penwynnl.
In Ml. W. i is generally written y, § 17. The combinations zi, iy, w, w'w do
not occur in Mn. W. They occur in verbal forms in Ml., W. but are generally
simplified ; see § 36 i, ii.
ii. When i or w comes before a falling diphthong the combination becomes a
mixed triphthong; as iai in with ' language';
iau in teithwu 'journeys5; waw in gwaiod 'song, mockery';
iwy in meddylwyd ' it was thought', neithwj/r, D.G. 434 (now generally
neithmr § 78 i (3)) ' last night'.—We have a tetraph-thong in the old
pronunciation of gwayw (or gwaew) §30.
iii. When an unaccented i comes before any other vowel the two are frequently
contracted into a rising diphthong ;
thus di\6\ddef ' to suffer ' becomes a disyllable dj.o\ddef D.G. 137. Some
early examples occur, as er\ioed 'ever' for *er\i\oed 'since his time\ d'loer
'by heaven' § 2.24 iv (3) is a monosyllable, as the metre shows in E.P.
1306, D.G. 46, 51. duiwi ' devil' must have been contracted into a
monosyllable in O.W.
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§ 85
when the accent fell regularly on the ultima; otherwise it would have become
*di\awl.
iv. The rising' diphthongs wa and wo are frequently interchanged; as gwatwar
W.M. 185, gwatwor D.G. 136 'to mock';
marwar IL.A. 39, marwor ' embers ' (cf. maroryn, § 36 iii); cawaci, cawod '
shower'; peclwar, pedwor ' four'.
Pedwor trysor tir lesu.—H.R., o 7/114. ' The four
treasures of the land of Jesus.'
The change takes place both ways ; wa becomes wo in cawaci E.M. 180, E.P.
1223, D.G. 57 (rhyming with brad} and cawodydd or cafod-ydd D.G. 305 (penult
rhyming with bod) ; wo becomes wa in cynawan C.M. 21 for cynawon pi. of ceneu
§ 125 iii; dywad for dywd fiom dyfod § 193 ix (3).
v. (l) The rising diphthongs wy and wy are of course not distinguished in
ordinary writing, both being represented by wy; see § 82 ii (5). Note then
that wy represents three distinct diphthongs, the falling wy as in mwyu '
gentle', swyno ' to charm'; the rising wy, short in gwi/wi' white', long in
gwyr ' men'; the rising wy as in fywynnii, ' to shine '. See § 38.
(a) In ordinary writing the falling iw and the rising m are' also not
distinguished. See § 37.
§ 35. i. Many stems end in i, which appears before all inflexional endings
beginning with a vowel (with the exceptions mentioned in § 36), but is
dropped when the stem has no ending ; thus myfyrmf ' I meditate', 'inyfyrwnt
' they meditate', myfyrw ' to meditate', myfyrwl' meditating', but my/ifr '
meditation '.
In words boi rowed fiom Lat. the ^ can bo traced to its source in short *;
thus nyfi[r < iitemoria; sipvn, symaf < sentio; ysti/r, ystyrwf <
historia. In native wolds it represents original l, as in dyn, 'man' pi.
dynwn from Kelt. *domos: Ir. duine § 100 iv; cf. also § 201 iii (6).—In a few
new formations the z is ignored as in di-ystyru ' to ignore', dynol ' human'
a new formation which has replaced Ml. "W\ dynyawl IL.A. 12,
24, 38, etc.
ii. (i) In Mn. lit. W.
i generally appears after syllables having ei, as in ysbeilvaf ' I rob'
[ysbail ' spoil' < Lat. syolium) ;
teithiaf'' I journey' (faif/t' journey '),geirmn ' words' (gair ' word'),
weitkiw(y)r 'last night', Ml. W. neUhzoi/r § 98 i (3). In these cases the i
is omitted in S. W. dialects and most Ml. MSS., as
36
RISING DIPHTHONGS
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keinhauc B.B. 54 ^ keinhawc B.T. 38 ; but the oldest Ml. prose MSS. (the
early MSS. of the laws) and Mn. lit. "W. follow the practice of the N.
W. dialects and insert the i;, as Iceynyauc A.t. i 24 MS. A., cf. a% MSS. B.,
D., Mn. W. ceintog ' penny'.
(a) There are, however, several exceptions to this rule besides those
mentioned or implied in § 36. The'i is omitted before the substantival terminations
-en, -es, -edcl; as deilen (M.IL. i 155 has the unusual deilien) 'leaf,
bugeiles ' shepherdess', cyfeiiles (printed cyfeillies in D.G. 75)' amie ',
meithedd ' lengthi-ness'; before endings of comparison, as meithed, meitkach,
meithaf (•maitJi ' long'), meined, meinach, meinaf (main ' slender'), except
rheit-ied, -wch, -iaf § 149 i, stems in -eidd- as ^anweibyac/i IL.A. 8
'finer', pereiddwf ' sweetest', and some stems in -eitft-as perffeii fiwf '
most perfect'; before the pi. endings -edd, -oedd, as ieitJwedd ' languages';
in a few isolated words as tetto ' to manure' (but teylgaw in B.CH. ioa),
adeilad 'building^ (but adezlyat in B.P. iaao), cymdeithas ' society', eiddo
'property'.
(3) Medial ei before a consonant originally simple must be due to affection
by z after the consonant; and the ^ in ysbeiUaf etc. is the affecting z
preserved, -eith- generally represents *-ekt- a veibal noun and adj.
formation, as in perjfeith ' perfect', and the i in perjfeithw is probably
analogical, § 201 iii (6). From these the z has tended to spread. But there
is necessarily no original reason for it when ei comes from -ek- or -eg-;
hence the exceptions meithach, cymdeithas, teilo (fail < *tegl- § 104 ii
(i)), etc.
iii. i is also added to many stems having i or u; as oil 'back', pi. ciliau,
cilwf 'I retreat'; tir 'land', old poetic pi. tinoft B.B. a6, E.P. 1144, tino
'to land', tirwg 'landed' (but pi. tiredd, tzroedd); gruddi 'cheek', pi.
griiddiau; llun 'form', pi. llumau, Ihmw ' to form', llwiiaidd ' shapely'; y study
aw, llavwyaw IL.A; n 'to study', 'to labour'. In some of these cases also the
i is lost in S. "W. dialects.
iv. Many stems end in w which forms rising diphthongs with the vowels of all
endings, except with w § 36 i; thus galw ' to call', galwaf ' I call',
gelwaist' thou calledst', gelwynt ' they called', etc.
§ 36. i. w drops before w, and i drops before i. The semivowel is sometimes
written (as w or y) in Ml. W., but is often
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PHONOLOGY
§36
§37
RISING DIPHTHONGS
omitted. Thus while B.M. 51 has mi a gadwwn, mi ae kadwwn, the older W.M. 71
has in the same passage mi a gadww, mi ay cadwn. Similarly we have vedy^y'd
in IL.A. 48 but tedy'bw earlier, p. 43.
The syllable closed by the w or i remains closed after its loss; thus cad\wwn,
be\dydd\ii'r became cad\zon, be\dydd\ir (not cd\dwn, be\dy\ddir). By
re-formation the w is sometimes restored in the spoken lang. in forms like
ber\wwch ' boil ye' impve., on account of the strength of the analogy of
ber\wi, ber\waf, ber\woS, etc. But the lit. and ordinary form is ber\wch, and
the absence of ww in the traditional pronunciation accounts for the
well-known W. pronunciation of E. wood as 'ood, etc.
ii. i drops before y and u in monosyllables and final syllables;
as 1/rch A.L. i 30, IL.A. 67 for ^ji/reJi pi, of wrch ' roebuck'; ucJd
* lord' < 0. W. Tud- (' *warrior'); peidifnt E.M. 90 (from peiclyaw 'to
cease', cf. peidywys E.M. 98); Mareditb E.P. 1194 for
*Mare(lmb, 0. W. Moigetind GEN. xiii (^ Mor-ystiu'S), Grnffudd< 0. W.
GrifJmid (= GriffwS). It is often found written in Ml. W., as ystyryydi E.P.
1153 'thou mayst consider', hilyynt IL.A. n ' they would breed', Uafvuryus
do. 28 'laborious', mebylyut W.M. 103 ' thou wouldst think '; but the
spelling- is perhaps theoretical;
see below.
Initial lu in polysyllables has given i, as in Iddew ' Jew' for
*zn6ew; It/id < *w6-/iael, 0. W. lud/iail.
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See ISew p 14/1 E. (i3th cent.); iteioon (( E S) B.B. 102; so in IL.A. see
its index, and in E.B., see E.B.B. index. Salesbury wrote luddew, which he
inferred from the derivation. The Bible (1588 and 1620) has Iddew; but late
editors have adopted Salesbury's unphonetic spelling. D. includes w among
rising diphthongs ; but his only example is the artificial luddew.
It is seen tliat lu became u in the syllables which were accented in 0. W.,
and i in syllables unaccented at that period, § 40. The simplification must
therefcie have taken place before the shifting of the accent; and Ml. W.
forms with yu ( =. vu) are analogical formations, and perhaps artificial.
iii. w sometimes drops before o ; as in the prefixes go-, gor- for gwo-,
gwor-; thus Ml. and Mn. W. goleuni ' light', 0. W. gwolleuni JUV. But analogy has
tended to restore it; thus while we find- athraon M.A. i 256, ii 319 for
athrawon IL.A. 113, li.M. 19, E.P. 1334 'teachers', canao/i B.A. 38, M.A. i
261, 315 for Jcanawon E.B.B. 147 'whelps', lleot H.M. ii 234, 335 for llewot
IL.A. 10
'lions', maroryn IL.A. 35 for marzcoryn D.G. 363 'ember', it generally
remained in these words. Late examples of its loss^ Ml. "W. etwo
(varying with etwa by § 34 iv) gives eito E.P. 1357, Mn. W. eto (^effo)
'again'. So penwag became *_penwog whence pennog ' herring', the pi.
retaining the w: penwaig L.G.C. 158, Ml. W.penweic A.L. i 66.
"gwolchi ' to wash ' gave golchi, whence gylch ' washes *; but in Ml. W.
the latter was gwylch, as y dwfvyr a wylch pob peth IL.A. 18 ' water washes
everything.'
M6r a wylch mwyn amgylch MQn.—Ca., E.P. 1244. ' The sea washes the sweet
coast of Mon.'
iv. i drops before w owing to the extreme difficulty of pronouncing the
combination, but it remains before vocalic w;
thus gweitkwr ' worker ', gioeitMwyd ' was worked', but gweithwi/r ' workers'
(not *gweitJivwi^r).—Of course vocalic i remains in all cases : ysbi-wr '
spy', pi. ysli-wy.
v. i drops after w following a consonant, or following a diphthong; thus
ceidwad for *ceidwiad ' keeper, saviour', geirwon for *geirmon, pi. of gww '
rough', Jioywon for *hoywwn, pi. of 1wyw ' sprightly'. But when w follows a
simple vowel the i remains, as in glemon, pi. of glow ' bold ', glamo ' to
rain'.
It is kept in gvndlen. when contracted (as in D.G. 60) for g'wi\d\lw, § 75 vi
(2).
vi. i drops after u, as in diwn for *dwiofi, pi. of dw ' black',
gweuon for ^goreuzon pi. of goreu ' best'.
vii. i drops after r or I following a consonant, as meidrol for meidrwl
'finite' (veidryawl E.P. 1333, veidi'awl do. 1334), Sucfroa for ^bzidrwn, pi.
ofbzidr ' dirty', crwydmcl for cnoydrwd' wanderer', meistraid for meistrtaid
' masters', teimlo for *teimlw ' to feel', treiglo for treiglw ' to roll'.
This rule is not always observed. In some late Bibles crwydrad has been
altered into wwydriad. We also find meistriaid in Mn. W.;
dinistrw always retains z, and mentrio occurs for mentro.
Ambiguous Groups.
§ 37. i. As above noted iw in ordinary writing represents both the rising
diphthong vw and the falling diphthong iw.
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§37
ii. iw in the ultima followed by a consonant is i;w, as vwrch 'stag', rhodwch
'walk ye', cofmft 'we remember', wyrddncn 'a myriad'. The only exceptions are
the Mn. forms iwch for Ml. ywch ' to you', and niwi for Ml. m/wl § 77 v, §
90.
The Demetiau disyllabic ni\wl (D.D. s.v., D.G. 150 m-wl /n a-wyr) is
<*niwwl < *mwyl < nijivl with irregular epenthetic vowel § 16 v (3)
(y> w softer w § 66 ii (2)). Nifwl existed beside *mwwl. But the standard
form appears to be a monosyllable (D.G. 70 niwi /' nos);
and all the derivatives are from niwi-, as niwiiog or niwiog ' misty', niwien
' a veil of mist'.
Initial vw became *uw and then uw in uwds.' porridge' < Ml. W. iwt
(=iwd)'&.~B. 1061, Bret. iot; but vwrch remained because it is easier so
than if another consonant were added to the group at the end of the syllable.
iii. In all other cases iw is iw; thus (l) finally, as in i'w, Ml. yw ' to
his', rhiw ' hill', bi'iw ' wound', edUw ' to reproach', heddiw 'to-day'.
There is no exception to the rule in lit. W. In the Powys dialect heddiw is
sounded heddw, and in Gwyiiedd Iwiddvw ; but the Demetian heddi' implies
heddiw. The bards always rhymed it as heddiw, till it came to be written
heddyw in tlie 15th cent. (one example in E.P. 1286), an artificial
restoration, see § 77 v.
Nid oes fyd na rhyd na rhiw
Na lie rhydd na llawr heddiw.—D.G. (to the snow), 408. ' There is no world or
ford or hill or any free place or ground to-day.' See also D.G. 16, 26, 82,
86, 126, 153, 194, etc.
Ni fu hawdd nofio heddiw
I un ajfrwd yn i ffriw.—T.A., r. 22. ' It has not been easy to swim to-day
for one with the stream in his face.'
(a.) In the penult or ante-penult, as diwedd ' end', ni\weldw ' to harm',
ciwdod ' race, people '. Exceptions are the borrowed words smrnai 'journey',
s'mr 'sure', and dmrnod 'day' when contracted, as in Gr.O. 88, for di\m'nod
for Ml. W. diwyrnaicd, w. i« (generally in Ml. W. dzwarnawt, a S. W. form).
iv. iw is disyllabic when it is formed by adding- a syllable beginning with w
to a syllable ending in i ; thus gioeddi ' prayer', gweddi-wn ' let us pray',
gweddt-wr ' suppliant'. In such words the i ia generally written in Mn. W.
with a diaeresis—
gweddzwr.
§38
AMBIGUOUS GROUPS
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v. The combination iwy has four sounds: (i) the, mixed triphthong iwy, as in
neithwyr, § 34 ii. It occurs in verbal forms when the terminations -wyf, -wyd,
-wys are added to stems in i, § 35; aa, 'rliodvwyf ' I may walk', tybvwyd '
it was thought'.
(z) iwy disyllabic. It occurs when the above endings are added to stems in
vocalic i, as gweddzwyf (3 syll., see example in § 201 ii (2) ) ;
and in compounds of di- with stems having wy, as in di-wyr ' not bent'
^ (gwyr ' bent').
(3) ^'W.i w (4) ^W' according to position, as in lliwifdd G. 164 ' painter',
pi. lliwyddion', diwifd ' diligent' spy. diwytaf. These sounds may occur
either when iw is followed by y or y or when i is followed by wi{ or wy in
word-formation.
§ 38. i. The distinction between the falling diphthong wy and the rising
diphthong wii, both written wy, is an important one. The difference between
them is seen most clearly in monosyllables such as gwyr ' he knows ', gw^r '•
men '. In other positions they are liable to be confused in the dialects, and
in a few cases we find confusion even in lit. W.
In ordinary written W. the falling diphthong when long is denoted by wy (only
used initially and after g, cJi), but when short or unaccented there is no
method in ordinary use by which it can be distinguished ; in that case it is
printed wy, where necessary, in this book. The rising diphthong is indicated
by marking the w a consonant.
ii. In monosyllables wy represents the falling diphthong except when preceded
by g or ch; thus dwi/n, ' to bring', brwi/n ' rushes ', cwyn ' complaint',
clwyd ' hurdle', llwybr ' path ', htcifnt ' they, them', cwyinp ' fall'.
Words beginning with g or ch have usually the rising diphthong, as gwyn '
white', gwyrdd ' green \gwydd ' trees', c^wyrn ' roaring ', chwytli' blows';
the exceptions are Gzoy ' the Wye', gwifdd ' goose', gwi[dd ' presence', gwyl
'vigil, holiday', gwifl 'modest', gwi/ll 'goblin', gw-i/r ' knows', gwyr ' a
bend', gwysti • pledge', gibifth ' anger', c1tm[dd ' swelling'.
Note the following words which conform to the rule, though spelt like some of
the above-mentioned exceptions: gwydd ' trees', gwyl 'sees' § 173 iv (i),
gwifll 'darkness'.
iii. When a word has the falling diphthong wy in its simple form, the
diphthong remains so in all derivatives; thus mwyw
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iii. When a word has the falling diphthong ŵɥ in
its simple form, the diphthong remains so in all derivatives; thus mŵɥn ‘gentle’, mw͡ynach ‘gentler’, mw͡ynhau ‘to
enjoy’; cŵɥn ‘complaint’, pl. cw͡yni̯on,
v.n. cw͡yno ‘to complain’. Similarly the rising
diphthong remains rising, the ɥ becoming ỿ according
to rule, § 82 ii (5); thus gw̯ɥn ‘white’, gw̯ỿnnach ‘whiter’, gw̯ỿnnu ‘to
whiten’.
In
N. W. dialects w͡y has come to be sounded w̯ɥ in
the penult after c, g or ch,
as cw̯ɥno for cw͡yno ‘to
complain’; gw̯ɥddau for gw͡yddau ‘geese’; chw̯ɥddo for chw͡yddo ‘to
swell’. But original w̯ɥ, which in the penult is properly w̯ỿ,
has become w in all dialects, as chwthu for chw̯ythu ‘to
blow’, chwrnu for chw̯ỿrnu ‘to
roar’, gwnnu for gwỿnnu ‘to whiten’;
see § 66 ii.
iv. When a word in its radical form begins with wy the
diphthong is the falling one; thus ŵɥ ‘egg’, ŵɥth ‘eight’, w͡ythnos ‘week’, w͡ybr ‘sky’, w͡ylo ‘to
weep’, ŵɥl ‘weeps’, w͡yneb ‘face’.
w͡ybr, w͡ylo and w͡yneb are
frequently mispronounced; and in N. W. dialects the w of w͡yneb having
been made consonantal a g has been prefixed to it
giving gw̯ɥneb. This vulgarism hardly occurs before the
19th cent.
Rhaid im ddŵɥn pridd ar f’w͡yneb[ 4]
Rhag bod i’m adnabod neb.—D.G. 307.
‘I must bear earth upon my face, so that no one shall know me.’ See wrth
f’w͡yneb D.G.
23, yn f’w͡yneb do. 442.
Amlwg fydd trŵɥn a’r w͡yneb;[4]
Afraid i ni nodi neb.—E.P. 212.
‘Plain is the nose on a face; we need mention no one.’
A’r anadl oll a’r w͡yneb [5]
Fal aroglau si̯opau Si̯êb.—D.G., 330.
‘And all the breath and face like the perfume of the shops of Cheapside.’ See
also g. 49.
Os w͡yneb [5] i̯arll sy ’n y bedd,
I̯arll a aned erllynedd.—D.N., c. i 161.
‘If an earl’s face is in the grave, an earl was born last year.’
So always in the Bible; see fy w͡yneb[6] Gen. xliii 3, Ex. xxxiii 20, Lev. xvii 10,
etc.; eu hw͡ynebau,[6] Gen. xlii 6,
etc. An early indication of the mispronunciation is found in y
wynebeu, b.cw. (1703),
p. 7, which should be yr w͡ynebeu, but has not yet become y gw̯ynebeu.
Pronounce the wyn of wyneb so
that it rhymes with the wyn of ddŵɥn, trŵɥn as
the cynghanedd lusg demands.
Not a’r gwyneb, os gwyneb, the g being
ruled out by the cynghanedd.
Not fy ngwyneb, eu gwynebau.
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Tarn/; also medial wy followed by a vowel, as mwyar ' blackberries ', gwyar '
gore '.
Tiatod a wyr talu dirwy :
Ni thelir math Lowri mwif.—T.A., A 14879/20.
' The poor are accustomed to pay forfeit; they will never more forfeit
such a one as Lowri.'
But in the Ml. and sg. pres. ind. of verbs with w stems, as in gelwy ' thou
callest', kedwif ' thou keepest' § 173 iii (i), Mn. W. geiwi, cedwi, the
diphthong is of course the rising one.
vi. When a word has wy in the last syllable and a in the penult, the wy is
the falling diphthong; thus arm/dd ' sign', arglwycid ' lord', annvJyd ' cold
', addm/n D.G. 355 ' gentle ', cann-' wyll' candle ', gwanwyn, ' spring',
cadwyn. ' chain ', annwyl' dear';
awyr ' air ', awydd ' desire ', see x below. Except in compounds, such as
tanwydd ' firewood', etc. ; see § 83 iii.
Khaid i'r gwan dddl y gannwyll I'r dewr i wneuthur i dwifll.—E.P. 2gg.
' The weak must hold the candle for the bold to do his deceit.'
Oer gennych eira gwanwyn :
Oe'rach yw 'myd er ych mwyn.—T A., c. i 342. :,
' Cold you deem the snow of spring : colder is my plight because of you.' See
D.G. 321, 408, 525.
Aw a gdd yn ddwy gadwyn, A'i roddl'n faich i'r ddynfwi[n.—D.G. 64.
' Gold was brought in two chains, and laid as a burden on the gentle maiden.'
See also o. 250. . . -
Dyfynnodd i'w daif annwyl— Da o Ie mae 'n dala i wifl.—H.D., r 99/430
' He has summoned to His mansions my dear one—it is a good place where he is
keeping his holiday.' See § 54 i (3).
vii. wy is the falling diphthong when it is derived from Kelt. ei
corresponding to Irish w or e, as va.pwi[ll' thought', Ir. cwll, gzvi/dd '
goose ', Ir. ged, gm/sti' pledge ', Ir. gwll, etc. ; or when it is derived
from Latin e, ig or i, as in rJiwifd ' net' from rete, c'icyr '' wax' from
cera, eglwys ' church ' from ecclesia, egm/ddor ' alphabet' from dbeceddrium,
gwenwyn ' poison' from venenum, dwys ' intense' from densus, swya' charm'
from signum ; synnwyr ' sense ' from sentwe. Eule vi may be verified in many
words
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46
PHONOLOGY-
§38.
by applying the test of derivation ; e. g. camiwyll from candela,
cailiHyn from catena,9' pamdwys from paradzsws. Geiriau da a gwyr i'w dwi[n A
ddinietr y ddau wenwyn.—D.T.D., p. n.
' Good -words and men to bring them will destroy the two poisons,'
Y doeth ni ddywaid a wi/r ;
Nid o son y daw synnwyr.—G.I.H., G. 144.
' The wise does not say what he knows ; it is not from talk that sense
comes.' See also G. nr, 175, 234, 296.
viii. wy is the falling diphthong in the substantival terminations -/ i^/iJd'
-ness ', -wys' -ians ', and in the verbal terminations ' '"^/'i -'^i •'^y'^
but is the rising one in -wyr pi. of -wr ' -er'.
The cixliiiH -v^is ' -ians' uddcd to names of places is probably derived from
tlio Latin -hiwii.
tfi/il Tork if bu hydrefdwi/s, A'r ijwanwiin ar y G-wenn^rys.—L.G.C. 421.
' AH fin- IIM York it IIIIM been a very autumn, while it was spring to the
inon of Owciit,'
i\.
The following words may be mentioned as those most commonly mispronounced: wy
is the falling diphthong in cer n
‘vat’, disg l,
‘look, expect’, G nedd
‘Venedotia’, Gndid,
id., mor n
‘maiden’, ter n
‘ fervent’; it is the rising diphthong in oher dd
‘because of’, cychn,
‘rise, start’, erch n
‘protector, [bed]-side’, deddd
‘happy’
See terwyn / gwyn / hrwyn n.p. 1306; cerwyn / coll-lwyn D.G. 347.
Y ferch addftSyn o "W^ynedd,
'S.1/ .'/"W/ osai a medd.—D.G. 314. 'The gentle mind of Owynedd, who
lives in the midst of wine and mead.' SeealtoL.OC 219.
Mi it f urn/bob morwyn 0 eiruiii lunnil er i 'nii!nfn.—D.G. 281.
'I will gild eveiy miudcii with W()I(IB (if praisS for her sake.' @ee also
D.G. 126, 236, 297, 298,356,nnd u. 119, 229, 243.
Ar i farch yr dif' erohwun Yn y Vii ddoe'n Hew o ildyn.—T.A. o. 234.
* 1'tinlni, ilwlvliiK <-<it/iii(/M fn»n cnily, made It cadwyn, and
aoBerted that it was mimciilliio. H» Uii'n liifnrroil n f«in. eailysn, whiuli
(u oiidwyn ia fern.) was un-furtuiiktely i»dopf<l by inimy lyth cent.
wrItoA. But no one ha« had the courage to write odiluwiHi for tliti pi.
t'iiittey»i. There la an old word cadyen or eadweut which ineani1 ft battio
', froni rail.
39
AMBIGUOUS GEOUPS
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47
' On his steed went my protector in the host yesterday, a man like a lion.'
See also L.G.G. 143, D.G. 510. *
The word kyfrzyifs ' shrewd' (rhyming with henwerifs and ynt[s in B.T. 78,
and with prises pry s and chuis s ohwys in B.B. 57) is now Bounded tcyfrwys
on account of the difficulty of the consonantal group frw. The word celwi[dd
has undoubtedly the rising diphthong; see kelwifS I kynwt/S a.p. i 223, cf.
1251, and D.G. 338 ; probably gwydd / yelwydd, D.G. 256, is a misreading, but
this foirn occurs in the i6th cent., see r. 36.
x. yry after a vowel has generally been changed to wq, except in verbal
terminations. Thus awyr/ hw^r / limy E.r. 1029, and generally so rhymed, see
D.G. 395, 416, is now pronounced aw^r, and the rhyme with y occurs already in
the i3th cent.: awy / s'1/r B.T. 23, G.Y.G. B.P. 1418. Similarly awy& /
rwifS / arwyS B.P. n8o is later a-wi{dd. Powys L.G.C. 381 is pronounced
Powt[s § 192 ii (2); tywyll as in tywiTI / canvill B B. 30, tywyll / gawnwyll
/ Jwyll E.P. 1045, tywyll/ wnwyTl D.G. 267, tw^ll / tyCyll do. 117, 283 is
now tywqll, and already in D.G. rhymes with hyll 71, 285, 421, and with cyll
173, 185;
ewyn B.P. 1036, later ewifn 'foam'. On the other hand glanha-vn/d ' was
cleansed' and all similar inflected forms are still so pronounced.
Lat. dvzdus would have given *ewydd in Welsh; awydd cannot be derived from
it, see § 76 iii, iv.
Accentuation.
§ 89. i. In a polysyllabic word, one syllable is always pronounced with more
emphasis than the others; this is called the syllable bearing the principtil
accent, or, &imply; the accented syllable. In Welsh the accent is a
stress accent.
A syllable may be emphasized either by raising the tone of voice or by a mole
forcible utterance. The two things may go together; but speakers of various
languages unconsciously adopt one or the other as their principle of
accentuation. The first produces musical or pitch accent, the second produces
expiratory or stress accent. In Pr. Aryan the accent before the dispersion is
believed to have been predominantly pitch, though vowel gradation, § 63,
points to the working of a strong stress accent. Tn Keltic, as in Italic and
Germanic, the accent became predominantly stress, and has remained so, though
its position has varied greatly.
W The syllable bearing the principal accent is denoted by an acute accent/
placed above its vowel.
ii. The remaining syllables of the word are also pronounced with varying
emphasis, but this may generally be disregarded, and they may all be
considered as unaccented syllables. In
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48
PHONOLOGY
§40
some cases, however, one of them may attain a decided prominence in
comparison with the others; such a syllable may be said to bear a secondary
accent.
W" The vowel of the syllable bearing the secondary accent is denoted
where necessary by the grave accent \.
iii. Most monosyllables are stressed, but many frequently-recurring
monosyllables bear no stress, but are pronounced in conjunction with another
word. These are proclitics, which precede the accented word, and enclitics,
which follow it.
The Welsh proclitics are the article y, yr, the prefixed pronouns fy, dy,
etc., which are always unstressed. Usually also the relatives a, 2/8, yi'1 y,
the negative, interrogative and affirmative particles, most conjunctions as
the a in tara a chaws ' bread and cheese ', and often prepositions as the
rhag in rhag ofn ' for fear'.
The Welsh enclitics are the auxiliary pronouns i, di, etc. They are often
written in MSS. where they do not count in the metre, as in Arduireaue tri
B.B. 36 (ArSwyreaf-i dri) for Arddwyreaf dri (g syll.) ' I will exalt Three
'. These may however be accented for emphasis.
§ 40. i. In Mn. W. all polysyllables, with a few exceptions named in § 41,
are accented on the penult; as cd naf ' I sing ', cdn\wd ' a song ', can
id\dan ' songs '.
ii. The position of the accent was certainly the same in the Late Ml. period.
This is proved by the fact that in the l4th cent. the cynghanedd was fully
developed in its modern form in which the penultimate accent plays an
important part, ZfCP. iv 133 ff.
iii. (i) But certain vowel values point to a period when the accent fell
generally on the ultima. The evidence seems to show that this was the case in
0. W., and that the transition took place in the Early Ml. W. period.
5
(2) Th^ clear sound i{ occurs in the ultima only; the obscure sound y, which
must have been the sound when unaccented, occurs in all other syllables.
Hence the ultima must at one time have borne the accent. In monosyllables which
have always been unaccented such as the article yr, y, the sound is y ; but
in those which have always been accented, such as dyS ' day', it is i{. There
has been no shifting of the accent in y dyS ' the day', which therefore
preserves the accentuation that resulted in the vowel sequence y ... t[.
Hence a word like mynt{8, which contains this sequence, must once have been
accented *my'in{8.
«
§ 41
ACCENTUATION
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Similarly Brit. u remains (written w) in the ultima; bat appears as y in
other syllables, § 66 i;—ei remained and became a? in the ulfc., but became
ei giving ei ( s %') in the penult, § 79 ;—Brit. a is aw in the ult., o in
the penult, § 71 i;—uw in the ult. is u in the penult, § 77 x ;
from iu we find u in the ult. and monosyllables, tlie easier i in the penult,
§ 36 ii.
(3) In one or two words the vowel of the old penult lias dropped since the
separation of W. and Bret.; thus W. cryS ' shoemaker' < *cery8 < Brit.
*kar{p)u9: Bret. kere, § 86 i (5) ;—W. ysbryd <
*spryd < *spyryd < Lat. spiritus: Bret. spered.
On the other hand in some words an intrusive vowel developed before the
accented syllabic; All. W. dyly 'deserves, owes' comes through !dyl^ <
*dly^,, § 199 ii (2); the y spread from this to other forms of the vei b.—Ml.
W. taraw ' to strike', tereu ' strikes' < *tardw,
*fereu <*traw, *treu. The vowel did not spread from these to trawaf;
the late Mil. tarawaf is an artificial lit. form, § 202 i (3).
(4) The accent in ysgol, ystrad, etc., now falls on a syllable that at one
time had no existence. It is obvious that the shifting took place after the
introduction of the prosthetic vowel. There is no evidence of that vowel in
O.W. In the earliest Ml. W. we find Istrat and Sfraf, § 23 ii. The latter may
be an archaic spelling, but it seems to show that the accent was on the a. We
may therefore infer that the transition took place in the Early Ml. period.
In some words the prosthetic vowel was never firmly established; and the
accent remains in its original position in these, § 41 i.
iv. In Brit. the accent was apparently free as in Pr. Ar. As unaccented d was
shortened, it is seen that in *brdteres ( > broder) the accent was on the
ante-penult; as a which remained accented gives aw, the accent to give o must
have shifted to the er in 0. W., according to the general rule at that
period. By the second shifting it went back to its original position, the new
penult. Two shillings must be assumed to explain such a form as ysbryd, which
Involves a shifting from *(y)spryd, which in turn implies a shifting from
spirit-us.—It will be seen in the following pages that British cannot have
shared the fixed initial accentuation of Goidelic.
§ 41. In some words in Mn. W. the accent falls on the ultima. These are
i. A few disyllables in which the first syllable is (i) ys- or (a) ym-; as
(i) ysgrin ' shrine, coffin', § 23 ii, ystryd ' street', ysgrSch ' screech ',
ystor ' store'; (a) ymwel' do thou visit', y'mad, ' do thou leave'. But most
words with these initial syllables are accented regularly, as ysgol '
school', ysbryd ' spirit', ysgwyd ' to shake', ymdaith 'journey', ymgudd D.G.
374 'hides'. In some cases we have both accentuations, see Jymwel below;
1402 B
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