Welsh orthography makes use of multiple diacritics, which are primarily used on vowels, namely the acute accent (acen ddyrchafedig), the grave accent (acen ddisgynedig), the circumflex (acen grom, to bach, or hirnod) and the diaeresis (didolnod). They are considered variants of their base letter, i.e. they are not alphabetised separately.
The letter ⟨j⟩ has only recently been accepted into Welsh orthography: for use in words borrowed from English which retain the /dʒ/ sound, even when it originally was not represented by ⟨j⟩ in English orthography, as in garej ("garage") and ffrij ("fridge"). Older borrowings of English words containing /dʒ/ resulted in the sound being pronounced and spelled in various other ways, resulting in occasional doublets such as Siapan and Japan ("Japan").[a]
The letters ⟨k, q, v, x, z⟩ are sometimes used in technical terms, like kilogram, volt and zero, but in all cases can be, and often are, nativised: cilogram, folt and sero.[3]
History
A 19th-century Welsh alphabet printed in Welsh, without ⟨j⟩ or ⟨rh⟩
The earliest samples of written Welsh date from the 6th century and are in the Latin alphabet (see Old Welsh). The orthography differs from that of modern Welsh, particularly in the use of ⟨p, t, c⟩ to represent the voicedplosives/b,d,ɡ/ non initially. Similarly, the voiced fricatives/v,ð/ were written ⟨b, d⟩.[4]
By the Middle Welsh period, this had given way to quite a bit of variability: Although ⟨b, d, g⟩ were now used to represent /b,d,ɡ/, these sounds were also often written as in Old Welsh, while /v/ could be denoted by ⟨u, v, ỽ, f, w⟩. In earlier manuscripts, moreover, fricatives were often not distinguished from plosives (e.g. ⟨t⟩ for /θ/, now written ⟨th⟩).[5] The grapheme⟨k⟩ was also used, unlike in the modern alphabet, particularly before front vowels.[4] The disuse of this letter is at least partly due to the publication of William Salesbury's Welsh New Testament and William Morgan's Welsh Bible, whose English printers, with type letter frequencies set for English and Latin, did not have enough ⟨k⟩ letters in their type cases to spell every /k/ as ⟨k⟩, so the order went "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth";[6] this was not liked at the time, but has become standard usage.
In this period, ⟨ð⟩ (capital ⟨Ð⟩) was also used interchangeably with ⟨dd⟩, such as the passage in the 1567 New Testament: A Dyw y sych ymaith yr oll ðeigre oddiwrth y llygeid, which contains both ⟨ð⟩ and ⟨dd⟩. Elsewhere, the same word is spelt in different ways, e.g. newydd and newyð.[7]
The printer and publisher Lewis Jones, one of the co-founders of Y Wladfa, the Welsh-speaking settlement in Patagonia, favoured a limited spelling reform which replaced Welsh ⟨f⟩/v/ and ⟨ff⟩/f/ with ⟨v⟩ and ⟨f⟩, and from circa 1866 to 1886 Jones employed this innovation in a number of newspapers and periodicals he published and/or edited in the colony.[4] However, the only real relic of this practice today is the Patagonian placename Trevelin ("mill town"), which in standard Welsh orthography would be Trefelin.
In 1928, a committee chaired by Sir John Morris-Jones standardised the orthography of modern Welsh.
In 1987, a committee chaired by Professor Stephen J. Williams made further small changes,[which?] introducing ⟨j⟩. Not all modern writers adhere to the conventions established by these committees.[8]
Letter names and sound values
"N" and "S" indicate variants specific to the northern and southern dialects of Welsh. Throughout Wales an alternative system is also in use in which all consonant letters are named using the corresponding consonant sound plus a schwa (e.g. cy/kə/ for èc). In this system the vowels are named as below.
Letter
Name
Corresponding sounds
English approximation
a
a
/a,ɑː/
cat (short) / father (long)
b
bi
/b/
bat
c
èc
/k/
case
ch
èch
/χ/
No English equivalent; similar to loch in Scottish, but pronounced further back.
for Southern variants: bit (short) / machine (long); in Northern dialects /ɨ̞,ɨː/ not found in English. Identical to "î" and "â" in Romanian, and similar to the "e" in English roses.
for Southern variants: bit (final syllable, short) / machine (final syllable, long) above (other places, short) / roses /ɨ̞,ɨː/, found in certain dialects of English that differentiate "Rosa's" and "roses", for example, General American.
Notes
^ abcThe sequence si indicates /ʃ/ when followed by a vowel; similarly, di and ti sometimes indicate /dʒ/ and /tʃ/ respectively when followed by a vowel, although these sounds are spelled j and ts in loanwords like jẁg "jug" and wats "watch".
^In addition to representing the phoneme /h/, h indicates voicelessness in the graphemesmh, nh, ngh and rh. The digraph ph – which indicates the aspirate mutation of p (e.g. ei phen-ôl) – may also be found very occasionally in words derived from Greek (e.g. Pharo), although most words of Greek origin are spelt with ff (e.g. ffotograff).
^ abIn the North, the letters u and y are occasionally pronounced /ɪ,iː/, the same as in the South, rather than /ɨ̞,ɨː/. This is usually the case when the preceding vowel is /ɪ/ or when y is preceded or followed by g/ɡ/ or followed by w/u/, forming a diphthong."Morffoleg y Gymraeg". Geiriadur yr Academi. Bangor University. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
^The vowel letter y indicates /ə/ in unstressed monosyllabic words (e.g. y "the", fy "my") or non-final syllables (regardless of whether these are stressed or not), but /ɨ̞,ɨː/ (N) or /ɪ,iː/ (S) in word-final syllables (again, regardless of stress).
Diphthongs
Orthography
Northern dialects
Southern dialects
English (approximation only)
ae
/ɑːɨ̯/, /eːɨ̯/
/ai̯/, /ɛi̯/
eye, may
ai
/ai̯/
/ai̯/
eye
au
/aɨ̯/, /a/
/ai̯/, /ɛ/
eye. Realised as bet (south) and cat (north) in plural endings.
aw
/au̯,ɑːu̯/
/au̯/
how
ei
/ɛi̯/
/ɛi̯/
As in eight
eu
/əɨ̯/
/əi̯/
As in hight
ew
/ɛu̯,eːu̯/
/ɛu̯/
Roughly like Edward with the d removed: E'ward, or Cockney pronunciation of -ell in words like well, hell.
ey
/e.ɨ̯/
/e.ɪ/
Two distinct vowels.
iw
/ɪu̯/
/ɪu̯/
not usually present in English except in the interjection Ew!; closest to 'i-oo' (short i). A small number of English dialects have this sound in words that have "ew" or "ue". Such words, in the majority of English dialects that distinguish ew/ue and oo, would usually have /juː/ instead. See the Phonological history of English consonant clusters article for more information.
oe
/ɔɨ̯,ɔːɨ̯/
/ɔi̯/
boy
oi
/ɔi̯/
/ɔi̯/
boy
ou
/ɔɨ̯,ɔːɨ̯/
/ɔi̯/
boy
ow
/ɔu̯/
/ɔu̯/
goal
uw
/ɨu̯/
/ɪu̯/
not present in English; closest to 'i-oo' (short i)
The circumflex (ˆ) is mostly used to mark long vowels, so â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ are always long. However, not all long vowels are marked with a circumflex, so the letters a, e, i, o, u, w, y with no circumflex do not necessarily represent short vowels; see § Predicting vowel length from orthography.
The grave accent (`) is sometimes used, usually in words borrowed from another language, to mark vowels that are short when a long vowel would normally be expected, e.g. pas/paːs/ (a cough), pàs/pas/ (a pass/permit or a lift in a car); mwg/muːɡ/ (smoke), mẁg/mʊɡ/ (a mug).
The acute accent (´) is sometimes used to mark a stressed final syllable in a polysyllabic word. Thus the words gwacáu (to empty) and dicléin (decline) have final stress. However, not all polysyllabic words with final stress are marked with the acute accent (Cymraeg "Welsh" and ymlaen "forward/onward", for example, are written with none). The acute may also be used to indicate that a letter w represents a vowel where a glide might otherwise be expected, e.g. gẃraidd/ˈɡʊ.raið/ (two syllables) "manly", as opposed to gwraidd/ˈɡwraið/ (one syllable) "root".
Similarly, the diaeresis (¨) is used to indicate that two adjoining vowels are to be pronounced separately (not as a diphthong). However, it is also used to show that the letter i is used to represent the cluster /ij/ which is always followed by another vowel, e.g. copïo (to copy) pronounced /kɔ.ˈpi.jɔ/, not */ˈkɔp.jɔ/.
The grave and acute accents in particular are very often omitted in casual writing, and the same is true to a lesser extent of the diaeresis. The circumflex, however, is usually included. Accented vowels are not considered distinct letters for the purpose of collation.
Predicting vowel length from orthography
As mentioned above, vowels marked with the circumflex are always long, and those marked with the grave accent are always short. If a vowel is not marked with a diacritic, its length must be determined by its environment; the rules vary a bit according to dialect.[10][11]
In all dialects, only stressed vowels may be long; unstressed vowels are always short.
An unmarked (stressed) vowel is long:
in the last syllable of a word when no consonant follows: da/dɑː/ (good).
before voiced stopsb, d, g and before all fricatives (except for ll) ch, dd, f, ff, th, s: mab/mɑːb/ (son), hoff/hoːf/ (favourite), peth/peːθ/ (thing), nos/noːs/ (night).
before most consonant clusters: sant/sant/ (saint), perth/pɛrθ/ (hedge), Ebrill/ˈɛbrɪɬ/ (April).
The vowel y, when it is pronounced /ə/, is always short[contradictory][citation needed] even when it appears in an environment where other vowels would be long: cyfan (whole) /ˈkəvan/. When pronounced as a close or near-close vowel (/ɨ/ or /ɨ̞/ in the North, /i/ or /ɪ/ in the South), y follows the same rules as other vowels: dydd (day) /ˈdɨːð/ (North) ~ /ˈdiːð/ (South), gwynt (wind) /ˈɡwɨ̞nt/ (North) ~ /ˈɡwɪnt/ (South).
Before l, m, n, and r, unmarked vowels are long in some words and short in others:
vowel
long
short
i
gwin
/ɡwiːn/
(wine)
prin
/prɪn/
(scarcely)
e
hen
/heːn/
(old)
pen
/pɛn/
(head)
y
dyn
/dɨːn/~/diːn/
(man)
gwyn
/ɡwɨ̞n/~/ɡwɪn/
(white)
w
stwmo
/ˈstuːmo/
(bank up a fire)
amal
/ˈamal/
(often)
e
celyn
/ˈkeːlɪn/
(holly)
calon
/ˈkalɔn/
(heart)
(The last four examples are given in South Welsh pronunciation only since vowels in nonfinal syllables are always short in North Welsh.)
Before nn and rr, vowels are always short: onn/ˈɔn/ (ash trees), ennill/ˈɛnɪɬ/ (to win), carreg/ˈkarɛɡ/ (stone).
In Northern dialects, long vowels are stressed and appear in the final syllable of the word. Vowels in non-final syllables are always short. In addition to the rules above, a vowel is long in the North before a consonant cluster beginning with s: tyst/tɨːst/ (witness). Before ll, a vowel is short when no consonant follows the ll: gwell (better) /ɡwɛɬ/ It is long when another consonant does follow the ll: gwallt/ɡwɑːɬt/ (hair).
In Southern dialects, long vowels may appear in a stressed penultimate syllable as well as in a stressed word-final syllable. Before ll, a stressed vowel in the last syllable can be either long (e.g. gwell "better" /ɡweːɬ/) or short (e.g. twll "hole" /tʊɬ/). However, a stressed vowel in the penult before ll is always short: dillad/ˈdɪɬad/ (clothes).[citation needed]
Before s, a stressed vowel in the last syllable is long, as mentioned above, but a stressed vowel in the penult is short: mesur (measure) /ˈmɛsir/. Vowels are always short before consonant clusters: sant/sant/ (saint), gwallt/ɡwaɬt/ (hair), tyst/tɪst/ (witness).
Digraphs
The Middle-Welsh LL ligature.[12] Unicode: U+1EFA and U+1EFB.
While the digraphsch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th are each written with two symbols, they are all considered to be single letters. This means, for example that Llanelli (a town in South Wales) is considered to have only six letters in Welsh, compared to eight letters in English. Consequently, they each take up only a single space in Welsh crosswords. Ll itself had actually been written as a ligature in Middle Welsh.
Sorting is done in correspondence with the alphabet. For example, la comes before ly, which comes before lla, which comes before ma. Automated sorting may occasionally be complicated by the fact that additional information may be needed to distinguish a genuine digraph from a juxtaposition of letters; for example llom comes after llong (in which the ng stands for /ŋ/) but before llongyfarch (in which n and g are pronounced separately as /ŋɡ/).
Although the digraphs above are considered to be single letters, only their first component letter is capitalised when a word in lower case requires an initial capital letter. Thus:
Llandudno, Ffestiniog, Rhuthun, etc. (place names)
Llŷr, Rhian, etc. (personal names)
Rhedeg busnes dw i. Llyfrgellydd ydy hi. (other sentences starting with a digraph)
The two letters in a digraph are both capitalised only when the whole word is in uppercase:
LLANDUDNO, LLANELLI, Y RHYL (as on a poster or sign)
^Thomas, Peter Wynn (1996) Gramadeg y Gymraeg. Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 749.
^"Bangor", Wiktionary, 28 June 2023, retrieved 28 June 2023
^Awbery, Gwenllian M. (1984). "Phonotactic constraints in Welsh". In Ball, Martin J.; Jones, Glyn E. (eds.). Welsh Phonology: Selected Readings. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. pp. 65–104. ISBN0-7083-0861-9.
^While the International Rugby Club uses the term "Siapan" in Welsh, sources such as Yr Atlas Cymraeg Newydd and the Welsh Wikipedia use the term "Japan".
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