Old Welsh (Hen Gymraeg) is the label attached to the Welsh language from the time it developed from the Brythonic language, generally thought to be in the period between the middle of the 6th century and the middle of the 7th century, until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh. National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location relative to most of the British Isles (other parts of the UK shown on the map are in pink). ... An extinct language (also called a dead language) is a language which no longer has any native speakers. ... Middle Welsh (Cymraeg Canol) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many in Southwest Asia, Central Asia and South Asia. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, spoken by ancient and modern Celts alike. ... The Insular Celtic language hypothesis groups the Goidelic languages, which include Irish, Manx, and Scottish Gaelic, together with the Brythonic languages, of which the modern ones are Breton, Cornish and Welsh. ... The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family. ... Writing Systems of the World today A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... Brythonic is one of two major divisions of Insular Celtic languages (the other being Goidelic). ... This Buddhist stela from China, Northern Wei period, was built in the early 6th century. ... The 7th century is the period from 601 - 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... Middle Welsh (Cymraeg Canol) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. ...

Many poems and some prose has been preserved from this period, although some are in later manuscripts, for example the text of Y Gododdin. The oldest surviving text entirely in Old Welsh is probably that on a gravestone now in Tywyn church, thought to date from the early 8th century. A text in the Book of St. Chad is thought to have been written in the late 8th or the 9th century but may be a copy of a text from the 6th or 7th centuries. Y Gododdin (The Gododdin), attributed to the 7th century poet Aneirin, is a series of 99 elegies to the men of the kingdom of Gododdin in north-eastern Britain who fell in the battle of Catraeth, thought to be Catterick in North Yorkshire, against the Angles, ca. ... Tywyn is a town lying on Cardigan Bay in north Wales a mile away from the mouth of the Afon Dysynni and known as a seaside resort. ... (7th century — 8th century — 9th century — other centuries) Events The Iberian peninsula is taken by Arab and Berber Muslims, thus ending the Visigothic rule, and starting almost 8 centuries of Muslim presence there. ... The Lichfield Gospels (also known as the Chad Gospels, the Book of Chad, the St. ...

Old Welsh is only intelligible to a modern-day Welsh speaker with the aid of extensive notes.

References

• Glanville Price and Edward Arnold (editor), The Languages of Britain, 1985. ISBN 0-7131-6452-2