The modern Welsh alphabet (Yr Wyddor) contains 28 letters, of which eight are digraphs: Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

a, b, c, ch, d, dd, e, f, ff, g, ng, h, i, l, ll, m, n, o, p, ph, r, rh, s, t, th, u, w, y

The acute accent, the grave accent, the circumflex and the diaeresis mark are also used on vowels, but accented letters are not regarded as part of the alphabet.

History

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 and c to represent the voiced stops /b, d, g/ in the middle and at the end of words. Similarly, the voiced fricatives /v, ð/ were written with b and d.^[1] This Buddhist stela from China, Northern Wei period, was built in the early 6th century. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... 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... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ...

By the Middle Welsh period, this had given way to much variability: although b, d and g were now used to represent /b, d, g/, these sounds were also often written as in Old Welsh, while /v/ could be denoted by u, v, f or w. In earlier manuscripts, moreover, fricatives were often not distinguished from stops (e.g. t for θ, the sound now written with th).^[2] The grapheme k was also used more commonly than in the modern alphabet, particularly before front vowels.^[1] 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. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ...

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. The conventions established by these committees are not, it should be noted, adhered to by all modern writers.^[3] Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... Sir John Morris-Jones (1864 - 1929) was a Welsh grammarian and poet. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Letters

While the digraphs ch, 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. As another example, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch has 58 letters in English or 51 in Welsh (in either case making it the longest placename in Britain). Digraph has several meanings: directed graph, or digraph Digraph (orthography) Digraph (computing) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Parish Church of St. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square grid of black and white squares. ... Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (58 Letters long) is a village on the island of Anglesey in Wales, situated on the Menai Strait close to Menai Bridge and Bangor. ...

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 /ŋg/). Alphabetical redirects here. ...

In addition to representing the phoneme /h/, h indicates voicelessness in the graphemes mh, nh, and ngh. The digraph ph occurs occasionally in words derived from Greek (e.g. phenol), although many words of Greek origin are spelt with ff (e.g. ffonem). More commonly the spelling marks the result of the aspirate mutation (e.g. ei phen-ôl). In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. ... In typography, a grapheme is the atomic unit in written language. ... The morphology of the Welsh language shows many characteristics perhaps unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton. ...

The vowel letter y indicates /ə/ in unstressed monosyllabic words (e.g. y "the", fy "my") or non-final syllables, but /ɨ̞, ɨː/ (N) or /ɪ, iː/ (S) everywhere else.

The 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".

Diphthongs

Diacritics

Welsh makes use of a number of diacritics. A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent mark, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ...

The circumflex is used to mark long vowels. Thus â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ are always long, but a, e, i, o, u, w, y are not necessarily short. Not all long vowels are marked with a circumflex. A useful rule of thumb is that they are used particularly in monosyllabic words where the vowel is followed by -l, -n or -r. There are many exceptions to this, however. The circumflex ( ˆ ) (often called a caret, a hat or an uppen) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek, French, Dutch, Esperanto, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Japanese romaji, Welsh, Portuguese, Italian, Afrikaans and other languages, and formerly in Turkish [citation needed]. It received its English name from Latin circumflexus (bent... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ... A rule of thumb is an easily learned and easily applied procedure for approximately calculating or recalling some value, or for making some determination. ...

The grave accent is sometimes used to mark vowels that should be short, when a long vowel would normally be expected, e.g. pas /pɑːs/ (a cough), pàs /pas/ (a pass/permit or a lift in a car); mwg /muːg/ (smoke), mẁg /mʊg/ (a mug). The grave accent ( ` ) is a diacritic mark used in written Greek until 1982 (polytonic orthography), French, Catalan, Welsh, Italian, Vietnamese, Scottish Gaelic, Norwegian, Portuguese and other languages. ...

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. The acute accent (  ) is a diacritic mark used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin and Greek scripts. ...

The diaeresis indicates that a vowel letter is to be pronounced fully, not as a semivowel, e.g. copïo (to copy) — pronounced /kɔˈpiːɔ/, not */ˈkɔpjɔ/. In linguistics, a, diaeresis, or dieresis (AE) (from Greek (diaerein), to divide) is the modification of a syllable by distinctly pronouncing one of its vowels. ... Semivowels (also called semiconsonants or glides) are vowels that function phonemically as consonants. ...

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.

Other letters

The letter j is accepted in Welsh orthography for those words borrowed from English in which the /dʒ/ sound is retained in Welsh, even where that sound is not represented by j in English spelling, as in garej (for garage). Some borrowed words that are spelt with a j in English may be pronounced with either /dʒ/ or /ʃ/ in Welsh; the latter pronunciation is represented by si, as in Siapan for Japan.

The letters k, v, x and z are used in some technical terms, like kilogram, volt, xeroser and zero, but in all cases can be, and often are, replaced by Welsh letters: cilogram, folt, seroser and sero.^[4] Nevertheless, in the Welsh colony in Patagonia, v is used generally to represent the sound /v/.^[1] Look up Xerosere in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Welsh settlement in Argentina began in the 19th century. ...

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.

An unmarked vowel is long:

• in a stressed monosyllabic word when no consonant follows, e.g. da /dɑː/ (good)
• before b, ch, d, dd, g, f, ff, s, th, e.g. mab /mɑːb/ (son), hoff /hoːf/ (favourite), peth /peːθ/ (thing)
• before l, n, r (in the case of i, u), e.g. sgil /sgiːl/ ("behind), llun /ɬɨːn/ (picture), hir /hiːr/ (long)
• in Northern dialects, before clusters of two consonants when the first one is ll or s, e.g. gwallt /gwɑːɬt/ (hair), tyst /tɨːst/ (witness)

An unmarked vowel is short: In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. ...

• in an unstressed (proclitic) word, e.g. a /a/ (and)
• before p, t, c, m, ng, e.g. cam /kam/ (step), llong /ɬɔŋ/ (ship)
• before l, n, r (in the case of a, e, o, w, y), e.g. tal /tal/ (tall), llen /ɬɛn/ (curtain), ffwr /fʊr/ (fur)
• in Southern dialects, before clusters of two consonants, e.g. sant /sant/ (saint), gwallt /gwaɬt/ (hair), tyst /tɪst/ (witness)
• in Northern dialects, before clusters of two consonants when the first one is n or r, e.g. sant /sant/ (saint), perth /pɛrθ/ (hedge)
• in Northern dialects, in any syllable that is not both stressed and word-final
• in Southern dialects, in any unstressed syllable

In linguistics, a clitic is a morpheme that functions syntactically like a word, but does not appear as an independent phonological word; instead it is always attached to a following or preceding word. ...

References