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. Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... 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. ... Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig; IPA: ) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... The Cornish language (in Cornish: Kernowek, Kernewek, Curnoack) is one of the Brythonic group of Celtic languages that includes Welsh, Breton, the extinct Cumbric and perhaps the hypothetical Ivernic. ... Breton (Brezhoneg) is a Celtic language spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany in France. ...

Initial consonant mutation

Initial consonant mutation is a phenomenon common to all Celtic languages. The first consonant sound of a word in Welsh may change depending on grammatical context (such as when the grammatical object directly follows the grammatical subject), or when preceded by certain words, e. g. i, yn, and a. Welsh has three mutations: the soft mutation, the nasal mutation, and the aspirate mutation: Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... In linguistics, the object of a transitive verb is one of its core arguments, which generally represents the target of the verbs action. ... The subject of a sentence is one of the two main parts of a sentence, the other being the predicate. ...

A blank cell indicates that the letter is not affected.

For example, the word for "stone" is carreg, but "the stone" is y garreg (soft mutation), "my stone" is fy ngharreg (nasal mutation) and "her stone" is ei charreg (aspirate mutation). The examples show usage in the standard language; the soft mutation is slowly supplanting the nasal and aspirate mutations as the mechanism behind the mutations ceases to be understood. These days, the aspirate mutation is only really carried out for words beginning with C in colloquial language and in some areas it is totally unknown (it is sometimes joked that a sign of hypercorrection amongst learners is to order "jin a thonic" in a bar). The nasal mutation is now only used in two circumstances and it is also being replaced by the soft mutation. A standard language (also standard dialect or standardized dialect) is a particular variety of a language that has been given either legal or quasi-legal status. ... Hypercorrection is the unnecessarily elaborate or prescriptive correction of common grammar, inappropriately introduced in an attempt to avoid vulgarity or informality. ...

*The soft mutation for g is the simple deletion of the initial sound. For example, gardd "garden" becomes yr ardd "the garden".

Nasal mutation

The nasal mutation normally occurs after the words fy (meaning "my") or yn where it means "in". It also occurs after the negating prefix an-, and sometimes after saith ("seven"). Under nasal mutation, plosives become nasals, and unvoiced plosives become aspirated nasals. Look up prefix in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ...

In words beginning with an-, the n is dropped before the mutated consonant, e.g. an + personol -> amhersonol (although it would be retained before a non-mutating consonant, e.g. an + sicr -> ansicr).

Pronunciation

The aspirated nasals may appear at first hard for English speakers to pronounce. However, in fact they are generally pronounced as an aspirated nasal followed by h, and this does not in practice result in a large cluster of consonant sounds because it is preceded either by the vowel ending of fy, or a form of yn where the -n is possibly replaced with -m or -ng to match the first letter of the mutated word. For example: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-18, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...

• fy + tadau -> fy nhadau, pronounced as fyn hadau
• yn + Caerdydd -> yng Nghaerdydd, pronounced as yng haerdydd

Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (usually translated as The Land of My Fathers, but literally The old country of my fathers) is by tradition the national anthem of Wales. ... Cardiff (Welsh: Caerdydd) is the capital and largest city of Wales. ...

Grammatical considerations

Note that yn meaning "in" must be distinguished from other uses of yn which do not cause nasal mutation. For example:

• In the sentence "Mae plastig yn nhrwyn Siaco.", trwyn has undergone nasal mutation.
• In the sentence "Mae trwyn Siaco yn blastig.", plastig has undergone soft mutation, not nasal mutation.
• In the sentence "Mae trwyn Siaco yn cynnwys plastig.", cynnwys is not mutated.

Note also that the 'm form often used instead of fy after vowels does not cause nasal mutation. For example: Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ...

• Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad. (not *i'm ngwlad)

An asterisk (*) is a typographical symbol or glyph. ...

The article

Welsh has no indefinite article. The definite article, which precedes the words it modifies and whose usage differs little from that of English, has the forms y, yr, and 'r. The rules governing their usage are: An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made to the noun. ...

• When the previous word ends in a vowel, regardless of the quality of the word following, 'r is used, e.g. mae'r gath tu allan. This rule takes precedence over the other two.
• When the word begins with a vowel, yr is used, e.g. yr ardd.
• In all other places, y is used, e.g. y bachgen.

The article triggers the soft mutation when it is used with feminine singular nouns, e. g. tywysoges "(a) princess" but y dywysoges "the princess".

Nouns

Like most other Indo-European languages, all nouns belong to a certain grammatical gender; in this case, masculine or feminine. Aside from nouns whose gender is clear from the meaning (e.g. mam "mother" is feminine), there is no pattern, and gender simply must be learnt. In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns requiring different agreement forms on determiners, adjectives, verbs or other words. ...

Welsh has two systems of grammatical number. There are the singular/plural nouns, which correspond to the singular/plural number system of English. Noun plurals are unpredictable and formed in several ways. Some nouns form the plural with an ending (usually -au), e.g. tad and tadau. Others form the plural through vowel change, e.g. bachgen and bechgyn. Still others form their plurals through some combination of the two, e.g. chwaer and chwiorydd. Number, in linguistics, is a grammatical category used to express the quantity of objects referred to by a noun. ...

The other system of number is the collective/unit system. The nouns in this system form the singular by adding the suffix -yn (for masculine nouns) or -en (for feminine nouns) to the plural. Most nouns which belong in this system are frequently found in groups, for example, plant "children" and plentyn "a child", or coed "forest" and coeden "a tree". In dictionaries, the plural is often given first.

Genitive relationships are expressed by apposition. The genitive in Welsh is formed by putting two noun phrases next to each other, the possessor coming second. So English "The cat's mother", or "mother of the cat", corresponds to Welsh mam y gath — literally, "mother the cat"; "the man's car's windows" is ffenestri car y dyn — literally, "windows car the man". The thing possessed never takes the article. The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... Apposition is a figure of speech, in which two elements are placed side by side, with the second element serving to define or modify the first (ex: My wife, a nurse by training. ... In linguistics, a noun phrase is a phrase whose Head is a noun. ...

Adjectives

Adjectives normally follow the noun they qualify, while some, such as hen, pob, and holl precede it. For the most part, adjectives are uninflected, though there are a few which maintain distinct masculine/feminine or singular/plural distinctions. After feminine singular nouns, adjectives receive the soft mutation.

Adjective comparison in Welsh is fairly similar to the English system. Adjectives with one or two syllables receive the endings -ach "-er" and -a "-est", e. g. bannog "high", bannogach "higher", bannoga "highest". Adjectives with two or more syllables use the words mwy "more" and mwya "most", e. g. teimladwy "sensitive", mwy teimladwy "more sensitive", mwya teimladwy "most sensitive". Adjectives with two syllables could go either way.

These are the possessive adjectives:

The possessive adjectives precede the noun they qualify, which is often followed by the corresponding form of the personal pronoun, e.g. fy mara i "my bread", dy fara di "your bread", ei fara fe "his bread", etc.

The demonstrative adjectives are 'ma "this"' and 'na "that". They follow the noun they qualify, which also takes the article. For example, y llyfr "the book", y llyfr 'ma "this book", y llyfr 'na "that book".

Pronouns

The Welsh pronouns are:

Verbs

In Welsh, the majority of tenses make use of an auxiliary verb, usually bod 'to be'. Its conjugation is dealt with in Irregular Verbs below.

There are four periphrastic tense in Welsh which make use of bod: present, imperfect, future, and conditional. All are formed in the same basic way: the appropriate form of bod, the complement marker yn (contracted to 'n after vowels), and the verbal noun. Thus he thinks (or he is thinking) is rendered Mae e'n meddwl. He will think is bydd e'n meddwl. Welsh does not distinguish progressive actions.

Welsh does, however, distinguish perfect actions in all the pariphrasitic tenses by replacing yn with wedi. The perfect is then expressed with the present forms of bod, the pluperfect with the imperfect forms, the future perfect with the future forms, and the conditional perfect with the conditional forms. For example, he has thought is mae e wedi meddwl.

Welsh maintains inflected preterite, future, and conditional tenses, demonstrated here with talu 'pay'.

• Notes on the preterite:
  • First and second singular forms may be written as talais and talaist, though there is no difference in pronunciation.
  • In some parts of Wales -s- may be inserted between the stem and plural forms.
  • In parts of South Wales forms like talws are heard for talodd.
• Notes on the future:
  • di is used instead of ti, thus tali di, not **tali ti.
  • Forms like taliff may appear instead of talith in some southern parts of Wales.
• Notes on the conditional:
  • -s- may be inserted between the stem and endings.

In the preterite, questions are formed with the soft mutation on the verb, though increasingly the soft mutation is being used in all situations. Negative forms are expressed with ddim after the pronoun and the aspirate mutation on the verb if possible, elsewhere soft mutation, though here too the soft mutation is taking over (dales i ddim for thales i ddim).

Periphrasitic constructions of the preterite, future, and conditional also exist. For all of these, the appropriate tense of gwneud 'to do' (conjugated below) may be used with the verbal noun. The preterite may also be formed with ddaru 'to happen', which does not alter its form.

Irregular verbs

Bod 'to be' is highly irregular.

Bod also has a conditional, for which there are two stems:

• ddim (not) is added after the pronoun for negative forms of bod.
• There are many dialectal variations of this verb.
• Colloquially the imperfect tense forms are o'n i, o't ti, oedd e/hi, o'n ni, o'ch chi and o'n nhw. These are used for the declarative, interrogative and negative.
• In speech the future and conditional forms often receive the soft mutation in all situations.
• Welsh is unusual in having no fixed words for yes and no. The relevant part of the verb bod is used instead e. g.: Ydych chi'n hoffi coffi? (Are you liking coffee? = do you like coffee?) then either Ydw (I am = I do = Yes) or Nac ydw (I am not = I do not = No)

The four verbs mynd 'to go', gwneud 'to do', cael 'to get', and dod 'to come' are all irregular in similar ways.

In the conditional, there is considerable variation between the North and South forms of these four irregular verbs.

Prepositions

In Welsh, prepositions frequently change their form when followed by a pronoun. These are known as inflected prepositions. Most of them, such as dan, follow the same basic pattern: In grammar, a preposition is a type of adposition, a grammatical particle that establishes a relationship between an object (usually a noun phrase) and some other part of the sentence, often expressing a location in place or time. ...

There is some dialectal variation, particularly in the first and second person singular forms. In some places one may hear dano i, danot ti, or danach chi.

The majority of prepositions trigger the soft mutation.