Welsh orthography
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:IPA notice Welsh orthography uses 29 letters (including eight digraphs) of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as established loanwords.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
| Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | B | C | CH | D | DD | E | F | FF | G | NG | H | I | J | L | LL | M | N | O | P | PH | R | RH | S | T | TH | U | W | Y |
| Titlecase forms | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | B | C | Ch | D | Dd | E | F | Ff | G | Ng | H | I | J | L | Ll | M | N | O | P | Ph | R | Rh | S | T | Th | U | W | Y |
| Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | c | ch | d | dd | e | f | ff | g | ng | h | i | j | l | ll | m | n | o | p | ph | r | rh | s | t | th | u | w | y |
The traditional names of the letters are Template:Lang<ref>Brake, P. and Brake, J. (2020), Welsh in 12 Weeks, pp. 5–6.</ref><ref>Morris-Jones, J. (1922), An Elementary Welsh Grammar, p. 1.</ref> In South Wales, where the letters i and u are pronounced identically, they are distinguished as Template:Lang and Template:Lang (Template:Lang means "horseshoe"). Thus the television channel S4C is pronounced Template:Lang. Informally, another way of saying the letters is often used, adding the sound [ɘ] after stop consonants and simply pronouncing the others: a, by, cy, ch, dy, dd, and so on.
In a Welsh dictionary, the Welsh order of letters is strictly observed, so that Template:Lang 'council' is found before Template:Lang 'muscular', and Template:Lang 'lorry' is found before Template:Lang 'milk'.
Welsh orthography makes use of multiple diacritics, which are primarily used on vowels, namely the acute accent (Template:Lang), the grave accent (Template:Lang), the circumflex (Template:Lang, Template:Lang, or Template:Lang) and the diaeresis (Template:Lang). They are considered variants of their base letter, i.e. they are not alphabetised separately. The Welsh alphabet also lacks Template:Vr (Template:Lang, Template:IPA), Template:Vr (Template:Lang, Template:IPA), Template:Vr (Template:Lang, Template:IPA), Template:Vr (Template:Lang, Template:IPA), and Template:Vr (Template:Lang, Template:IPA/Template:IPA).<ref>https://www.chelmsfordwelsh.org.uk/alphabet.html#:~:text=The%20letters%20J%2C%20K%2C%20Q,%2C%20ph%2C%20rh%20and%20th.</ref>
Foreign words
Welsh borrows a number of words from English.<ref>https://www.grin.com/document/58172</ref> Those words are spelled according to Welsh spelling conventions, for example: Template:Lang "bus", Template:Lang "buck", Template:Lang "bucket", Template:Lang "car", Template:Lang "noggin", Template:Lang "gob", Template:Lang "slogan", Template:Lang "flannel", Template:Lang "truant", and Template:Lang "gaol".
Non-native letters in Welsh
The letter ⟨j⟩ was only recentlyTemplate:When accepted into Welsh orthography: for use in words borrowed from English which retain the Template:IPA sound, even when it was not originally spelled ⟨j⟩ in English, as in Template:Lang ("garage"), Template:Lang ("giraffe"), and Template:Lang ("fridge"). Older borrowings of English words containing Template:IPA resulted in the sound being pronounced and spelled in various other ways, resulting in occasional doublets such as Template:Lang and Template:Lang ("Japan").Template:Efn
The letters ⟨k, q, v, x, z⟩ are not part of the Welsh Alphabet. However, these letters are used in foreign proper names and their derivatives: Template:Lang, Template:Lang. They are also sometimes used in technical and other specialized terms, like kilogram, queer, volt and zero, but in all cases can be, and often are, nativised: Template:Lang, Template:Lang, Template:Lang and Template:Lang.<ref>Thomas, Peter Wynn (1996) Gramadeg y Gymraeg. Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 757.</ref>
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 Template:Vr to represent the voiced plosives Template:IPA non initially. Similarly, the voiced fricatives Template:IPA were written Template:Vr.<ref name="Watkins">Watkins, T. Arwyn (1993) "Welsh" in Ball, Martin J. with Fife, James (Eds) The Celtic Languages. London/New York: Routledge: 289-348.</ref>
By the Middle Welsh period, this had given way to quite a bit of variability: Although Template:Vr were now used to represent Template:IPA, these sounds were also often written as in Old Welsh, while Template:IPA could be denoted by Template:Vr. In earlier manuscripts, moreover, fricatives were often not distinguished from plosives (e.g. Template:Vr for Template:IPA, now written Template:Vr).<ref>Evans, Simon D. (1964) A Grammar of Middle Welsh. Dublin: ColourBooks Ltd.</ref> The grapheme Template:Vr was also used, unlike in the modern alphabet, particularly before front vowels.<ref name="Watkins" /> 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 Template:Vr letters in their type cases to spell every Template:IPA as Template:Vr, so the order went "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth";<ref>English and Welsh,Template:Dead link an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien</ref> this was not liked at the time, but has become standard usage.
In this period, Template:Vr (capital Template:Vr) was also used interchangeably with Template:Vr, such as the passage in the 1567 New Testament: Template:Lang, which contains both Template:Vr and Template:Vr. Elsewhere, the same word is spelt in different ways, e.g. Template:Lang and Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Citation.</ref>
The printer and publisher Lewis Jones, one of the co-founders of Template:Lang, the Welsh-speaking settlement in Patagonia, favoured a limited spelling reform which replaced Welsh Template:Vr Template:IPA and Template:Vr Template:IPA with Template:Vr and Template:Vr, 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.<ref name="Watkins" /> However, the only real relic of this practice today is the Patagonian placename Trevelin ("mill town"), which in standard Welsh orthography would be Template:Lang.
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,Template:Which introducing Template:Vr. Not all modern writers adhere to the conventions established by these committees.<ref>Thomas, Peter Wynn (1996) Gramadeg y Gymraeg. Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 749.</ref>
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. Template:Lang Template:IPA for Template:Lang). In this system the vowels are named as below.
Letter Name Corresponding sounds English approximation a Template:Lang Template:IPA father (long) b Template:Lang Template:IPAslink bat c Template:Lang Template:IPAslink case ch Template:Lang Template:IPAslink No English equivalent; similar to loch in Scottish, but pronounced further back. d<ref group=* name=si>The sequence si indicates Template:IPA when followed by a vowel; similarly, di and ti sometimes indicate Template:IPA and Template:IPA respectively when followed by a vowel, although these sounds are spelled j and ts in loanwords like Template:Lang "jug" and Template:Lang "watch".</ref> Template:Lang Template:IPAslink day dd Template:Lang Template:IPAslink these e Template:Lang Template:IPA bed (short) / closest to hey (long) f Template:Lang Template:IPAslink of ff Template:Lang Template:IPAslink four g Template:Lang Template:IPAslink gate ng Template:Lang Template:IPAslink thing h<ref group=*>In addition to representing the phoneme Template:IPA, h indicates voicelessness in the graphemes mh, nh, and ngh.</ref> Template:Lang Template:IPAslink hat i Template:Lang, Template:Lang (S) Template:IPA bit (short) / machine (long) / yes (as consonant; before vowels) j Template:Lang Template:IPAslink jump (only found in loanwords, usually from English but still in wide use such as Template:Lang ('jelly', Template:IPA) and Template:Lang ('jeans', Template:IPA) l Template:Lang Template:IPAslink lad ll Template:Lang Template:IPAslink not present in English; a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative. A bit like what the consonant cluster "hl" would sound like. m Template:Lang Template:IPAslink mat n Template:Lang Template:IPAslink net o Template:Lang Template:IPA Short, like "bog" in RP; long like dawn in RP or stove in Scottish English p Template:Lang Template:IPAslink pet ph<ref group=*>The digraph ph – which indicates the aspirate mutation of p (e.g. Template:Lang) – may also be found very occasionally in words derived from Greek (e.g. Template:Lang), although most words of Greek origin are spelt with ff (e.g. Template:Italics correction).</ref> Template:Lang Template:IPAslink phone r Template:Lang Template:IPAslink Rolled R rh Template:Lang Template:IPAslink Voiceless rolled R s<ref group=* name=si /> Template:Lang Template:IPAslink sat t<ref group=* name=si /> Template:Lang Template:IPAslink stick th Template:Lang Template:IPAslink thin u Template:Lang (N), Template:Lang (S) Template:IPA (N),<ref group="*" name=":0">In the North, the letters u and y are occasionally pronounced Template:IPA, the same as in the South, rather than Template:IPA. This is usually the case when the preceding vowel is Template:IPA or when y is preceded or followed by g Template:IPA or followed by w Template:IPA, forming a diphthong.Template:Cite web</ref>
Template:IPA (S)for Southern variants: bit (short) / machine (long); in Northern dialects Template:IPA not found in English. Identical to "î" and "â" in Romanian, and similar to the "e" in English roses. w Template:Lang Template:IPA push (short) / pool (long) / wet (as consonant) y<ref group=*>The vowel letter y indicates Template:IPA in unstressed monosyllabic words (e.g. Template:Lang "the", Template:Lang "my") or non-final syllables (regardless of whether these are stressed or not), but Template:IPA (N) or Template:IPA (S) in word-final syllables (again, regardless of stress).</ref> Template:Lang Template:IPA (N),<ref name=":0" group="*" />
Template:IPA Template:IPAslink (S)for Southern variants: bit (final syllable, short) / machine (final syllable, long)
above (other places, short) / roses Template:IPA, found in certain dialects of English that differentiate "Rosa's" and "roses", for example, General American.
- Notes
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Diphthongs
Orthography Northern dialects Southern dialects English (approximation only) ae Template:IPA <ref group=*>final or only syllable, e.g. chwarae, caeth</ref> Template:IPA eye Template:IPA <ref group=*>non-final syllable. e.g. chwaraewr, caethwas</ref> Template:IPA may ai Template:IPA Template:IPA eye au Template:IPA, Template:IPA Template:IPA, Template:IPA eye. Realised as bet (south) and cat (north) in plural endings. aw Template:IPA Template:IPA how ei Template:IPA Template:IPA As in eight eu Template:IPA Template:IPA As in height ew Template:IPA Template:IPA Roughly like Edward with the d removed: E'ward, or Cockney pronunciation of -ell in words like well, hell. ey Template:IPA Template:IPA Two distinct vowels. iw Template:IPA Template:IPA similar to Cockney pronunciation of -ill in words like bill, fill oe Template:IPA Template:IPA boy oi Template:IPA Template:IPA boy ou Template:IPA Template:IPA boy ow Template:IPA Template:IPA goal uw Template:IPA Template:IPA Southern Template:IPA: see "iw" above. Northern Template:IPA: not present in English. wy <ref group=*>In some other words containing the letter combination "wy", instead of this being a diphthong, the "w" is a consonant (Template:IPA). In these cases, the pronunciation of the "y" can then vary as shown in the previous table. For example: short final in "gwyn" (Template:IPA (N), Template:IPA (S)), long final in "gwych" (Template:IPA (N), Template:IPA (S)), non-final in "gwynion" (Template:IPA).</ref> Template:IPA Template:IPA not present in English; closest to gooey yw <ref group=*>where yw is followed by a vowel, e.g. cywir, tywod, tywydd, this does not contain the yw diphthong, but a non-final y (hence Template:IPA, see above) followed by a consonantal w Template:IPA</ref> Template:IPA Template:IPA see "uw" above
- Notes
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Diacritics
Welsh makes use of a number of diacritics.
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 Template:Section link.
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. Template:Lang Template:IPA (a cough), Template:Lang Template:IPA (a pass/permit or a lift in a car); Template:Lang Template:IPA (smoke), Template:Lang Template:IPA (a mug).
The acute accent (´) is sometimes used to mark a stressed final syllable in a polysyllabic word. Thus the words Template:Lang (to empty) and Template:Lang (decline) have final stress. However, not all polysyllabic words with final stress are marked with the acute accent (Template:Lang "Welsh" and Template:Lang "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. Template:Lang Template:IPA (two syllables) "manly", as opposed to Template:Lang Template:IPA (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 Template:IPA which is always followed by another vowel, e.g. Template:Lang (to copy) pronounced Template:IPA, not Template:IPA.
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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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: Template:Lang Template:IPA (good).
- before voiced stops b, d, g and before all fricatives (except for ll) ch, dd, f, ff, th, s: Template:Lang Template:IPA (son), Template:Lang Template:IPA (favourite), Template:Lang Template:IPA (thing), Template:Lang Template:IPA (night).
An unmarked vowel is short:
- in an unstressed (proclitic) word: Template:Lang Template:IPA.
- before voiceless stops p, t, c Template:Lang Template:IPA (gate), Template:Lang Template:IPA (sheepfold) and before all consonant clusters (except for those that start with s or ll) Template:Lang Template:IPA (saint), Template:Lang Template:IPA (hedge), Template:Lang Template:IPA (April).
The vowel y, when it is pronounced Template:IPA, is always shortTemplate:Contradictory inlineTemplate:Citation needed even when it appears in an environment where other vowels would be long: Template:Lang (whole) Template:IPA. When pronounced as a close or near-close vowel (Template:IPA or Template:IPA in the North, Template:IPA or Template:IPA in the South), y follows the same rules as other vowels: Template:Lang (day) Template:IPA (North) ~ Template:IPA (South), Template:Lang (wind) Template:IPA (North) ~ Template:IPA (South).
Before l, m, n, and r, unmarked vowels are long in some words and short in others:
vowel long Template:Center short Template:Center i Template:Lang Template:Center (wine) Template:Lang Template:Center (scarcely) e Template:Lang Template:Center (old) Template:Lang Template:Center (head) y Template:Lang Template:Center (man) Template:Lang Template:Center (white) w Template:Lang Template:Center (bank up a fire) Template:Lang Template:Center (often) e Template:Lang Template:Center (holly) Template:Lang Template:Center (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: Template:Lang Template:IPA (ash trees), Template:Lang Template:IPA (to win), Template:Lang Template:IPA (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: Template:Lang Template:IPA (witness). Before ll, a vowel is short when no consonant follows the ll: Template:Lang (better) Template:IPA It is long when another consonant does follow the ll: Template:Lang Template:IPA (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. Template:Lang "better" Template:IPA) or short (e.g. Template:Lang "hole" Template:IPA). However, a stressed vowel in the penult before ll is always short: Template:Lang Template:IPA (clothes).Template: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: Template:Lang (measure) Template:IPA. Vowels are always short before consonant clusters: Template:Lang Template:IPA (saint), Template:Lang Template:IPA (hair), Template:Lang Template:IPA (witness).
Digraphs
Unicode: U+1EFA and U+1EFB.
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 Template:Lang (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 the ligature Template:Not a typo in Middle Welsh.
Sorting is done in correspondence with the alphabet. For example, Template:Lang comes before Template:Lang, which comes before Template:Lang, which comes before Template:Lang. 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 Template:Lang comes after Template:Lang (in which the Template:Lang stands for Template:IPA) but before Template:Lang (in which n and g are pronounced separately as Template:IPA).
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:
- Template:Lang, etc. (place names)
- Template:Lang, etc. (personal names)
- Template:Lang (other sentences starting with a digraph)
The two letters in a digraph are only both capitalised when the whole word is in uppercase:
- Template:Lang (as on a poster or sign)
The status of the digraphs as single letters is reflected in the stylised forms used in the logos of the National Library of Wales (logo) and Cardiff University (logo).
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See also
References
Template:Reflist Template:Notelist