The modern Welsh alphabet (yr wyddor) contains 28 letters, of which eight are digraphs:
| Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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 |
| Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 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.
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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, ɡ/ in the middle and at the end of words. Similarly, the voiced fricatives /v, ð/ were written with b and d.[1]
By the Middle Welsh period, this had given way to much variability: although b, d and 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, 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] The disuse of this letter is at least partly due to the publication of 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/ sound as k, so the order went "C for K, because the printers have not so many as the Welsh requireth";[3] this was not liked at the time, but has become standard usage.
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.[4]
"N" and "S" represent the variants in the northern and southern dialects of Welsh.
| Letter | Name | Corresponding sounds |
|---|---|---|
| a | â | /a, aː/ |
| b | bî | /b/ |
| c | èc | /k/ |
| ch | èch | /x/ |
| d | dî | /d/ |
| dd | èdd | /ð/ |
| e | ê | /ɛ, eː/ |
| f | èf | /v/ |
| ff | èff | /f/ |
| g | èg | /ɡ/ |
| ng | èng | /ŋ/ |
| h | âets, hâ | /h/ |
| i | î (N), î dot (S) | /ɪ, iː, j/ |
| l | èl | /l/ |
| ll | ell | /ɬ/ |
| m | èm | /m/ |
| n | en | /n/ |
| o | ô | /ɔ, oː/ |
| p | pî | /p/ |
| ph | ffî | /f/ |
| r | èr | /r/ |
| rh | rhî, rhô | /r̥/ |
| s | ès | /s/ |
| t | tî | /t/ |
| th | èth | /θ/ |
| u | û (N), û bedol (S) | /ɨ̞, ɨː/ (N), /ɪ, iː/ (S) |
| w | ŵ | /ʊ, uː, w/ |
| y | ŷ | /ɨ̞, ɨː, ə, əː/ (N), /ɪ, iː, ə, əː/ (S) |
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.
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:
The two letters in a digraph are capitalised only when the whole word is in uppercase:
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.[5] Nevertheless, in the Welsh colony in Patagonia, v is used generally to represent the sound /v/.[1]
| Orthography | Northern dialects | Southern dialects |
|---|---|---|
| ae | /aːɨ/ | /ai/ |
| ai | /ai/ | /ai/ |
| au | /aɨ/ but as plural ending /a/ | /ai/ but as plural ending /e/ |
| aw | /au, aːu/ | /au/ |
| ei | /əi/ | /əi/ |
| eu | /əɨ/ | /əi/ |
| ew | /ɛu, eːu/ | /ɛu/ |
| ey | /əɨ/ | /əi/ |
| iw | /ɪu/ | /ɪu/ |
| oe | /ɔɨ, ɔːɨ/ | /ɔi/ |
| oi | /ɔi/ | /ɔi/ |
| ou | /ɔɨ, ɔːɨ/ | /ɔi/ |
| uw | /ɨu/ | /ɪu/ |
| wy | /ʊɨ, uːɨ/ | /ʊi/ |
| yw | /ɨu, əu/ | /ɪu, əu/ |
Welsh makes use of a number of diacritics.
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; see below.
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 /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", for example, is written with none).
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/.
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.
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:
An unmarked vowel is short:
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