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Rh vitality of the Cambro-British tongue—these are the main characteristics of modern Wales, and they seem to verify the terms of Taliesin's ancient prophecy concerning the early dwellers of Gwalia:—

Welsh Literature.—The Welsh language possesses an extensive literature, ranging from the 9th century to the present day. A detailed account of it will be found in the article : Celtic Literature, § iv.

Welsh Language.—Welsh, the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Britons (see Language), is the domestic tongue of the majority of the inhabitants of the Principality. With the final destruction of Welsh independence under Edward I. the Cambro-British language, in spite of the disappearance of a court, continued to be spoken by Welshmen of all classes residing west of Severn, and the 14th and 15th centuries are remarkable for producing some of the finest Welsh bards and historians. With the union of Wales with England by the Act of 27 Henry VIII. (1536) the subsequent administration of all law and justice in the English tongue throughout the Principality threatened for a time the ancient language of the people with practical extinc t ion. From such a fate it was largely preserved by the various translations of the Scriptures, undertaken at the command of Queen Elizabeth and performed by a number of native scholars and divines, amongst whom appear prominent the names of Bishops Davies, Morgan and Parry, and of William Salesbury of Llanrwst. Although the assertion of the celebrated Rhys Prichard of Llandovery that in his time (c. 1630) only 1% of the people of Wales could read the native language is probably an exaggeration, yet the number of persons who could read and write Welsh must have been extremely small outside the ranks of the clergy. During the earlier half of the 17th century the number of Welsh Bibles distributed throughout the Principality could hardly have exceeded 8000 in all, and except the Bible there was scarcely any Welsh work of importance in circulation. The system of the Welsh circulating charity schools, set up by Griffith Jones, rector of Llanddowror, in the 18th century, undoubtedly gave an immense impetus to the spread of popular education in Wales, for it has been stated on good authority that about one-third of the total population was taught to read and write Welsh by means of this system. As a result of Griffith Jones's efforts there quickly arose a vigorous demand for Welsh books of a pious and educational character, which was largely supplied by local Welsh printing-presses. The enthusiastic course of the Methodist movement under Howell Harris, Daniel Rowland and William Williams; the establishment of Welsh Sunday Schools; the founding of the Bible Society under Thomas Charles of Bala; and the revival early in the 19th century of the Eisteddfodau (the ancient bardic contests of music, poetry and learning), have all contributed to extend the use of the Welsh language and to strengthen its hold as a popular medium of education throughout the Principality. In 1841 the Welsh-speaking population was computed at 67% of the total, and in 1893 Welsh was understood or spoken by over 60% of the inhabitants in the twelve Welsh counties with the exception of the following districts, wherein English is the prevailing or the sole language employed:—viz. nearly the whole of Radnorshire; east Flint, including the neighbouring districts of Ruabon and Wrexham in Denbighshire; east Brecknock; east Montgomery; south Pembroke, with the adjoining district of Laugharne in Carmarthenshire; and the districts of Gower, Vale of Glamorgan and Cardiff in south Glamorgan. In Monmouth, the eastern portion of the county is purely English-speaking, and in the western districts English also prevails (J. E. Southall, Linguistic Map of Wales).

Before tracing the history of Welsh sounds, it will be convenient to give the values of the letters in the modern alphabet:—

Tenues: p; t; c ( = Eng. k).

Mediae: b; d; g ( = Eng. hard g).

Voiceless spirants: ff or ph ( = Eng. f); th ( = Eng. th in thick); ch ( = Scottish ch in loch).

Voiced spirants: f ( = Eng. v); dd ( = Eng. th in this); the guttural voiced spirant disappeared early in Welsh.

Voiceless nasals: mh; nh; ngh.

Voiced nasals: m; n; ng.

Voiceless liquids: ll (unilateral voiceless l); rh (voiceless r).

Voiced liquids: l; r.

Sibilant: s (Welsh has no z).

Aspirate: k.

Semi-vowels: i ( = Eng. y in yard); w ( = Eng. w).

The sounds of t and d are more dental than in English, though they vary; the voiced spirants are very soft; the voiceless nasals are aspirated, thus nh is similar to Eng. nh in inhale; r is trilled as in Italian.

Vowels: a, e, i, o have the same values as in Italian; w as a vowel = north Eng. oo in book or Italian u; y has two sounds—(1) the clear sound resembling the Eng. i in bit, but pronounced farther back; (2) the obscure sound = Eng. i in fir; u in Med. Welsh had the sound of French u, but now has the clear sound of y described above, which is similar to the ear, and has the same pitch.

The Welsh language belongs to the Celtic branch of the Aryan or Indo-European family of languages. Primitive Celtic split up, as already shown, into two dialects, represented in modern times by two groups of languages—(1) the Goidelic group, comprising Irish, Scottish, Gaelic and Manx. (2) The Brythonic or Brittonic group, comprising Welsh, Breton and Cornish. In the Goidelic group qu appears as c, thus Irish cethir, “four”; in the Brythonic group it is changed into p, as in Welsh pedwar, “four.” Gaulish, which was supplanted in France by Latin, had p, as in petor-ritum, “four-wheeled car,” and is thus allied to the Brythonic group; but it is believed that remains of a continental Celtic qu- dialect appear in such names as Sequani, and in some recently discovered inscriptions. The sounds of parent Aryan appeared in Primitive Celtic with the following modifications:—p disappeared, thus Aryan *peter, which gave Latin pater, Eng. father, gave in Irish athir; corresponding to Eng. floor, we have Irish lár, Welsh llawr. The velar tenuis q, when labialized, became qu, without labialization became k; the velar media g became b or g. The aspirated mediae bh, dh, g h, gh were treated as unaspirated b, d, g, g; probably also the rare aspirated tenues fell together with the unaspirated. The other Aryan consonants seem generally to have remained. Aryan ā, ī, ū remained. Aryan ē became î, as in Irish fír, Welsh gwîr, “true,” cognate with Latin vēr-us. Aryan ō became ā, as in Irish lár, cognate with Anglo-Saxon flōr, Eng. floor. The short vowels remained, except that Aryan ə became a, as in the other European branches.

In Brythonic, primitive Celtic qu became p, as above noted. Probably also Celtic ū was advancing or had advanced to a forward position, for it appears in Welsh as ī, as in dîn, “stronghold,” from Celtic *dūn-on, cognate with Eng. town, while Latin u, borrowed in the Brythonic period, gives u with its Welsh sound above described, as in mūr, “wall,” from Latin mur-us.

The Aryan system of inflexion was preserved in Celtic, as may be seen in Stokes's restoration of Celtic declension (Trans. Philol. Soc., 1885-1886, pp. 97-201); and Brythonic was probably as highly inflected as Latin. The development of Brythonic into Welsh is analogous to that of Latin into French. Unfortunately, the extant remains of Brythonic are scanty; but in the Roman period it borrowed a large number of Latin words, which, as we know their original forms, and as they underwent the same modifications as other words in the language, enable us to trace the phonetic changes by which Brythonic became Welsh.

These changes are briefly as follows:—

1. Loss of Syllables.—The last syllable of every word of more than one syllable was dropped; thus Latin termĭn-us gives in Welsh terfyn; the name Sabrĭn-a “Severn” became Hafren. The loss extends to the stem-ending of the first element of a compound, thus the personal name Maglo-cŭnos became Maelgwn; and generally to unaccented syllables, thus episcopus became *epscop, whence esgob; trīnitāt-em gives trindod. The accusative is often the case represented in Welsh; but we have also the nominative, and sometimes both, as in ciwed from cīvit-as, and ciwdod from cīvitāt-em, now two words, not two cases of the same word. Aryan declension naturally disappeared with the loss of final syllables.

2. Consonant Changes.—(1) Between two vowels, or a vowel and a liquid, the seven consonants p, t, c, b, d, g, m, became respectively b, d, g, f, dd, -, f, where “-" represents the lost voiced spirant . Examples: Latin cupidus gave cybydd; Tacitus gave