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§ 22 In Early Ml. W. we also find m for mh, n for nh, and g for ngh; see § 24 i.

ii. The letters m, n, ng have always represented the sounds m, n, ŋ; but m also represented ṽ in O. W., § 19 i; ng may represent ŋg in Ml. and Mn. W.; and ŋ was also written g in Ml. W.; § 19 iv.

i. In O. W. the sound ll was written l initially, and ll medially and finally; as leill ‘others’, lenn  ‘cloak’ guollung  ≡ gw̯ollwng ‘release’. In dluithruim, if rightly analysed into llwyth ‘weight’ and rhwyf ‘oar’, we have dl- for þl&#8209;, the usual imitation of the ll sound, § 17 vii, proving the sound to be as old as the 9th cent., though then usually written l- initially. The imitation thl is common in the earliest Norman records, but has not been used by Welsh writers.

In Ml. W. the ll sound is represented by ll; in some, e.g. the , it is ligatured thus ỻ, enabling it to be distinguished from double l as in callon 106 ‘heart’, Iollo  1369, 1407, kollyn  1073 ‘pivot’, which we now write calon, Iolo, colyn, § 54 ii. The ligatured capital Ỻ has been used from the Ml. period to the present day in lettering done by hand.

iii. In Mn. W. ll is used.

The sound rh was written r in O. and Ml. W. The scribes use r for rh even when the h has a different origin, and sometimes even when it belongs to another word, as in y gwanwyn araf 194 for y gwanwyn a’r haf ‘the spring and summer’.

☞ Ml. W. r for rh is transcribed r͑ in our quotations.

v. In the late 15th and early 16th cent. the sound rh was represented by rr and R; it was not until the middle of the 16th cent. that the present digraph rh, which seems to us so obvious and natural a representation of the sound, came into general use.