Page:Morris-Jones Welsh Grammar 0032.png

32 we have haearn, in 119 hayarn ‘iron’. Though now always written ae, oe, the sound in N. W. is still distinctly aɥ, oɥ; thus maes, coed are read mā́ɥs, cṓɥd. In Mid and S. Wales the sound approaches the spelling ae, oe. In parts of S. W. the diphthongs are simplified into ā, ō in the dialects: mā́s, cṓd. In Pembrokeshire oe becomes w̄́-ë and even w̯ḗ.

Ml. W. ae and oe are derived not only from O. W. ai and oi, but also from O. W. disyllabic a|e and o|e; thus saeth < sa|eth < Lat. sagitta; maes < ma|es (rhyming with gormes, 25) < *maᵹes; troed pl. traed (rhyming with vrithret / bryssẏet  1042) from *troget&#8209;, *traget&#8209;, § 65 ii (1). They may also represent a contraction of a|ɥ, o|ɥ as in dā́ed § 212 iv, trṓent, § 185 i (1).

Ml. W. ei had an open and a close e according to position; these developed into Mn. W. ai and ei; see § 79 i. The present sound of the form ei is əi̯, where ə is an obscure vowel which is hardly, if at all, distinct from ỿ.

iv. O. W. ou (≡ oü) occurs once as au, in anutonau ‘perjuria’, which in  is anutonou. The o was unrounded in Ml. W., becoming an indistinct vowel, open and close, written e; the two forms became Mn. W. au and eu; see § 79 ii.

v. O. W. au and eu (back u) have remained the same phonetically, the back u being written w in the later language. O. W. iu represented three distinct diphthongs according as i represented i or either sound of y. The diphthongs ɥw and ỿw are even now of course both represented by a single group yw in ordinary writing. The rules for distinguishing between them are those that apply to ɥ and ỿ generally; § 82 ii (4).

vi. O. W. ou (back u) represents the diphthong ỿw, written yw and also ow at a later period, § 33 iii (2). Thus diguolouichetic ; Ml. W. llỿwỿchedic 84 ‘shining’, llỿwɥch  1153, which appear beside llewɥch  1154, Mn. W. llewɥch corr. into llewɥrch ‘light’; § 76 vi, viii.

The diphthongs ae or aɥ and oe or oɥ followed by w̯ form the falling triphthongs aew, oew or aɥw, oɥw, in gw̯aɥw ‘spear’, gloɥw ‘bright’, hoɥw ‘sprightly’, croɥw ‘clear’, which remain strictly monosyllabic in the cynghanedd of the Early Mn. bards. In late pronunciation the w is made syllabic, except when a syllable is added, as in the pl. gloɥw̯on which is still disyllabic. In dāɥwch, contracted from dā ɥw̯ch, the āɥw has now been simplified into ā́w; see § 212 iv.

i. Unaccented ae in the final syllable was often reduced to e in the Ml. period, especially in verbal forms and proper names; as in adwen for adwaen ‘I know’, chware for chwarae ‘to play’, Ithel for Ithael, O. W. Iudhail (≡ i̯üẟ-hail).