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44 ‘gentle’, mw͡ynach ‘gentler’, mw͡ynhau ‘to enjoy’; cŵɥn ‘complaint’, pl. cw͡yni̯on, v.n. cw͡yno ‘to complain’. Similarly the rising diphthong remains rising, the ɥ becoming ỿ according to rule, § 82 ii (5); thus gw̯ɥn ‘white’, gw̯ỿnnach ‘whiter’, gw̯ỿnnu ‘to whiten’.

When a word in its radical form begins with wy the diphthong is the falling one; thus ŵɥ ‘egg’, ŵɥth ‘eight’, w͡ythnos ‘week’, w͡ybr ‘sky’, w͡ylo ‘to weep’, ŵɥl ‘weeps’, w͡yneb ‘face’.

w͡ybr, w͡ylo and w͡yneb are frequently mispronounced; and in N. W. dialects the w of w͡yneb having been made consonantal a g has been prefixed to it giving gw̯ɥneb. This vulgarism hardly occurs before the 19th cent.


 * Rhaid im ddŵɥn pridd ar f’w͡yneb
 * Rhag bod i’m adnabod neb.—D.G. 307.

‘I must bear earth upon my face, so that no one shall know me.’ See wrth f’w͡yneb D.G. 23, yn f’w͡yneb do. 442.


 * Amlwg fydd trŵɥn a’r w͡yneb;
 * Afraid i ni nodi neb.—E.P. 212.

‘Plain is the nose on a face; we need mention no one.’


 * A’r anadl oll a’r w͡yneb
 * Fal aroglau si̯opau Si̯êb.—D.G., 330.

‘And all the breath and face like the perfume of the shops of Cheapside.’ See also 49.


 * Os w͡yneb i̯arll sy ’n y bedd,
 * I̯arll a aned erllynedd.—D.N., i 161.

‘If an earl’s face is in the grave, an earl was born last year.’

So always in the Bible; see fy w͡yneb Gen. xliii 3, Ex. xxxiii 20, Lev. xvii 10, etc.; eu hw͡ynebau, Gen. xlii 6, etc. An early indication of the mispronunciation is found in y wynebeu, (1703), p. 7, which should be yr w͡ynebeu, but has not yet become y gw̯ynebeu.

v. Final wy is always the falling diphthong; as pwɥ ‘who?’ Conw͡y, Myfanw͡y, arlw͡y ‘a spread’, dirw͡y ‘fine’, llỿw͡y ‘beautiful’,