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74 the distinction was beginning to disappear. The Late Ml. poets frankly give it up; e.g. Ca. bychan / glan / kyvan(n) / diflan(n) / darogan / &hellip;kalan(n) / kan / Ieuan(n), 1233–4. Yet in O. W. the distinction was a real one, for it is reflected in the ordinary spelling of words; as bichan ‘little’ (cf. vychanet  44,  31), atar  ‘birds’ (cf. adaren  107), scribenn  ‘writing’ (cf. yscrivennu Ỻ.A. 2), corsenn, guinlann , etc. The dimin. endings &#8209;yn, &#8209;en appear as &#8209;inn, &#8209;enn; the pl. ending &#8209;i̯on is always &#8209;ion.

In the unaccented penult in O. W. the distinction between an open and a closed syllable was preserved; the vowel must have been shorter in the latter, as it was later when the penult became accented.

The diversity in the present quantity of vowels before ll and s, and the fixing of the present quantities of diphthongs, are due to complicated actions of analogy, which it would take too much space here to attempt to trace.

THE ARYAN VOWELS IN KELTIC

Parent Aryan had the following vowel-system:

i. The Aryan short vowels remained unchanged in Primitive Keltic, except ə, which became a as in all the other branches except Indo-Iranian, in which it became i, see vii below.

Ar. a (Lat. a, Gk. 🇬🇷). Lat. dacruma (lacruma), Gk. 🇬🇷 Goth. tagr: W. pl. dagrau ‘tears’ < Pr. Kelt. *dakruu̯a.—Ar. *ag̑ō > Lat. agō, Gk. 🇬🇷: Ir. agaim ‘I drive’, W. af for a-af for *aᵹaf ‘I go’ < Pr. Kelt. *ag&#8209;.—Lat. sāl, sălis, Gk. 🇬🇷, Goth. salt: Ir. salann, W. halen ‘salt’ < Pr. Kelt. *sal&#8209;.

Ar. e (Lat. e, Gk. 🇬🇷). Ar. *bher- > Lat. ferō, Gk. 🇬🇷 O. E. beran ‘to bear’: Ir. berimm ‘I bear’, W. ad-feraf ‘I re-