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Middle Welsh |
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Middle Welsh is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for
any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed from Old Welsh. Middle Welsh is the language of nearly all surviving early
manuscripts of the Mabinogion, although the tales themselves are certainly much older. It is also the language of most of
the manuscripts of Welsh law. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker.
The phonology of Middle Welsh is quite similar to that of modern Welsh, with only a few differences (Evans 1964). The letter
u, which today represents /ɨ/ in North Welsh dialects and /i/ in South Welsh dialects, represented the close central rounded
vowel /ʉ/ in Middle Welsh. The diphthong aw is found in unstressed final syllables in Middle Welsh, while in Modern Welsh
it has become o (e.g. Middle Welsh marchawc = Modern Welsh marchog horseman). Similarly, the Middle Welsh diphthongs ei and
eu have become ai and au in final syllables, e.g. Middle Welsh seith = modern saith seven, Middle Welsh heul = modern haul
sun. The orthography of Middle Welsh was not standardized, and there is great variation between manuscripts in how certain
sounds are spelled. Some generalizations of differences between Middle Welsh spelling and Modern Welsh spelling can be made
(Evans 1964). For example, the possessive pronouns ei his, her, eu their and the preposition i to are very commonly spelled
y in Middle Welsh, and are thus spelled the same as the definite article y and the indirect relative particle y. A phrase
such as y gath is therefore ambiguous in Middle Welsh between the meaning the cat (spelled the same in Modern Welsh), the
meaning his cat (modern ei gath), and the meaning to a cat (modern i gath). The voiced plosives /d ɡ/ are represented by the
letters t c at the end of a word, e.g. diffryt protection (modern diffryd), redec running (modern rhedeg). The sound /k/ is
very often spelled k before the vowels e i y (in Modern Welsh, it is always spelled c, e.g. Middle Welsh keivyn = modern ceifn
third cousin). The sound /v/ is usually spelled u or v, except at the end of a word, where it is spelled f (in Modern Welsh,
it is always spelled f, e.g. Middle Welsh auall = modern afall apple tree). The sound /ð/ is usually spelled d (in Modern
Welsh, it is spelled dd, e.g. Middle Welsh dyd = modern dydd day). The sound /r̥/ is spelled r and is thus not distinguished
from /r/ (in Modern Welsh, they are distinguished as rh and r respectively, e.g. Middle Welsh redec running vs. modern rhedeg). |
Names (more)[br] Krenngembraeg[cy] Cymraeg Canol [en] Middle Welsh [gl] Lingua galesa media [it] Lingua medio gallese [no] Mellomwalisisk [pt] Galês médio [ru] Средневаллийский язык [zh] 中古威爾斯語 |
Language type : Ancient
Technical notes
This page is providing structured data for the language Middle Welsh. |
ISO 639 CodesISO 639-3 : wlmLinked Data URIshttp://lexvo.org/id/iso639-3/wlmhttp://dbpedia.org/resource/ISO_639:wlm More URIs at sameas.org SourcesAuthority documentation for ISO 639 identifier: wlmFreebase ISO 639-3 : wlm GeoNames.org Country Information Publications Office of the European Union Metadata Registry : Countries and Languages |