Middle Welsh

Middle Welsh
Middle Welsh
Cymraeg Canol
Native to	Wales
Era	Evolved into Modern Welsh about the 15th century
Language family	Indo-European Celtic Insular Celtic Brittonic Middle Welsh; ; ; ;
Early forms	Common Brittonic Old Welsh ;
Writing system	Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wlm
Linguist List	wlm
Glottolog	None
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Middle Welsh (Welsh: Cymraeg Canol) 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.

Literature and history

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.

Phonology

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 Western Welsh dialects and /i/ in South Welsh and North East 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] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = Modern Welsh [marchog] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "horseman"). Similarly, the Middle Welsh diphthongs ei and eu have become ai and au in final syllables, e.g. Middle Welsh [seith] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = modern [saith] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "seven", Middle Welsh [heul] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = modern [haul] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "sun".

Orthography

The orthography of Middle Welsh was not standardised, and there is great variation between manuscripts in how certain sounds are spelled. Some generalisations of differences between Middle Welsh spelling and Modern Welsh spelling can be made (Evans 1964). For example, the possessive adjectives [ei] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "his, her", [eu] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "their" and the preposition [i] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "to" are very commonly spelled [y] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) in Middle Welsh, and are thus spelt the same as the definite article [y] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) and the indirect relative particle [y] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help). A phrase such as [y gath] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) is therefore ambiguous in Middle Welsh between the meaning "the cat" (spelt the same in Modern Welsh), the meaning "his cat" (modern [ei gath] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), and the meaning "to a cat" (modern [i gath] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). The voiced stop consonants /d ɡ/ are represented by the letters t c at the end of a word, e.g. [diffryt] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "protection" (modern [diffryd] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)), [redec] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "running" (modern [rhedeg] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)). The sound /k/ is very often spelled k before the vowels e i y (in Modern Welsh, it is always spelt c, e.g. Middle Welsh [keivyn] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = modern [ceifn] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "third cousin"). The sound /v/ is usually spelt u or v, except at the end of a word, where it is spelt f (in Modern Welsh, it is always spelt f, e.g. Middle Welsh [auall] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = modern [afall] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "apple tree"). The sound /ð/ is usually spelt d (in Modern Welsh, it is spelt dd, e.g. Middle Welsh [dyd] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) = modern [dydd] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "day"). The sound /r̥/ is spelt r and is thus not distinguished from /r/ (in Modern Welsh, they are distinguished as rh and r respectively, e.g. Middle Welsh [redec] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) "running" vs. modern [rhedeg] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)).

Grammar

Present Indicative Active

	caru, "to love"
I	caraf
You (s)	kery
He, she, it	car
We	caran
You (p)	kerych
They	carant