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The modern 'Welsh alphabet' (''Yr Wyddor'') contains 28 letters, of which eight are digraphs:

'Majuscule Forms' (also called 'uppercase' or 'capital letters')

A

B

C

CH

D

DD

E

F

FF

G

NG

H

I

L

LL

M

N

O

P

PH

R

RH

S

T

TH

U

W

Y

'Minuscule Forms' (also called 'lowercase' or 'small letters')

a

b

c

ch

d

dd

e

f

ff

g

ng

h

i

l

ll

m

n

o

p

ph

r

rh

s

t

th

u

w

y

The acute accent, the grave accent, the circumflex and the diaeresis mark are also used on vowels, but accented letters are not regarded as part of the alphabet.

Contents

History

Letter names and sound values

Notes

Diphthongs

Diacritics

Other letters

Predicting vowel length from orthography

References

History

The earliest samples of written Welsh date from the 6th century and are in the Latin alphabet (see Old Welsh). The orthography differs from that of modern Welsh particularly in the use of ''p'', ''t'' and ''c'' to represent the voiced stops in the middle and at the end of words. Similarly, the voiced fricatives were written with ''b'' and ''d''.^[1]
By the Middle Welsh period, this had given way to much variability: although ''b'', ''d'' and ''g'' were now used to represent /b, d, g/, these sounds were also often written as in Old Welsh, while /v/ could be denoted by ''u'', ''v'', ''f'' or ''w''. In earlier manuscripts, moreover, fricatives were often not distinguished from stops (e.g. ''t'' for , the sound now written with ''th'').^[2] The grapheme ''k'' was also used more commonly than in the modern alphabet, particularly before front vowels.
In 1928 a committee chaired by Sir John Morris-Jones standardised the orthography of modern Welsh. In 1987, a committee chaired by Professor Stephen J. Williams made further small changes. The conventions established by these committees are not, it should be noted, adhered to by all modern writers.^[3]

Letter names and sound values

:

Letter	Name of letter	Corresponding sounds
a	''â''
b	''bî''
c	''èc''
ch	''èch''
d	''dî''
dd	''èdd''
e	''ê''
f	''èf''
ff	''èff''
g	''èg''
ng	''èng''
h	''âets'', ''hâ''
i	''î''
l	''èl''
ll	''ell''
m	''èm''
n	''en''
o	''ô''
p	''pî''
ph	''ffî''
r	''èr''
rh	''rhî'', ''rhô''
s	''ès''
t	''tî''
th	''èth''
u	''û (N), û bedol (S)''	(N), (S)
w	''ŵ''
y	''ŷ''	(N), (S)

Notes

While the digraphs ''ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, ph, rh, th'' are each written with two symbols, they are all considered to be single letters. This means, for example that ''Llanelli'' (a town in South Wales) is considered to have only six letters in Welsh, compared to eight letters in English. Consequently, they each take up only a single space in Welsh crosswords. As another example, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch has 58 letters in English or 51 in Welsh (in either case making it the longest placename in Britain).
Sorting is done in correspondence with the alphabet. For example, ''la'' comes before ''ly'', which comes before ''lla'', which comes before ''ma''. Automated sorting may occasionally be complicated by the fact that additional information may be needed to distinguish a genuine digraph from a juxtaposition of letters; for example ''llom'' comes after ''llong'' (in which the ''ng'' stands for ) but before ''llongyfarch'' (in which ''n'' and ''g'' are pronounced separately as ).
In addition to representing the phoneme , ''h'' indicates voicelessness in the graphemes ''mh, nh,'' and ''ngh''. The digraph ''ph'' – which indicates the aspirate mutation of ''p'' (e.g. ''ei phen-ôl'') – may also be found very occasionally in words derived from Greek (e.g. ''phenol''), although most words of Greek origin are spelt with ''ff'' (e.g. ''ffotograff'').
The vowel letter ''y'' indicates in unstressed monosyllabic words (e.g. ''y'' "the", ''fy'' "my") or non-final syllables, but (N) or (S) everywhere else.
The sequence ''si'' indicates when followed by a vowel; similarly, ''di'' and ''ti'' sometimes indicate and respectively when followed by a vowel, although these sounds are spelled ''j'' and ''ts'' in loanwords like ''jẁg'' "jug" and ''wats'' "watch".

Diphthongs

:

Orthography	Northern dialects	Southern dialects
ae
ai
au	''but as plural ending''	''but as plural ending''
aw
ei
eu
ew
ey
iw
oe
oi
ou
uw
wy
yw

Diacritics

Welsh makes use of a number of diacritics.
The circumflex is used to mark long vowels. Thus ''â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ'' are always long, but ''a, e, i, o, u, w, y'' are not necessarily short. Not all long vowels are marked with a circumflex. A useful rule of thumb is that they are used particularly in monosyllabic words where the vowel is followed by ''-l'', ''-n'' or ''-r''. There are many exceptions to this, however.
The grave accent is sometimes used to mark vowels that should be short, when a long vowel would normally be expected, e.g. ''pas'' (a cough), ''pàs'' (a pass/permit or a lift in a car); ''mwg'' (smoke), ''mẁg'' (a mug).
The acute accent is sometimes used to mark a stressed final syllable in a polysyllabic word. Thus the words ''gwacáu'' (to empty) and ''dicléin'' (decline) have final stress. However, not all polysyllabic words with final stress are marked with the acute accent (''Cymraeg'' "Welsh", for example, is written with none).
The diaeresis indicates that a vowel letter is to be pronounced fully, not as a semivowel, e.g. ''copïo'' (to copy) — pronounced , not
★ .
The grave and acute accents in particular are very often omitted in casual writing, and the same is true to a lesser extent of the diaeresis. The circumflex, however, is usually included. Accented vowels are not considered distinct letters.

Other letters

The letter ''j'' is accepted in Welsh orthography for those words borrowed from English in which the sound is retained in Welsh, even where that sound is not represented by ''j'' in English spelling, as in ''garej'' (for ''garage''). Some borrowed words that are spelt with a ''j'' in English may be pronounced with either or in Welsh; the latter pronunciation is represented by ''si'', as in ''Siapan'' for ''Japan''.
The letters ''k'', ''v'', ''x'' and ''z'' are used in some technical terms, like ''kilogram'', ''volt'', ''xeroser'' and ''zero'', but in all cases can be, and often are, replaced by Welsh letters: ''cilogram'', ''folt'', ''seroser'' and ''sero.''^[4] Nevertheless, in the Welsh colony in Patagonia, ''v'' is used generally to represent the sound /v/.

Predicting vowel length from orthography

As mentioned above, vowels marked with the circumflex are always long, and those marked with the grave accent are always short. If a vowel is not marked with a diacritic, its length must be determined by its environment.
An unmarked vowel is 'long':

★ in a stressed monosyllabic word when no consonant follows, e.g. ''da'' (good)

★ before ''b'', ''ch'', ''d'', ''dd'', ''g'', ''f'', ''ff'', ''s'', ''th'', e.g. ''mab'' (son), ''hoff'' (favourite), ''peth'' (thing)

★ before ''l'', ''n'', ''r'' (in the case of ''i'', ''u''), e.g. ''sgil'' ("behind), ''llun'' (picture), ''hir'' (long)

★ in Northern dialects, before clusters of two consonants when the first one is ''ll'' or ''s'', e.g. ''gwallt'' (hair), ''tyst'' (witness)
An unmarked vowel is 'short':

★ in an unstressed (proclitic) word, e.g. ''a'' (and)

★ before ''p'', ''t'', ''c'', ''m'', ''ng'', e.g. ''cam'' (step), ''llong'' (ship)

★ before ''l'', ''n'', ''r'' (in the case of ''a'', ''e'', ''o'', ''w'', ''y''), e.g. ''tal'' (tall), ''llen'' (curtain), ''ffwr'' (fur)

★ in Southern dialects, before clusters of two consonants, e.g. ''sant'' (saint), ''gwallt'' (hair), ''tyst'' (witness)

★ in Northern dialects, before clusters of two consonants when the first one is ''n'' or ''r'', e.g. ''sant'' (saint), ''perth'' (hedge)

★ in Northern dialects, in any syllable that is not both stressed and word-final

★ in Southern dialects, in any unstressed syllable

References

1. Watkins, T. Arwyn (1993) "Welsh" in Ball, Martin J. with Fife, James (Eds) ''The Celtic Languages.'' London/New York: Routledge: 289-348.
2. Evans, Simon D. (1964) ''A Grammar of Middle Welsh.'' Dublin: ColourBooks Ltd.
3. Thomas, Peter Wynn (1996) ''Gramadeg y Gymraeg.'' Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 749.
4. Thomas, Peter Wynn (1996) ''Gramadeg y Gymraeg.'' Cardiff: University of Wales Press: 757.