| Old Welsh | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Wales | |
| Language extinction: | Evolved into Middle Welsh about the 12th century | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Celtic Insular Celtic Brythonic Old Welsh |
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| Writing system: | Latin | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | – | |
| ISO 639-3: | owl
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Old Welsh (Welsh: Hen Gymraeg) is the label attached to the Welsh language from the time it developed from the Brythonic language, generally thought to be in the period between the middle of the 6th century and the middle of the 7th century, until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh. According to some definitions an extinct language is a Language which no longer has any speakers, whereas a dead language is a language which is no longer spoken Middle 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 List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic" a branch of the greater Indo-European Language family. The term Insular Celtic refers to those Celtic languages which originated in the British Isles, in contrast to the Continental Celtic languages of The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages or British languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family the other being A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic Welsh ( cy Cymraeg or cy y Gymraeg, kəmˈrɑːɨɡ and {{IPA|[ə ɡəmˈrɑːɨɡ]}}, is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages or British languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family the other being The 6th century is the period from 501 to 600 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. The 7th century is the period from 601 to 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. Middle 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
Many poems and some prose has been preserved from this period, although some are in later manuscripts, for example the text of Y Gododdin. Y Gododdin (pronounced /ə gɔ'dɔðɪn/ is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Brythonic kingdom of The oldest surviving text entirely in Old Welsh is probably that on a gravestone now in Tywyn church, thought to date from the early 8th century. Tywyn (formerly Towyn) is a Town and Seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay coast of southern Gwynedd (formerly Merioneth: The 8th century is the period from 701 to 800 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian / Common Era. A text in the Book of St. Chad called the Surexit Memorandum is thought to have been written in the late 8th or the 9th century but may be a copy of a text from the 6th or 7th centuries. The Lichfield Gospels (also known as the Chad Gospels the Book of Chad the Gospels of St
Old Welsh is only intelligible to a modern-day Welsh speaker with the aid of extensive notes.
Contents |
Old Welsh texts
Surexit Memorandum
Text:
tutbulc filius liuit hagener tutri dierchi tir telih haioid ilau elcu filius gelhig haluidt iuguret amgucant pel amtanndi ho diued diprotant gener tutri o guir imguodant ir degion guragon tagc rodesit elcu guetig equs tres uache, tres uache nouidligi namin ir ni be cas igridu dimedichat guetig hit did braut grefiat guetig nis minn tutbulc hai cenetl in ois oisau
Translation:
Tudfwlch son of Llywyd and son-in-law of Tudri arose to claim the land of Telych, which was in the hand of Elgu son of Gelli and the tribe of Idwared. They disputed long about it; in the end they disjudge Tudri's son-in-law by law. The goodmen said to each other 'Let us make peace'. Elgu gave afterwards a horse, three cows, three cows newly calved, in order that there might not be hatred between them from the ruling afterwards till the Day of Judgement. Tudfwlch and his kin will not want it for ever and ever.
Features:
- The text shows many of the early spelling conventions of Welsh, when the basic Latin alphabet was used to represent the phonology of Old Welsh. At this stage, the use of ll to represent the lateral fricative /ɬ/ (liuit > Llywyd) and dd to represent /ð/ (did > dydd) had not been developed. The Latin letter u was used to represent the diverse sounds /ʉ/, /ʊ/ and /v/, which became u, w and f, v respectively, by the medieval period.
- initial mutations, a major feature of all Insular Celtic languages, do not appear to have been represented orthographically at this point
- In some cases, the language used in the Memorandum has become obsolete, but other words are relatively unchanged in modern Welsh:
| Old Welsh | Modern Welsh | English |
|---|---|---|
| tir | tir | land |
| lau | llaw | hand |
| diued | diwedd | end |
| ir | yr, y | the |
| nouid | newydd | new |
| guetig | gwedy | after |
| cas | cas | hatred |
| hit | hyd | until |
| did | dydd | day |
| braut | brawd | brother |
| in ois oisou | yn oes oesoedd | for ever and ever |
References
- Price, Glanville (1985). Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a Consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment The term Insular Celtic refers to those Celtic languages which originated in the British Isles, in contrast to the Continental Celtic languages of The Languages of Britain. London: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-7131-6452-2.
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