Old Welsh language
Encyclopedia
Old Welsh is the label attached to the Welsh language
from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh
. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from the British language around 550, has been called "Primitive Welsh".
Many poems and some prose have been preserved from this period, although some are in later manuscripts, for example the text of Y Gododdin
. 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. A text in the Book of St. Chad called the Surrexit 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.
Old Welsh is only intelligible to a modern-day Welsh speaker with the aid of extensive notes.
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh
Middle Welsh language
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....
. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from the British language around 550, has been called "Primitive Welsh".
Many poems and some prose have been preserved from this period, although some are in later manuscripts, for example the text of Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin
Y Gododdin is a medieval Welsh poem consisting of a series of elegies to the men of the Britonnic kingdom of Gododdin and its allies who, according to the conventional interpretation, died fighting the Angles of Deira and Bernicia at a place named Catraeth...
. The oldest surviving text entirely in Old Welsh is probably that on a gravestone now in Tywyn
Tywyn
Tywyn is a town and seaside resort on the Cardigan Bay coast of southern Gwynedd , in north Wales. The name derives from the Welsh tywyn and the town is sometimes referred to as Tywyn Meirionnydd...
church, thought to date from the early 8th century. A text in the Book of St. Chad called the Surrexit 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.
Old Welsh is only intelligible to a modern-day Welsh speaker with the aid of extensive notes.
Text
surrexit 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 > ) and dd to represent /ð/ (did > ) 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 mutationsConsonant mutationConsonant mutation is when a consonant in a word changes according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment.Mutation phenomena occur in languages around the world. A prototypical example of consonant mutation is the initial consonant mutation of all modern Celtic languages...
, a major feature of all Insular Celtic languagesInsular Celtic languagesInsular Celtic languages are those Celtic languages that originated in the British Isles, in contrast to the Continental Celtic languages of mainland Europe and Anatolia. All surviving Celtic languages are from the Insular Celtic group; the Continental Celtic languages are extinct...
, 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 | land | |
| lau | hand | |
| diued | end | |
| ir | the | |
| nouid | new | |
| guetig | after | |
| cas | hatred | |
| hit | until | |
| did | day | |
| braut | judgement | |
| in ois oisou | for ever and ever |
External links
- Old and Middle Welsh by David Willis, University of Cambridge