Talk:Welsh orthography

W: an English or a Welsh letter?
All sources I've found seem to agree that the letter W started out as a V-V ligature, and was first used to write English (Anglo-Saxon), replacing the earlier Runic letter wynn. But Welsh also has an ancient literary tradition, and uses this letter extensively. I wonder how and when it was introduced into Welsh orthography. It would be an interesting matter to talk about in the article... FilipeS 17:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. T. Arwyn Watkins ("Welsh" in Martin J. Ball (ed.) (1996/2002) The Celtic Languages. London/NY: Routledge: 289–348) writes that

the main evidence for written Welsh before the beginning of the ninth century is provided by Welsh place and personal names in the Latin transcriptions and manuscripts of Britain. In recent years, these sparse sources have been used to good effect to argue that Welsh was already being written as  early as the seventh century and possibly even the sixth ... The appearance of vernacular texts marks the beginning of the period known as Old Welsh (ninth to the twelfth centuries). (290)
 * He gives the word gwac as one of his examples of Old Welsh, implying that the letter was in use then, although this was after it had started being used in Old English. The problem is that, as Wikipedia states, Old English scribed started using W in the seventh century, while Welsh literature from before that period only survives in later manuscript copies and, from what Watkins writes, it's not entirely clear that they aren't the first paper versions of oral traditions (though there were clearly people literate in Latin who could have written in Welsh).  So it's not clear from the sound of it whether W entered the Welsh alphabet from English or was an independent invention.  It seems too much of a coincidence that it should appear twice, independently, on the same island, so I suspect it did indeed spread from one language to the other.  Who knows?  Maybe it went into English from Welsh – writing VV twice to represent a long V seems a very reasonable thing to do, and that ligature would then have been a handy thing to borrow into English when scribes started getting annoyed that wynn looked too much like P.  But that's just conjecture. garik 18:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, though I wonder if Mr. Watkins updated the spelling for his readers. My impression is that the triumph of "W" in English was not altogether free from Norman influences. There are also some continental languages that use the letter W, like German, but I have no idea when they adopted it. Polish and the Scandinavian languages (which used to use W) were clearly influenced by German. FilipeS 18:23, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I wondered that, though the letter was already in use in English by that time in any case, so he probably didn't update. It surprises me too that W should have been adopted into German from (one would have to assume) English, but there we are. garik 18:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * My understanding of the history of W is that it was coined in English, was sent over to the continent to write German (which at the time still used [w]) and Norman, was replaced by wynn, and then the Normans brought it back. It was not necessarily written in ligated form during all of this period. —Felix the Cassowary 14:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The only primers I have seen using the letter 'w' in Welsh predate the invention (or onslaught) of Unicodes.  Rather than being a letter with sharp corners, the letter was drawn in the shape of a pair of u's, joining them together at the side.   Am I to understand that the new standards (foisted on us by those who appear to be users of Unicodes)  require the letter to be drawn with sharp corners?    Does anybody know if anyone has ever manufactured a keyboard with the Welsh 'w' instead of the English 'w'?   198.177.27.17 (talk) 03:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have certainly seen books printed in Welsh that use the pointy-bottomed w that were printed long before Unicode was invented or thought of. —Angr 07:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

i vs u vs y
The letters i, u and y are given the names î, û and ŷ. In a Southern dialect these are apparently all pronounced, and in a Northern dialect only î is distinct (unless I misunderstand the relationship between the [iː~ɨː] and [ə] variants of y). So ... how do Well speakers say the differences if they're spelling a word or whatever? —Felix the Cassowary 14:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Y represents four different sounds (if you include long and short variants) in all dialects:, , and  in the north and , ,  and  in the south; but the last sound is used as the letter name.  So the three letters i, u y are called  ,  and  in the north, while in the south the first two are both . Sometimes u is called u bedol ("horseshoe u") to distinguish it from i.  In fact, I've even heard a northerner call it that, quite unnecessarily. garik 16:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've added this information to the article. —Felix the Cassowary 02:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

NN in Welsh
Does Welsh have the digraph nn. 19:40, 5 January 2008 Homa Alona (Talk | contribs)

Yes, it does. —Angr 07:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

nn wouldn't be a digraph, a digraph in welsh is two letter to become one, because they both count as two letters, whereas, letters such as: ch, dd, ff, ng, ll, rh, th and ph count as one, so bach = small; be three, while, dannod = reproach; be 6. Japhes600,000 (talk) 13:50, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Vowel Length
Some of the mentioned rules for distinguishing between long are short vowels are somewhat difficult to understand and in my opinion contradictory. Could someone please clarify? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.114.72.184 (talk) 01:46, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Could you be more specific? —Angr 07:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I certainly can't see any contradictions. They might be difficult to understand (it's a relatively complex system), but I can't see a clearer way of expressing it without making the section considerably more wordy. garik (talk) 16:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Better now? —Angr 16:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry for being blunt; what I have trouble understanding is this: the rules state that when unmarked, a vowel's length is determined by following consonants, then states that a vowel is always short in northern dialects unless the syllable is stressed and word-final. What I gather is that in northern dialects long vowels only occur in the final syllable, in which case, the following consonant will determine it's length. Is this correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.114.72.184 (talk) 02:17, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's true. More specifically, in Northern dialects long vowels occur only in the final syllable if it is also stressed, in which case, the following consonant tells you if the vowel is long or short. However, since stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in Welsh, the final syllable is only stressed (1) in one-syllable words and (2) in a handful of words that exceptionally have stress on the final syllable. —Angr 06:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I too am having trouble reading this section despite repeated re-readings. But then I am indeed possibly somewhat dim. Question: are the following two equivalent?
 * "before l, n, r (in the case of i, u), e.g. sgil /sɡiːl/ (behind), llun /ɬɨːn/ (picture), hir /hiːr/ (long)"
 * and a suggested
 * "either i or u before l, n, or r, e.g. sgil /sɡiːl/ (behind), llun /ɬɨːn/ (picture), hir /hiːr/ (long)"
 * Do you think the latter is (potentially) easier to read, or at least no harder?CecilWard (talk) 16:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Second question: Is it the case that the "is-short" rules need to be read first ? That is if something matches an is-short rule then the is‑short rule wins? (Or are they in fact context-free or order-independent?). I'm quite prepared to hear a "no, that's nonsense". :-) But that would bring us back again to ease-of-reading for the dim such as the present writer. :-) CecilWard (talk) 16:21, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * First question: your suggested edit doesn't take into account the fact that the sentence begins, "An unmarked vowel is long:". "An unmarked vowel is long before l, n, r (in the case of i, u)" is a grammatical sentence, while "An unmarked vowel is long either i or u before l, n, or r" isn't. But maybe we can rephrase the whole thing to be more readable. Suggestions? Second question: I believe the is-short and the is-long rules are written in such a way that no vowel could possibly occur in both an is-short environment and an is-long environment, so ordering should play no role. But maybe I'm missing something; can you think of an example (even a hypothetical one, not necessarily a real word of Welsh) where a vowel might be in both environments so you have decide which one "wins"? +Angr 20:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Clarification wrt my "first question". On my first reading, I suspect I (mis-)read the intended scope of the post-posed modifier condition "(in the case of..". I jumped to the conclusion that it applied to r only, so Vl | Vn | ir | ur. I didn't read the examples, then flew away to attempt to apply it to a real text, then got stuck, came back and read the examples which didn't help because there are (understandably) no negative examples. I'm now assuming that the rule should possibly equate to (i|u)(l|n|r). (I used EBNF-style notation here.) The examples support the second interpretation. So a test case would be "rhan", which I'm assuming would not match the rule, although on my first reading I assumed that it did match.CecilWard (talk) 08:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've rewritten the section, making the case before l/n/r a paragraph of its own. Does it make more sense now? +Angr 10:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I believe that Angr's changes are extremely helpful. I'm soon going to disqualify myself as a useful assessor, as I am rapidly learning "too much" and have knowledge gained from this discussion and other sources so am on the way to becoming a useless test subject. :-) Many thanks to Angr for his patience and continuing good efforts here. CecilWard (talk) 10:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Clarification wrt my "second question": Example - first syllable of "nosi" in N Wales - is-long rule #2 : long ... "before before b, ch, d, dd, g, f, ff, s, th..." against the "is-short" rule 5: "in Northern dialects, in any syllable that is not both stressed and word-final". In "nosi" the first syllable matches rule 5 - is-word-final=true, so (is-stressed AND is-word-final)=false so NOT(is-stressed AND is-word-final)=true. Does the no- syllable also match is-long #2 too? (Please sanity-check my logic as the current writer is experiencing difficulty due to ill-health.)CecilWard (talk) 10:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's a good example. I'm pretty sure the vowel would be short in the north there; I believe the rule that only stressed final syllables can be long in northern dialects takes precedence. +Angr 11:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Would "dod" also be a similar example. is-long because "before d" is true yet conflicts with is-short rule 5.


 * I'm just wondering now if the scope of "in a stressed monosyllabic word" extends to is-long rule 2 and onwards?CecilWard (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC).
 * In the north, definitely. But in the south, cader "chair" is /ka:der/ with a long vowel in a stressed nonfinal syllable of a bisyllabic word. I'll take another shot at re-writing it; I see the section doesn't cite any sources either, so I'll add one or two. +Angr 11:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I might be thinking out loud with this but I wanna see if I under stand this... A vowel is long (in the Northern dialect) when it's either in the last syllable of a word when no constant follows or before b, ch, d, dd, g, f, ff, th or before word-final s. So with that said would the (hypothetical) word "edati" have a long "e" and "i"? Or would it only have a long "i"? And if that word only have a long "i" would that mean that only 1 of these rules need to apply for the vowel to be long? Burned Toast (talk) 11:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * First and foremost, a vowel is only long if it's stressed (though not all stressed vowels are long). In the hypothetical word edati, the stress would probably be on the middle syllable, since stress is usually on the penult in Welsh. Then both the "e" and the "i" would be short, because they're both unstressed. If this hypothetical word were one of the minority of polysyllabic words with stress on the final syllable, then the "i" would be long, because it would then be in a stressed, word-final syllable with no following consonant. +Angr 23:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

In the section of vowel length, h doesn't seem to be mentioned.Japhes600,000 (talk) 13:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

No J in the Welsh alphabet?
Ok it might not be a 'traditional' letter but shouldn't we include J in the actual alphabet? I notice the alphabets that adorn classroom walls in Welsh schools always contain J. (How else would the kids learn to spell jam, jeli and jigso?) If that's what the young Welsh speakers of today use, shouldn't we include it here? Llusiduonbach (talk) 09:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's mentioned under "Other letters", but maybe it should be in the table at the top too. —Angr 09:45, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added j to the alphabet as it's been used and taught as a Welsh letter for years. Would like to add any references as to when in the last century it was first "approved" or started being used in schools. Llusiduonbach (talk) 10:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Now there are 29 letters in the table but 28 in the alphabet... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.251.218.4 (talk) 16:53, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The rest of the article implies there's 29 letters, and I have a source with 29, so I'm going to go ahead and change 28 to 29. Joseph2302 (talk) 17:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * ffrij (fridge) is used as an example of an english word used in Welsh, but Welsh already has a perfectly good word for fridge, that being rhewgell! 80.229.162.156 (talk) 10:40, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Voiceless Nasal Digraphs
Why are the digraphs "mh", "nh" and "ngh" not listed in the table under "Letter Names and Sound Values"? These are digraphs that each represent a single sound. (They represent the three voiceless nasals, as described in a footnote for "h" in the table.) My guess is that they are not listed because no words start with them. I think they should be added, but that a user who is more knowledgeable about Welsh should be the one to do it. Alfrogbet (talk) 21:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They're not listed because they aren't considered individual letters, the way ch, dd, ng, ll, ph, rh, and th are. Orthographically, these are just m + h, n + h, and ng + h. +Angr 08:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What this guy said. The Welsh digraphs nh, mh, and ngh are not in the alphabet just as th, sh, ch, qu are not in the English alphabet. It doesn't matter why, it just matters that they aren't. – Dyolf87 (talk) 18:53, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

"English" sound examples
Can we qualify which "English" we use in the examples. Cambrian English, American English, some variety of English spoken in England? As a native speaker of the English as spoken in the North Midlands of England (Derbyshire-Staffs hybrid), I have difficulty relating the example "hawk" to /oː/. Is its realisation actually [ɔː] in Welsh? Is a phoneme-vs-realisation distinction confusing me here? Or is it that an AmE pronunciation of Eng "hawk" being used as a basis?

I suspect I myself might produce [oː] in "hole" in my own English English, although I'm dangerously close to parts of North Staffs where (urban) speakers may produce something like //oː// -> [εw] so I have to watch myself. (Who knows, Welsh influence in the cities of N Staffs.)

This question then spreads over into the Welsh phonology article where matters of _realisation_ need to be treated.CecilWard (talk) 11:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * "Hawk" really isn't a good example word for Welsh /o:/. It certainly isn't based on American English, whose pronunciation of "hawk" is even less /o:/-like than most British pronunciations. (For many North Americans, it's, homophonous with hock.) A better example would be "stove" in Scottish English, West/Central Canadian English or North Central American English. The Welsh phonology article makes no attempt to compare the sounds of Welsh with "similar sounds" in English at all, and I think it's better that way, but then I'm a trained phonologist to whom the table and the figure at Welsh phonology are understandable; I can't assume that's true of all interested readers, though. +Angr 17:24, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Abbreviations with digraphs
Are Abbreviations and acronyms of words that use digraphs always keeping the digraph? For example if I abbreviate "Ffilmau Cymru" would it be FfC or FFC or FC? Can someone who knows this answer put some more detail in the digraph section? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.88.170.40 (talk) 19:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The first one (FfC), see random example here at top of page of LlCC (Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru) http://www.funkydragon.org.uk/cy/fe/page.asp?n1=1105&n2=2109&n3=1865&n4=792. Llusiduonbach (talk) 11:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Syllables with no written vowel
How are words like cefn and llyfr pronounced? I think I remember reading that they're /kɛvɛn/, /ɬəvɨɾ/, etc (i.e. as if the letter in the penult were repeated), but I thought I'd better check that was actually true before putting it in the article. Is it still true if the previous syllable contains a diphthong, for example? --88.110.12.203 (talk) 21:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There's some variation, which I'd guess is mainly regionally based. Some people pronounce them with an inserted vowel, but some speakers would say /kɛvn/ or /ɬɨvɾ/.  And you'd never have a diphthong inserted; at least I can't think of a case. garik (talk) 21:30, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * But what would you do if a diphthong preceded the cluster? How would you pronounce brawdr if you actually pronounced the r? I know that's a bad example because in real life it became brawd, but hypothetically if the r had stayed, what would the epenthetic vowel between the d and the r be? +Angr 21:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd pronounce that as if spelt brawdwr (/ˈbraudʊr/); I'm almost certain no native speaker would pronounce it /braudaur/. I've also managed to come up with a real example: lleidr ("thief"), which I'd pronounce /ˈɬeidɪr/. This suggests to me that the rule (at least in my Welsh, which is from Gwynedd, although possibly messed up by a decade of living outside Wales) is to insert a short vowel similar to the second part of the diphthong.  Though I'll have to think of more examples; /ˈɬeid(ə)r/, incidentally, also sounds ok to me.  garik (talk) 22:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think, incidentally, that I tend to insert a vowel after stops, but not usually after fricatives. /ˈkɛvɛn/ and /ˈɬəvɨɾ/ sound rather southern to me (the first in particular). garik (talk) 22:34, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Something like /ˈɬeidɪr/ sounds to me (north-east coalfield) like a woolly wild western accent. If you get an intrusive vowel at all along the Marches, I'd say it was a schwa, although it becomes an /ɑ/ as you go west towards the Clwyd.  And an intrusive vowel in the likes of cefn and llyfr would be very unlikely for us: you can do the regional location by listening to the way place names are pronounced: Cefn Mawr, Cefn y Bedd, but Traeth Cefen Shidan.Dan Dean (talk) 08:42, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Capital digraphs
I've often been confused about whether e.g. Llanelli or LLanelli is correct, so it is good to find a definitive rule stated in this article, albeit without a reference (which would be an improvement). I wonder if it might also be worth noting that the same principle of digraph capitalization applies in Spanish (although the orthographies are probably unrelated), as one does see the odd word written LLa... ? (See Spanish orthography, which also lacks a reference but at least cites the relevant authority.) Also, perhaps it's worth noting that Unicode contains a "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL" which implies that LLa... used to be the correct way to write it some centuries ago? --Ozaru (talk) 16:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

No Q?
It's clear that Q isn't in the Welsh alphabet, but it's also not mentioned like j, k, v, x, and z are, so it's not clear if it could be used in technical terms, words borrowed from other languages, etc. M-1 (talk) 09:12, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any borrowed words in Welsh spelt with a Q (and there are certainly no native ones). I'd say that borrowed words are always respelt with C or CW (e.g. Irac, cwarc). garik (talk) 19:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Welsh contains no native words beginning with the sound (the sound of English $\langlequ\rangle$) because the sound  changed to  in the development from Proto-Celtic to Brythonic. This is why you'll see a $\langlep\rangle$ or $\langleb\rangle$ in Welsh words where Irish has $\langlec\rangle$ (cf. mab (Welsh) and mac (Irish) meaning 'son'), etc. Consequently, Welsh has no $\langleq\rangle$ because it had no need for it! When Welsh borrowed words from English which begin with $\langlequ\rangle$ they are transcribed as $\langlecw\rangle$, for example question becomes cwestiwn. – Dyolf87 (talk) 07:50, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Historical orthography
The article is good enough for modern Welsh, but I came here looking for the odd letters I came across in the Laws of Hywel Dda: one looks like a stylized v or b & the other like a stylized 2. I assume they're some form of wynn and yogh but (a) they're unmentioned here; (b) they're rather different from the forms of wynn and yogh used here and may be different; (c) links to font support for them is missing.

No joy at Old or Middle Welsh either.

Anyone knowledgeable enough, kindly go see the letters I'm talking about and let me know at my talk page what they are. — LlywelynII  07:25, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * For more examples of the wynn-that's-not-really-a-wynn, see here as well, where it look still more like an o or 6 that has popped open. — LlywelynII  08:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * List of Latin-script letters mentions a "Middle-Welsh V", but it has no page, doesn't display on my screen, and has no support offered. The page also mentions "Middle-Welsh LL" and "Y with loop", with similar results. Any help? — LlywelynII  08:11, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Found it. They're included in the Latin Extended Additional Unicode block:
 * LATIN SMALL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL (U+1EFB)
 * LATIN SMALL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH V (U+1EFD)
 * LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH LOOP (U+1EFF)
 * LATIN CAPITAL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH LL (U+1EFA)
 * LATIN CAPITAL LETTER MIDDLE-WELSH V (U+1EFC)
 * LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH LOOP (U+1EFE)
 * Now, any idea how to offer support? Everything in the LEA block displays for me except these three... =\


 * [Their Unicode proposal also mentions a few other letters employed by Welsh philologists.] — LlywelynII  08:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I only just noticed this thread! The "stylized 2" you see at that link is an r rotunda, which is not unique to Welsh, and which can be found at U+A75B. I'd say the Middle Welsh letters should be discussed at Middle Welsh, and the y-with-loop doesn't need to be discussed because it isn't a real letter of Welsh orthography at any stage, it's just a letter used in philological works to indicate y when it's pronounced [ə]. Angr (talk) 19:52, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Question on Diphthong
"/ɪu/ not present in English; closest to 'i-oo' (short i)" # When I see /ɪu/ I think of, say, /ɪuθ/ youth. Might this better be rendered /iʊ/? If so does anybody have a cite for it? (EDIT: Forgot to put the four tildes…whoops…) Brownie Charles (talk) 22:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The word youth is pronounced /juːθ/ in English, not dipthongized. [Though in a typical south Welsh accent the combination /juː/ does often become /ɪu/ -- I'm thinking of words like cute, tube, pure etc.] The sound /ʊ/ is that in foot; the sound we're looking for is closer to that of boot, which is /u/. Gareth (talk) 04:47, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Alternate Letter Pronunciations
The phonetics of the letters on the table are completely different from the Welsh alphabet. A lot of it seems informal. Some letters are different in the south and north (In the south they say "ec" whereas we'd say "cy"), and this lists only the south variants. For example, I don't think in the south they would say "bi" instead of "by", "ech" instead of "ch", "di" instead of "dy" and so on. The term "i dot" is a nickname for a lowercase "i", and in the alphabet would never be said like that. If anyone could edit the table, since I wouldn't be able to get the right letters for phonetics. --ConCass (talk) 23:18, 1 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid you're wrong on several counts. In the north we certainly do say "a bi ec ech" etc. In fact, the difference between that and "a by cy chy" etc. is more one of formality than anything else. Both sets of letter names are used by Welsh speakers from all over Wales. Also, while "i dot" is indeed a nickname for lowercase i, it is sometimes used in South Wales to distinguish it from u. garik (talk) 17:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It is worth mentioning the "a by cy chy" system, however. garik (talk) 17:32, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Accent names?
What are the Welsh names of accent acute, accent grave, accent diaeresis and accent trema?--31.17.153.69 (talk) 09:34, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * acute accent = acen ddyrchafedig, grave accent = acen ddisgynedig, diaeresis/trema = didolnod. garik (talk) 19:10, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much!--31.17.153.69 (talk) 16:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Why is Ph in the welsh alphabet
I don't get why Ph is in the welsh alphabet,this has really bug me and here why; when you get the same sound from ff; unlike dd and th, where they have two different "th" sound; no welsh dictionaries, apart from the Collins Spurrell, which if you have both an old and new, has a few ph entries, on the welsh side do, yet if you check the English side, they don't give the ph entry; they are words with: ngh, mh and nh and all three are mutated letters, so they should count as digprahs e.g in bridgend = yn mhen y bont, I would count mhen as three letters: mh e n; then they are with ph in welsh; even through dd and ng can't be find at the beginning of a word you do find plenty of words with, dd and ng in the middle or at the end.Japhes600,000 (talk) 14:24, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ph occurs in Welsh only as the result of aspirate mutation of p, so in Modern Welsh it only ever occurs at the start of a word, and only ever when that word has been mutated, as in ffwr a phlu ("fur and feathers", where phlu is a mutated form of plu). In the past, ph was occasionally used to spell words borrowed from Greek, so some dictionaries include words like philosophi, but now these words are pretty much always spelt with ff, as in ffilosoffi. (Or athroniaeth, of course!) garik (talk) 14:40, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I get about the mutating, but why is it in the alphabet; when, ngh, mh and nh (unsure if you say them as one sound, when they are in the middle of words,) Unlike one I give above: mhen. aren't, and you see them in plenty of welsh spelling, I'm unsure, I don't know if you have the really old, The collins Spurrell Welsh Dictionary, which was printed in the 1960's(which still modern welsh), they have the following words starting with ph, without any mutations. welsh side Pharisead = Pharisee Pharisaeth = Pharisaism Phariseaidd = Pharisaic (al) don't know why, al is in brackets Philistiad = Philitine Philistiaeth = Philistinism Philosophi ( which you done) Phiol, see ffiol Physygwr see ffisiaeth

so six words if you discount the last two, yet on the english side the same words in the same dictionary english side Pharisee = Pharisead Philitine = Philistiad philosophy = athroniaeth, but no, Philosophi( if you were going to write a, translation dictionary, wouldn't you be at least consistent, whatever you put on one side should be put on the other; e.g if you looked a french word in a, english and french dictionary, and saw a word on the french side, then went to its translation, and so the french word was not there; bonjour = hello; you would expect hello to have bonjour as well.) Pharisaic is not in the side.

The newer version, still has Ph, without mutation welsh side Pharisead = Pharisee Pharisaeth = Pharisaism Phariseaidd = Pharisaic (al) don't know why, al is in brackets Philistiad = Philitine Philistiaeth = Philistinism

english side Pharisee = Pharisead Philitine = Philistiad

which could all be spelt with ff. Also google, translates, Pharisee as Pharisead, although, google translator isn't that great.

Moving along side from the Mutation; what, about Ph in the middle or ends of welsh words, that has, ph in it, for whereas, dd and ng, don't start words, they are plenty of letter entries that do come after, e.g. anabl = disabled and angen = need, want. ng. Although, a comes before g in the welsh alphabet; angen, would come before, anabl.

I thought phone, which is an ancient Greek word, was always spelt ffon. I read someone once, it was used for biblical terms. Sorry if, I repeated myself and for it being, too long, and being technical. Japhes600,000 (talk) 16:45, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I presume it's in the alphabet because it was historically used in words borrowed from Greek (now all spelt with ff). garik (talk) 17:21, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

I heard, the long e, said more like, air.
You have e as in, hen, short but in, hey, long, but when I was in school, which was in wales, I heard it as, air, like say the word; ble as blair, as in Tony Blair. Japhes600,000 (talk) 16:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I pronounce it more openly too, and would be interested to know the distribution of open and closed vowels in varieties of Welsh. But this is a matter of reliable sources. garik (talk) 17:21, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I know /eː, oː/ tend to more open [ɛː, ɔː] in the north-west, so Blair and ble would sound the same (if the r isn't pronounced). I'm a southerner and I only realised recently that I don't pronounce ble as [bleː], but closer, like [ble̝ː] or [blɪː] or something. Llusiduonbach (talk) 11:05, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Table of majuscule forms
Given that the digraphs ch, dd, ff, ng, ph, rh and th generally appear in written Welsh as Ch, Dd, Ff, Ng, Ph, Rh, and Th if they appear at the start of a sentence or form the start of a proper noun, should they not also appear in the table of majuscule forms, which opens the article, in that form rather than simply as CH, DD, FF, NG, PH, RH and TH - forms that they would only appear in if every letter in the word or sentence was in upper case.

cheers Geopersona (talk) 12:03, 24 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Agreed and changed. It's an occasional hypercorrection for both native speakers and learners to write Llanelli as LLanelli. Llusiduonbach (talk) 11:10, 25 July 2014 (UTC)


 * What about $\langleph\rangle$ and $\langleth\rangle$ which should never appear capitalised because they don't begin any radical Welsh words! They only appear as a result of mutation which means there is always a preceding word which triggers the mutation – therefore, in Welsh, $\langlePh\rangle$ and $\langleTh\rangle$ don't appear. – Dyolf87 (talk) 07:01, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

/ɔʊ/
Need an English example for /ɔʊ/ in the diphthong table if anyone can think of one. Llusiduonbach (talk) 11:25, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe you mean /ɔu/. There are three examples - throw, Owen and owe. – Dyolf87 (talk) 06:58, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Sound of "ei", "eu" and "ey"
This is correctly transcribed in IPA as /əi/; but isn't it misleading to describe it as the sound in English "eight"? It doesn't correspond exactly to anything in English, but I'd say it's halfway between the sounds in "eight" and "eiderdown".GDBarry (talk) 11:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Is that the correct pronunciation though? I've often heard it pronounced as 'eye', and have read it should be pronounced as you described, except for when it's used as a pronoun, in which case it's pronounced as 'ee', like the long 'i' in Welsh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:4429:DD00:C0C5:64C:9D9E:1B29 (talk) 01:36, 27 June 2016 (UTC)


 * One cannot say that it is "correctly transcribed" as /əi/ because pronunciation of them differs between dialects. 'ey', as far as I've heard, is pronounced as two distinct vowels. – Dyolf87 (talk) 06:55, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Learning Welsh, I was taught ei and eu as eye/ay.
 * Japhes23 Japhes23 (talk) 15:31, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Letter name of w
The chart just says "w", not how it is pronounced. Is it "double-u" like in English? Or "oo"? Or something else? Rmhermen (talk) 00:15, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the entry on Wiktionary, it's, so basically oo. It's a vowel, and the name of a vowel is often one of the sounds the vowel makes. — Eru·tuon 21:25, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * In Welsh, the letter $\langlew\rangle$ is a semi-vowel. That is to say that it can represent a vowel-sound or a consonant-sound, just like the letter $\langley\rangle$ in English where it is the consonant in yellow and the vowel  in cherry. In Welsh, $\langlew\rangle$ can be the consonant  in words like weld (mutated form of gweld) but the vowels  or  in words like dŵr (long vowels are not always marked by a circumflex (ˆ)). – Dyolf87 (talk) 07:13, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Yn y Wladfa
I believe that the statement
 * in Y Wladfa, the Welsh settlement in Patagonia, v is used generally to represent the sound /v/

is too bald.

'v' was used for /v/ and 'f' for /f/ (in place of the usual Welsh 'f' and 'ff') in a number of periodicals published in y Wladfa between 1868 and 1898 — as the result of the idiosyncratic preferences of the editor Lewis Jones (he used these spellings in Wales too), but apart from a very few isolated instances (such as the placename Trevelin), the practice has, AFAIK, entirely died out since that time. -- Picapica (talk) 04:41, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

Have now revised the text in accordance with the above. -- Picapica (talk) 19:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

P example in English
In the letter names and sound values section, it says the letter P represents the sound p, but it lists pet as the English example. In some accents of English pet is pronounced pɛt, but in many it is pronounced pʰɛt. Should this be changed to a word that is always pronounced p in English? Ravenclawjedi42 (talk) 01:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * and are not separate phonemes in either English or Welsh. In both languages, the phoneme  is realized as  in word-initial position and in the onset of a stressed syllable, but as unaspirated  in most other positions. It makes sense then to say that Welsh p is pronounced like English p as they have almost the same distribution of allophones. And anyway, this page is about Welsh orthography, not Welsh phonology, so there's no need to go into fine detail about the phonology of either language here. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:28, 19 January 2023 (UTC)