Old Welsh

Old Welsh
ᚉᚑᚋᚏᚐᚓᚌ
Pronunciation	[kɵmräe̞g]
Era	800—1100
Language family	Indo-European Celtic Insular Celtic Briton Old Welsh
Early forms	Old Celtish Old Briton
Language codes
ISO 639-3	owl

Old Welsh is the early stage of Welsh language, developed into Mid Welsh in 1100. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Old Briton around 550, has been called "Primitive" or "Archaic Welsh".

Phonology

The phonology of Old Welsh is as follows.

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal	m̥ʰ	m			n̥ʰ	n			ŋ̊ʰ	ŋ
Stop	p	b			t	d			k	ɡ
Fricative	ɸ	β	θ	ð	s				x		h
Approximant	w				r̥ʰ	r	j
Lateral					l	ɬ

Vowel phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ ʉ	u
Mid	e̞	ə ɵ	o̞
Open		ä

• Older /ɔ/ was diphthongized into /aw/ in (stressed) final syllables, but it was retained elsewhere. Whilst this persisted as a diphthong in Middle Welsh, in Modern Welsh /aw/ has collapsed to /o/ following the stress shift to the penultimate, except in monosyllables.
• [ə] and [ɵ] were allophones of /ɨ/ and /u/ in unstressed non-final syllables. In Middle Welsh these merged to [ə].
• Old Welsh /ei/ and /eʉ/ became /ai/ and /aɨ/ in Modern Welsh final syllables, in dialects where /ɨ/ has not merged with /i/.