(2) Original e also became ei before i̯; thus Eterniānus > Edeirnaun b.b. 74 Edeirnon w.m. 50, r.m. 35, Mn. W. Edeirni̯on (now wrongly spelt Edeyrnion);—so pencerdd ‘chief of song’ Ml. pl. penkeirẟẏeit r.p. 1230, Mn. W. penceirddi̯aid;—anrheg ‘gift’ pl. anr͑eigẏon r.p. 1221 (generally anr͑egẏon r.b.b. 394, r.m. 257, now anrhegi̯on); un-ben ‘mon-arch’, unbeẏnẏaeth, a.l. i. 34, 382, ‘sovereignty’ (now unbennaeth, new formation); gorwedd ‘to lie’, gorweiddi̯og ‘bed-ridden’; gweini̯aith § 32 for gweni̯aith ‘flattery’.
(3) In later formations i̯ does not affect the vowel ; forms like personnẏeit, Albanẏeit etc. § 123 iv, and cari̯ad, meddi̯ant, etc., are extremely common in Ml. and Mn. W. Also forms like ari̯an ‘silver’ in which i̯ is not original, but comes from g.
iii. The Ml. and Mn. diphthong ae, whether from ak- or ag- before a consonant, or from a-e, becomes ei before ī or i̯, as in Ml. W. keithiwet < Brit.-Lat. *kaktīu̯itās; saer ‘craftsman’ pl. seiri; gwaedd ‘cry’, gweiddi ‘to cry’; draen ‘thorn’, dreiniog ‘thorny’. Similarly og..ī or ug..ī > ei..i; as in gweini ‘to serve’ < *u̯o-gnīm‑, heini ‘active’ < *su-gnīm‑: gnīm- § 203 vii (4). Before ɥ it becomes eɥ, as in keyrydd pl. of kaer ‘fort’. But, except in a few cases such as the above, this affection is usually ignored in writing, especially in the Mn. period.
iv. The affecting sound has disappeared in cenwch ‘ye sing’ for an earlier *cenɥw̯ch § 26 vi (5); in the Ml. forms Edeirnon etc. § 35 ii; and in such forms as ceidw̯ad for ceidw̯i̯ad, § 36 v.
v. The affection of a and o by a lost stem-ending ‑ī‑, ‑i̯o‑, ‑ū‑, of the first element of a compound is similar to ultimate affection: a > ei in meitin b.a. 18 ‘morning’ (Mn. W. er’s meitin ‘some hours ago’) < *matū-tī́n- (treated as a compound) < Lat. mātūtī́num;—o > ỿ in sỿl-faen: sail, § 69 iv.
In Ml. W. meinoeth b.t. 68, meinẏoeth do. 45 ‘midnight’ < mediā nocte, we seem to have early metathesis of i̯, thus meinẏoeth < *menẏoeth < *meda-ni̯okte. The forms meinyẟ b.t. 31, meinẟyẟ do. 55 ‘mid-day’ are formed on its analogy.
The Long Vowels.
§ 71. i. (1) Pr. Kelt. ā (from Ar. ā and ō) remained in Brit. In Early W. it became an open ō like Eng. a in call, which we may write ɔ; in O. W. this became o in unaccented syllables, au
