generally followed, and the use of h medially was fairly settled on phonetic lines, when Pughe introduced confusion by discarding it wherever his mad etymology failed to account for it. His wildest innovations, such as glanâu, parâu for glanháu, parháu, were rejected by universal consent; but his principle was adopted by the “new school” including T. Charles, Tegid and G. Mechain, who disregard the accent, and insert or omit h in all forms of the same vocable according to their idea of its etymology.[1] Silvan Evans (Llythyraeth, 68) writes as if the cogency of this principle were self-evident, and imagines that to point out the old school’s spelling of cyngor without, and cynghorion with, an h, is to demonstrate its absurdity. In his dictionary he writes brenines, boneddig, etc., misquoting all modern examples to suit his spelling; under ammeuthun (his misspelling of amheuthun) he suppresses h in every quotation.
In spite of the determined efforts of the “new school” in the thirties, present-day editions of the Bible follow the 1620 edn. with the exception of a few insertions of etymological h, as in brenin, ammarch, which appear as brenhin, ammharch.
Quantity.
§ 49. In Mn. W. all vowels in unaccented syllables are short.
Unaccented syllables here include those bearing a secondary accent, in which the vowel is also short, as in cĕ̀nedláethau, though before a vowel it may be long in deliberate pronunciation, as in dḕalltẃri̯aeth.
In Late Ml. W. the same rule probably held good, but not necessarily earlier. In O. W. it was clearly possible to distinguish in the unaccented penult the quantities preserved later when the syllable became accented, § 56 iv.
§ 50. Vowels in accented syllables in Mn. W. are either (1) long, as the a in cân ‘song’; (2) medium as the a in canu; or (3) short, as the a in cann ‘white’, cannu ‘to whiten’.
In monosyllables a long vowel (except i or u) is generally circumflexed before n, r or l, § 51 iv, and in any other case where it is desired to mark the quantity. Short vowels are marked by ` which is sometimes used instead of doubling the consonant, as in D.D. s.v. càn = gan ‘with’, and before l which
- ↑ G. Mechain (iii. 224) writing to Tegid, assents to brenin, breninoedd “though from habit I always read brenhinoedd with an aspirate; but the root does not warrant such reading.” His pronunciation was correct; and it just happens that the “root” does warrant it; see § 103 ii (1).
