Page:Morris-Jones Welsh Grammar 0174.png

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
174
PHONOLOGY
§ 107

mutated the consonants and joined the words, fynhy 41, ynnhy 79; he states that m is double—“ymhob a leissiir ymmhob” 80 (see 54 i (2)). His reason for joining fy appears to be that ng cannot be initial, “canys rhy anoẟ yw sillafu fy ngwaith, fy nghaws” 42. Dr. Morgan separated the words in the case of n and m; as fy nhŷ Job xix 15, yn nhŷ do. i 13, fy mhen xxix 3, ym mha beth vi 24; but he appears to think like G.R. that ng cannot be initial, and writes fyng-halon xxxvii i, yng-hilfach xxxviii 16, thus missing the distinction which he elsewhere observes between yn and fy, and wrongly representing fy as a closed syllable. The prejudice against initial ng was overcome in the 1620 Bible, and fy nghalon was written as freely as fy nhy. That settled the matter as far as fy was concerned.

But the representation of yn in the same combination still presented a difficulty. The ng (≡ ŋ) was part of the preposition ; at the same time ngh or ng was the initial of the noun, and Dr. M.’s hyphen in the middle of the trigraph ngh was absurd ; the 1620 Bible therefore used ynghilfachau, returning to the ms. forms. Here ng does double duty, the inconvenience of which appears when the noun requires a capital initial. Dr. M. wrote yng-Hrist; M.K. has yngHymry p. [iv]; the 1620 Bible ynGhrist 1 Cor. xv 18, 19, 22; so in the Bibles of 1677 and 1690. Later, we find yng Haerlŷdd T.J. title (1688); yn Ghymru rh.b.s. dedic. (1701); Yngroeg S.R. 16 (1728). In all these the capital is misplaced by being either put in the middle of the trigraph or transferred to the preposition. The form yn Ngh- which appears about this time, see b.cw. Ixxv, grew out of yn Gh- because it was felt that the initial was Ngh‑; it is objectionable because n is not accepted as a symbol for ŋ except before k or g. The later form y’ Ngwynedd d.g. 41 (1789) misrepresents the preposition as an open syllable. Pughe adopted yn Ng‑, yn M‑, because, in the teeth of all the facts, he denied that the n of yn was mutable. This unphonetic spelling, which stultifies the history of the nasal mutation, § 106 i, has predominated since his day.

J.J. wrote yng ŋolau p 312/iv/1 r., and Dr. Davies pointed out in 1621 that ynghanol was short for yng-nghanol D. 202; but it was not until about a hundred years later that the form yng Ng(h)- came into regular use. We find yng Nghrist in the 1717 Bible, and subsequently in those of 1727, 1746, 1752, and nearly all later editions. This form has been used and advocated by most of the Welsh scholars of the 19th cent., including Iolo Morgannwg (who denounces “dull ffiaidd Mr Owen Pughec.b.y.p. 237), R. I. Prys, T. Stephens, T. Rowland, and Silvan Evans.

(5) Fy being unaccented, the following nasal, though of double origin, is simplified, and belongs to the second syllable § 27 ii, i; thus the syllabic division is fy|núw. As words are separated in modern orthography, the usual spelling fy Nuw is in every way correct. Similarly fy merch, fy ngardd. But yn is accented, and the double consonant remains, extending to both syllables § 27 i; hence ýn|núw, ordinarily and correctly written yn Nuw. In the same way we have