Welsh Journals

THE CAMBRO-BRITON. MAY, 1820. NULLI QUtDEM MIHI SATIS ERUDITI VIDENTUR, QUIBUS NOSTRA IGNOTA SUNT. Cicero de Legibus. WELSH LANGUAGE. MODERN LETTERS AND THEIR MUTATIONS. J HE last Essay under this head was devoted to some account of the old Bardic Alphabet, which was considered necessary in order to prepare the way for that examination of the modern Welsh Letters, without which no satisfactory view can be taken of the more general characteristics of the language. Indeed it has been the principal aim of the writer to proceed, with a proper regard to method, in this interesting investigation, analysing, as it were, in his progress, the ingredients, of which our venerable tongue is composed. And, if, in so doing, he may have incurred the imputation of tediousness or insipidity, he hopes some atone¬ ment may be found in his anxious desire to impart a full and ac¬ curate knowlege of the basis, as well as the superstructure, of the Welsh language. And this can only be done by commenc¬ ing, .as has been attempted in these Essays, with an elementary examination of its first principles ; for there is no royal road to language any more than to mathematics. Yet it may be satis¬ factory to those, who are impatient to become acquainted with the more interesting features of this subject, to be informed, that the inquiry, begun in this Essay, will be the last of those, which may be termed rudimental. It can not now be accurately ascertained how soon the Roman letters, in their modern form, were first adapted to the Welsh lan¬ guage ; but it appears indisputable, that they did not imme¬ diately succeed to the old Bardic symbols. For we find from some of the most ancient MSS. now extant *, that the language * Among these is the Llandav Gospel, commonly called St. Chad's Gospel, preserved in the Cathedral at Litchfield, which contains some VOL. I. 2 T