472 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 238. 



(pronounced artshi), parched, scorched, marched, 

 hinged (hindzhd), singed, cringed, fringed, purged 

 (purdzhd), charged (tshardzhd), scratched, &c. &c. 

 From the difficulty encountered in pronouncing 

 some of these combinations, arise the vulgar errors 

 heard in some parts of the country : burstis for 

 bursts, castis for casts. Three consonants are very 

 rarely thus crushed together in Welsh, — four, 

 never. 



6. The Welsh, to avoid an unpleasant hiatus, 

 often introduce a consonant. Hence we have y 

 or yr, the ; a or ac, and ; a or ag, as ; na or nac, 

 not ; na or nag, than ; sy or sydd, is ;. o, from, be- 

 comes odd ; i, to, becomes idd. I cannot call to 

 mind more than one similar example in English, 

 a or an ; and its existence is attributable to the 

 superfluity of consonants, n being dropped in a, 

 not added in an. 



The mystery of the consonants in the swearing 

 Welshman's mouth (humorously described by 

 Messrs. Chambers) is difficult of explanation. 

 The words usual in Welsh oaths afford no clue 

 to its solution ; for the name of the Deity has 

 two consonants and one vowel in English, while 

 it has two vowels and one consonant in Welsh. 

 Another name invoked on these occasions has 

 three consonants and two vowels in English, and 

 one of* the vowels is usually elided ; in Welsh it 

 has three vowels and three consonants, and collo- 

 quially the middle consonant is dropped. The 

 Welsh borrow a few imprecatory words from the 

 English, and in appropriating them they append 

 the vowel termination o or io. Prejudice or ima- 

 gination, therefore, seems to have had something 

 to do in describing poor Taffy's profanities. 



In conclusion, I may add that the Hundredth 

 Psalm was chosen for analysis without a previous 

 knowledge that it would present a greater excess 

 of consonants (letters or sounds) in English than 

 in Welsh. I do not believe two chapters from the 

 Bible can be produced, which will show an oppo- 

 site result. Gwilym Glan Tywi. 



There is no k in the Welsh alphabet, a circum- 

 stance which reduces the consonants to twenty ; 

 while a farther reduction is made by the fact that 

 w and y are always vowels in Welsh, instead of 

 being only occasionally so, as in English. J. M. 

 will therefore find that the Welsh alphabet con- 

 tains but eighteen consonants and seven vowels, 

 twenty-five letters in all. 



This, however, I imagine, is not the point on 

 which he wishes for information. If a stranger 

 glances at a page of Welsh without being aware 

 that y and w are, strictly speaking, vowels, he will 

 of course naturally conclude that he sees an over 

 proportion of consonants. Hence, probably, has 

 arisen the very general idea on the subject, which 

 is perhaps strengthened by the frequent occur- 

 rence of the double consonants LI and Dd, the 



first of which is but a sign, standing for a peculiar 

 softening of the letter ; and the latter for the Th 

 of the English language. 



Such an idea might perhaps be conveyed by the 

 following instances, taken at random : Dywyll, 

 Dydd, Gwyddna, Llwyn, Gwyrliw, &c. But it will 

 be dispelled by an orthography adapted to the 

 pronunciation ; thus : Dou-ill*, Deeth, Goo-eeth- 

 na, Lloo-een, Gueer-leeoo. 



3. M. will be interested to know that the Welsh 

 language can furnish almost unexampled instances 

 of an accumulation of vowels, such as that fur- 

 nished by the word ieuainc, young men, &c. ; but 

 above all by the often-quoted englyn or stanza on 

 the spider or silkworm, which, in its four lines, 

 does not contain a single consonant : 



" O'i wiw wy i weu e a, — a'i weau 

 O'i wyau e weua : 

 E weua ei we aia, 

 A'i weau yw ieuau ia." 



Seleucus. 



In reply to J. M. I beg to ask who ever before 

 heard that consonants " cracked and cracked, and 

 ground and exploded ? " and how could the 

 writer in Chambers's Repository possibly know 

 that the drunken Welshman cursed and swore in 

 consonants ? There is scarcely a more harshly- 

 sounding word in the Welsh language — admitted 

 by a clever and satirical author to have " the 

 softness and harmony of the Italian, with the 

 majesty and expression of the Greek" — than the 

 term crack, adopted from the Dutch. There is no 

 Welsh monosyllable that contains, like the Saxon 

 strength, seven consonants with only one vowel. 

 There is no Welsh proper name, like Rentzsch, 

 the watchmaker of Regent Street, that contains 

 six consonants in succession in one syllable ; and 

 yet the Welsh have never accused their younger 

 sister with the use of consonants which " cracked 

 and cracked, and ground and exploded." But if 

 the Welsh language, with " its variety, copious- 

 ness, and even harmony, to be equalled by few, 

 perhaps excelled by none," has no instance of six 

 consonants in succession, it has one of six vowels 

 in succession, Gwaewawr, every one of which re- 

 quires, according to the peculiarity of its pro- 

 nunciation, a separate inflection of the voice. 



J. M. may be assured that the remark of the 

 writer in question is only one of those pitiful 

 "cracks" which flippant authors utter in plain 

 ignorance of Cymru, Cymraeg, and Cymry. 



Cymro. 



Marlbro. 



I think the following englyn or epigram on a 

 silkworm, which is composed entirely of vowels, 

 will satisfy your correspondent. I have seen it 

 in some book, the name of which I forget. It 



* The Don to be pronounced as in Douglass. 



