THE WELSH ALPHABET

The Welsh language uses a different alphabet to the English language:
it does not contain the English consonants: J, K, Q, V, X, Z
(these are sometimes used for some words 'borrowed' from another language,
such as English, but are often replaced by the Welsh letters with the same sound
Examples: Kilogram or Cilogram; Volt or Folt; Zero or Sero
the vowel I in English can be a consonant in Welsh (as in the forename "Iestyn")
as well as a vowel (as in the forename "Aneurin");
the consonant W in English can be a vowel in Welsh (as in the forename "Awstin"
as well as a consonant (as in the forename "Gwyn");
the consonant Y in English is a vowel in Welsh (as in the forename "Hywel");
it also contains the following 8 'digraphs' (these are special letters, regarded as pairs of letters
in English but regarded as single letters in Welsh): Ch, Dd, Ff, Ng, Ll, Ph, Rh, Th

So the complete alphabet is as follows:
A, B, C, Ch, D, Dd, E, F, Ff, G, Ng, H, I, L, Ll, M, N, O, P, Ph, R, Rh, S, T, Th, U, W, Y

ALPHABETICAL LISTS

DIGRAPHS: When looking up a Welsh word in a Welsh/English dictionary or in a list in alphabetical order, check first if the word starts with one of the eight digraphs listed above. If it does, it should be found after all the words starting with the preceding letter in the Welsh alphabet. For example:
"Chwitffordd" would normally be found after "Cydweli", in a list of place names;
"Ffransis" would normally be found after "Fychan", in a list of forenames;
"Llywelyn" would normally be found after "Luned", in a list of forenames;
"Rhodri" would normally be found after "Riannon";, in a list of forenames;
However, such a convention will be unfamiliar to non-Welsh-speakers, for whom all the pages in this section of the web site are mainly intended. These pages therefore list the Welsh words in the exact order in which they would be spelt in English, e.g. "Llywelyn" is listed before "Luned".

"THE": Similarly, certain nouns such as place names are prefixed in Welsh with the definitive article "y" or "yr" ("yr" is used when it precedes a word starting with a vowel or the aspirate 'h'). These pages list such nouns not only in their alphabetical order, as in a Dictionary, but also under 'Y' or 'Yr'. For example:
"Y Fenni", which is the Welsh form of the place name "Abergavenny", is listed under "Y Fenni"
as well as under "Fenni, Y";
"Yr Alban", which is the Welsh form of the country "Scotland", is listed under "Yr Alban"
as well as under "Alban, Yr".

ACCENTS: Most Welsh words do not usually need an accent, but a circumflex ('ˆ') denotes a long vowel sound, and occasionally an acute accent ('´') is found on the letter 'a' or a grave accent on the letters 'i' or 'o'. whilst researchers may come across these where appropriate in printed sources, the householders completing the schedules in Welsh generally did not bother to add them to their handwriting, and so they are omitted from the Welsh words in these pages. For example:
"Môn", which is the Welsh word for "Anglesey", is listed simply as "Mon";
"Blòd", which is a diminutive form of the forename "Blodwen", is listed simply as "Blod".
(There are in fact no MS-DOS codes that could be used to generate accented versions of the Welsh vowels "w" and "y".)

MUTATION

Welsh grammar, like most Celtic languages, includes a series of rules for mutation. When one of these rules is applied to mutate the first letter of a word, it makes it difficult to find that word in a Welsh/English dictionary. So, if you can't find a word, check the following table and, if the word you're looking for starts with one of the consonants (or pairs of consonants) shown in one of the pink boxes, it may be a mutated word. Try looking instead for the word formed by substituting the corresponding consonant shown in the top line of the table (or exceptionally prefixing the existing word with the letter "G") - in other words, the letter a word might normally start with before being mutated.

Word normally starting with the letter:

C

P

T

G

B

D

Ll

M

Rh

A 'soft' mutation changes this to:

G

B

D

G omitted

F

Dd

L

F

R

A 'nasal' mutation changes this to:

Ng+h

M+h

N+h

Ng

M

N

An 'aspirate' mutation changes this to:

Ch

Ph

Th

EXAMPLE:

C

Cymru = Wales

soft mutation

G

Croeso i Gymru = Welcome to Wales

nasal mutation

Ng+h

Dw i'n byw yng Nghymru = I live in Wales

aspirate mutation

Ch

Lloegr a Chymru = England and Wales

A "Reversed Mutation" version of the above table will help in trying to determine the original spelling of a mutated word. It is in two sections: the first lists the initial letters that very few Welsh words begin with, indicating they have probably been mutated; the second section lists other initial letters which may have changed as a result of mutation. The table will open in a separate window in your browser, enabling you to keep it open to refer to whilst you examine census entries in Welsh. It should then be easier to try to determine the original spelling of a mutated word, which you can look for in the appropriate List to find an English equivalent.