In Early Ml. W. we also find m for mh, n for nh, and g for ngh; see § 24 i.
ii. The letters m, n, ng have always represented the sounds m, n, ŋ; but m also represented ṽ in O. W., § 19 i; ng may represent ŋg in Ml. and Mn. W.; and ŋ was also written g in Ml. W.; § 19 iv.
iii. Initial n has sometimes a prosthetic ỿ‑; as yrwng e yniver ef ac yniver y llys … yr yniveroeẟ w.m. 40 ‘between his host and the host of the court … the hosts’. It is also written a as anadreẟ c.m. 21 ‘snakes’, anniver w.m. 65.
§ 22. i. In O. W. the sound ll was written l initially, and ll medially and finally; as leill ox. ‘others’, lenn m.c. ‘cloak’ guollung juv. ≡ gw̯ollwng ‘release’. In dluithruim juv., if rightly analysed into llwyth ‘weight’ and rhwyf ‘oar’, we have dl- for þl‑, the usual imitation of the ll sound, § 17 vii, proving the sound to be as old as the 9th cent., though then usually written l- initially. The imitation thl is common in the earliest Norman records, but has not been used by Welsh writers.
ii. In Ml. W. the ll sound is represented by ll; in some mss., e.g. the r.b., it is ligatured thus ỻ, enabling it to be distinguished from double l as in callon r.m. 106 ‘heart’, Iollo r.p. 1369, 1407, kollyn r.b. 1073 ‘pivot’, which we now write calon, Iolo, colyn, § 54 ii. The ligatured capital Ỻ has been used from the Ml. period to the present day in lettering done by hand.
iii. In Mn. W. ll is used.
Several attempts have been made from time to time to find substitutes: G.R. used ḷ, Sir J. Price and J.D.R. used lh; Ed. Lhuyd used lh and λ; but ll has held the field.
iv. The sound rh was written r in O. and Ml. W. The scribes use r for rh even when the h has a different origin, and sometimes even when it belongs to another word, as in y gwanwyn araf r.b.b. 194 for y gwanwyn a’r haf ‘the spring and summer’.
☞ Ml. W. r for rh is transcribed r͑ in our quotations.
v. In the late 15th and early 16th cent. the sound rh was represented by rr and R; it was not until the middle of the 16th cent. that the present digraph rh, which seems to us so obvious and natural a representation of the sound, came into general use.
