mains the same in all positions (unless affected § 70 iii). See dayar r.m. 4, 5, 73, 78, etc., w.m. 100, 456, 459, daear b.b. 70, w.m. 107, r.m. 97, gaeaf r.b.b. 277, r.p. 1269, kynhaeaf w.m. 73, r.m. 53, r.b.b. 271, p 14/11 r., kynhayaf b.t. 8, haearn r.m. 118, hayarn 119, r͑aeadɏr r.p. 1255. The sound is attested in cynghanedd lusg:
- Cyfled i chae â daear.—D.G. 205.
‘Her demesne is as wide as the earth.’
- Ba le mae’r gorsied gaead?—L.G.C. 372; cf. 28, l. 1.
‘Where is the closed gorget?’
The spelling ai, as in daiar, used by Salesbury and in the early Bibles, is a mistranscription of Ml. W. ay, due to the fact that Ml. W. y sometimes represents i̯, § 25 iii. (Salesbury has dayar also, and gayaf always.) gauaf is phonetically correct now that u has come to be sounded ɥ, so that the error is only an orthographic one exactly similar to writing dun for dɥn ‘man’. In cauodd etc. the error was suggested by the fact that the verbal noun is cau ‘to shut’, a contraction of cay|u or cae|u § 33 iv. Such spellings as the latter-day traithawd for the usual and correct traethawd are due to bungling etymological theories. Pedersen, Gr. i 67, imagines from these false spellings that the difference between aɥ and ai is small in diphthongs and vanishes where the second element is heterosyllabic. It is not heterosyllabic in these diphthongs, see § 54 iv; and ɥ and i are perfectly distinct wherever the dialect distinguishes between ɥ and i as vowels. The possible forms in the penult are ae, eu, ei, now sounded in Powys aɥ, əɥ, əi, and in Gwynedd əɥ, əɥ, əi. No one in Powys or Gwynedd sounds an i in daear.
iii. The exceptions to the general rule are the following (‘ultima’ being understood to include ‘monosyllable’):
(1) ei occurs in the ultima when followed by two consonants, or by l for lᵹ, r for rr, thus beirdd ‘bards’, teifl ‘throws’, eithr ‘except’, gweheirdd D.G. 20 ‘forbids’, meirw̯ pl. of marw ‘dead’, deil ‘holds’ for *deilᵹ, ceir ‘cars’, pl. of carr. Before l usage varies: lleill ‘others’, y naill ‘the one’, ereill or eraill ‘others’. In polysyllables it sometimes occurs before m or ch; dychleim Gr.O. 90 ‘leaps up’, myneich ‘monks’. But ai appears before nc, nt, sg, as cainc ‘branch’, maint ‘size’, henaint ‘old age’, braisg ‘thick’; also in Aifft, enghraifft, aillt.
As a contraction of e-i the diphthong is now written and spoken ei (that is əi̯), as ceir, gwneir; but ai was common formerly, as cair, gwnair.
eu is now commonly written, when absolutely final, in polysyllables, except when it is a plural or pronominal ending; as goreu, goleu, dechreu for gorau, golau, dechrau. It survived from Ml. W. under the
