Preface
“This book”, as V. Henry says of his Breton Lexique, “has the misfortune to have a history.” It would be tedious, even if it were possible, to relate it in detail; but the long delay in the appearance of the work calls for a brief account of the facts by way of explanation and apology.
In the early nineties I contributed to the new edition of the Welsh encyclopaedia Y Gwyddoniadur an article on the Welsh language, which contained a sketch of Welsh grammar. This sketch was expanded in a course of lectures delivered to the Junior and Intermediate classes at Bangor after the foundation of the University of Wales. The idea occurred to me of preparing the substance of the lectures for publication as a textbook of Welsh grammar; but I was unable at the time to carry out the investigation which seemed to me necessary before such a book could be properly written.
The work was intended to be a descriptive grammar of Modern Welsh with special reference to the earlier period. Late Modern Welsh is more artificial, and in some respects further removed from the spoken language, than Early Modern Welsh, owing largely to the influence of false etymological theories; and the object which I had in view was the practical one of determining the traditional forms of the literary language. Even scholars have been deceived by the fictitious forms found in dictionaries; thus “dagr” given by Silvan Evans, after Pughe, as the sg. of dagrau, is quoted as a genuine form even by Strachan, Intr. 33; see below p. 212 Note. I had however chiefly in mind the ordinary writer of the language, to whom a clear idea of the literary tradition is at least equally important. The first draft of the
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