Welsh grammar was written by Dr. Griffith Roberts, and appeared at Milan in 1567. It gives an interesting account of the language as it was written before the influence of Salesbury made itself felt; but the most remarkable feature of the book is the section on etymology, which records the discovery by the author of the fact that the sound-changes which take place in Latin loan-words were capable of being stated as laws. Dr. J. D. Rhys's grammar appeared in 1592. The author wrote excellent Welsh, though his peculiar alphabet makes it appear uncouth; and his grammar is an attempt to describe the language as he wrote it. It is cast almost wholly in the form of tables, and is less systematic in reality than in appearance. The prosody, which is valuable, was contributed by contemporary bards. In 1593 a small grammar was published by Henry Salesbury, in which literary and dialectal forms are given, but are not distinguished.
Dr. John Davies published his grammar in 1621, the year after the appearance of the revised Bible, which is believed to be chiefly his work. The grammar represents the result of a careful study of the works of the bards. It was the first Welsh grammar to be based on an examination of the actual facts of the language of standard authors. Medieval bards are quoted in modernized spelling; in that respect, therefore, the work is not in the strict sense historical. But the author's analysis of the Modern literary language is final; he has left to his successors only the correction and amplification of detail.
The grammar of William Owen (later W. O. Pughe) prefixed to his Dictionary, 1803, stands at the opposite pole. It is written on the same principle as the dictionary, and represents the language not as it is, or ever was, but as it might be if any suffix could be attached mechanically to any stem. The author's method can best be realized by imagining a Latin grammarian evolving out of the stems of volo the presents ind. volo, volis, volit; vīo, vīs, vīt ; vulo, vuls, vult; velo, vels, velt; vello, vellis, vellit,
