You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Welsh. (March 2022)Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, likeDeepL orGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. Youmust providecopyright attribution in theedit summary accompanying your translation by providing aninterlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary isContent in this edit is translated from the existing Welsh Wikipedia article at [[:cy:Hen Gymraeg]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template{{Translated|cy|Hen Gymraeg}} to thetalk page. For more guidance, seeWikipedia:Translation.

Old Welsh (Welsh:Hen Gymraeg) is the stage of theWelsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed intoMiddle Welsh.^[1] The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct fromCommon Brittonic around 550, has been called "Primitive"^[1] or "Archaic Welsh".^[2]

Thephonology of Old Welsh is as follows.^[3]

• Older/ɔ/ was diphthongized into/aw/ in (stressed) final syllables, but it was retained elsewhere. Whilst this persisted as a diphthong in Middle Welsh, in Modern Welsh /aw/ has collapsed to/o/ following the stress shift to the penultimate, except in monosyllables.
• [ə] and[ɵ] were allophones of/ɨ/ and/u/ in unstressed non-final syllables. In Middle Welsh these merged to[ə].
• Old Welsh/ei/ and/eʉ/ became/ai/ and/aɨ/ in Modern Welsh final syllables, in dialects where /ɨ/ has not merged with /i/.

The oldest surviving text entirely in Old Welsh is understood to be that on a gravestone now inTywyn – theCadfan Stone – thought to date from the 7th century, although more recent scholarship dates it in the 9th century.^[4] A key body of Old Welsh text also survives in glosses and marginalia from around 900 in theJuvencus Manuscript and inDe raris fabulis. Some examples of medieval Welsh poems and prose additionally originate from this period, but are found in latermanuscripts;Y Gododdin, for example, is preserved inMiddle Welsh. A text in Latin and Old Welsh in theLichfield Gospels called the "Surrexit Memorandum" is thought to have been written in the early 8th century but may be a copy of a text from the 6th or 7th centuries.^[5][6]

Words inbold areLatin, not Old Welsh.

surexittutbulcfiliusliuit hagenertutri dierchi tir telih haioid ilau elcufiliusgelhig haluidt iuguret amgucant pel amtanndi ho diued diprotantgenertutri o guir imguodant ir degion guragon tagc rodesit elcu guetigequs tres uache, tres uachenouidligi namin ir ni be cas igridu dimedichat guetig hit did braut grefiat guetig nis minn tutbulc hai cenetl in ois oisau

Tudfwlchson of Llywyd andson-in-law of Tudriarose to claim the land of Telych, which was in the hand of Elguson of Gelli and the tribe of Idwared. They disputed long about it; in the end they disjudge Tudri'sson-in-law by law. The goodmen said to each other 'Let us make peace'. Elgu gave afterwardsa horse, three cows, three cows newly calved, in order that there might not be hatred between them from the ruling afterwards till the Day of Judgement. Tudfwlch and his kin will not want it for ever and ever.

• The text shows many of the early spelling conventions of Welsh, when the basic Latin alphabet was used to represent the phonology of Old Welsh. At this stage, the use of⟨ll⟩ to represent the lateral fricative/ɬ/ and⟨dd⟩ to represent/ð/ had not been developed. The Latin letter⟨u⟩ was used to represent both the consonant /w/ and vowel /u/.
• Initial mutations, a major feature of laterWelsh, do not appear in orthography at this point.
• Not all language used in theMemorandum was inherited by later Welsh. The following are words with clear Modern Welsh descendants:

Page 141 (on which the text is written) also has a Latin memorandum above the Old Welsh text. It appears to hold more text written below the main text, and a mysterious section where text appears to have been erased, both of which are partially overwritten with Old English text. No translations or transcripts have yet been offered for this section.

It is unknown why that particular page was used for the glosses, as little or no text appears to have been added to any of the other pages in theLichfield Gospels.

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