Transcribed from the 1834 Whittaker & Co. edition by David Price. [Picture: The Menai Bridge] THE CAMBRIAN TOURIST, OR, POST-CHAISE COMPANION THROUGH WALES; CONTAINING CURSORY SKETCHES OF THE WELSH TERRITORIES, AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND GAMES OF THE NATIVES. * * * * * _EIGHTH EDITION_. * * * * * THE WHOLE CORRECTED, AND CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED. * * * * * LONDON: PRINTED FOR WHITTAKER & CO. AVE MARIA LANE. * * * * * 1834. ACCOUNT OF THE WELSH LANGUAGE. _The force of the Letters—List of Primitive Words—Character of the Language and of the Poetry_. It is supposed that there were anciently, in the Welsh or British Language, {0} no less than thirty-six letters, sixteen of which were radicals, that expressed the primary sounds; and the rest, modulations or dependents on them. For each of these, it is probable that there was formerly a simple appropriate character; but, since the invention of printing, and the introduction of Roman letters, it has been necessary, for want of a sufficient variety of cast for the purpose, to adopt two, and in one instance even three, of those letters, to express one sound or character, by which much of the simplicity and beauty of the proper alphabet has been lost. The present printed books contain only twenty-seven characters: A, B, C, Ch, D, Dd, E, F, Ff, G, Ng, H, I, L, Ll, M, N, O, P, Ph, R, S, T, Th, U, W, and Y; having neither J, K, X, nor Z. C answers the purpose of K, when joined with W or Q; and when placed with S, of X. It is said that Z is used in the Armorican language, which is a dialect of this; but the Welsh disown it. No letter has any variation of sound, except the accented vowels, â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ, which are lengthened, or otherwise, according to the power of the accent, and all are pronounced, as there are no mutes. A has the same sound as the English open _a_ in the word _bard_. C is always hard as _k_. Ch, which is accounted but as one consonant, is a guttural, as _Chi_ in Greek, or _ch_, _Cheth_, in Hebrew. Dd is an aspirated _d_, and has the sound of _th_ in the words _this_, _that_. _Dda_, good, is pronounced _Tha_. F has the sound of an English _v_. I is sounded as in the Italian, or like our _ee_ in _been_; thus _cîl_, a retreat, is pronounced _keel_.