Welsh Orthography - Letter Names and Sound Values

Letter Names and Sound Values

"N" and "S" represent the variants in the northern and southern dialects of Welsh.

Letter Name Corresponding sounds English approximation
a â /a, ɑː/ cat (short) / father (long)
b bî /b/ bat
c èc /k/ case
ch èch /x/ loch (Scottish)
d dî /d/ day
dd èdd /ð/ this
e ê /ɛ, eː/ bed (short) / closest to hey (long)
f èf /v/ vat
ff èff /f/ four
g èg /ɡ/ gate
ng èng /ŋ/ thing
h âets, hâ /h/ hat
i î (N), î dot (S) /ɪ, iː, j/ bit (short) / machine (long) / yes (as consonant; before vowels)
l èl /l/ lad
ll ell /ɬ/ not present in English; a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
m èm /m/ mat
n en /n/ net
o ô /ɔ, oː/ Short, like "bog" in RP; long like stove in Scottish English, North Central American English and West/Central Canadian English
p pî /p/ pet
ph ffî /f/ phone
r èr /r/ rat (trilled)
rh rhî, rhô /r̥/ pray (trilled): an unvoiced
s ès /s/ sat
t tî /t/ tan
th èth /θ/ thin
u û (N), û bedol (S) /ɨ̞, ɨː/ (N), /ɪ, iː/ (S) for Southern variants: bit (short) / machine (long); /ɨ̞, ɨː/ not found in English.
w ŵ /ʊ, uː, w/ book (short) / pool (long) / wet (as consonant)
y ŷ /ɨ̞, ɨː, ə/ (N)
/ɪ, iː, ə, əː/ (S)
for Southern variants: bit (final syllable, short) / machine (final syllable, long)
above (other places, short) / roses /ɨ̞, ɨː/, found in certain dialects of English that differentiate "Rosa's" and "roses", for example, General American.
Notes

Read more about this topic:  Welsh Orthography

Famous quotes containing the words letter, names, sound and/or values:

    “Your letter is come; it came indeed twelve lines ago, but I
    could not stop to acknowledge it before, & I am glad it did not
    arrive till I had completed my first sentence, because the
    sentence had been made since yesterday, & I think forms a very
    good beginning.”
    —Jane Austen (1775–1817)

    “Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Midnight has come and the great Christ Church bell
    And many a lesser bell sound through the room;
    And it is All Souls’ Night.
    And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel
    Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come;
    For it is a ghost’s right....”
    —William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    “Normality highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.”
    —R.D. (Ronald David)