f the
vowel, e.g. I. E. _*kmtom_, Ir. _cet_, "hundred," W. _cant_, Bret.
_kant_; Prim. Celt. _*jovnko-_, O. Ir. _oac_, Mod. Ir. og, "young," W.
_ieuanc_, Bret, _iaouank_. t, k standing after a vowel and preceding l,
n (and also r if k precede) disappear in Goidelic with compensatory
lengthening of the vowel, e.g. Prim. Celt. _*statla-_, Ir. _sal_,
"heel," W. _sawdl_; Prim. Celt. _*petno-_, Ir. _en_, "bird," O. W.
_etn_, Mod. W. _edn._ Similarly b, d, g disappear in Goidelic when
standing after a vowel and preceding l, r, n with compensatory
lengthening of the vowel, but in Welsh they produce a vowel forming a
diphthong with the preceding vowel, e.g. Prim. Celt. _*neblo-_, Ir.
_nel_, "cloud," W. _niwl_; Prim. Celt. _*ogno-_, cf. Lat. _agnus_, Ir.
_uan_, "lamb," from _*on_, W. _oen_; Prim. Celt. _*vegno-_, cf. Ger.
_Wagen_, Ir. _fen_, "wagon," O. W. _guein_, Mod. W. _gwain_. The
Goidelic dialects have preserved the vowels of accented syllables on the
whole better than Brythonic. Thus Brythonic has changed Prim. Celt, a (=
I. E. a, o) to o (W. aw, Bret. eu); and Prim. Celt. u to i, e.g. Ir.
_brathir_, "brother," W. _brawd_, Bret. _breur_; Gaulish _dunum_, Ir.
_dun_, "fort," W. _din_. Already in Gaulish the I. E. diphthongs show a
tendency to become simple long vowels and the latter are treated
differently by Goidelic and Brythonic. In early times I. E. _eu, ou_
both became o and I. E. ei gave e. In Goidelic o, e, in accented
syllables were diphthongized in the early part of the 8th century to ua,
ia if the next syllable did not contain the vowels e or i, whereas in
Brythonic o gave =u (written u) and e became in W. ui (wy), and in Bret.
oe (_oue_), e.g. Gaulish _Teuto-_, _Toutius_, Ir. _tuath_, "people," W.,
Bret. _tud_; Brythonic _Leto-cetum_, Ir. _tuath_, "grey," W. _llwyd_,
Bret, _loued_. Similarly in loan-words, Ir. _ceir_, _fial_, W. _cwyr_,
O. Corn. _guil_, from Lat. _cera_, _velum_. Further I. E. ai, oi are
preserved in Irish as ai (ae), oi (oe), Mod. Ir. ao, but in Welsh I. E.
ai gave either ai or oe, whilst oi changed to _u_ (written u), Ir.
_toeb_, "side," W., Bret. tu; I. E. _*oinos_, Ir. _oen_, "one," W.,
Bret. un; Prim. Celt. _*saitlo-_, cf. Lat. _saeculum_, W. _hoedl_,
"age," Bret. _hoal_. In Goidelic accented e changes to i before _i, u_
in the following syllable, cf. Ir. _fid_, "wood," gen. sing, _fedo_, O.
H. G. _witu_, and i changes to e before a or o under similar conditions.
In like manner u becomes o be