medial mutations are expressed in writing, whilst
in Middle Breton only the latter are regularly denoted. In this period
the language diverges very rapidly from Welsh. As prominent features
we may mention the following. Stressed o (=Prim. Celt. and Ir. a)
becomes eu, in unstressed syllables e; thus the suffix _-aco_ becomes
_-euc_ and later -ec, but in Welsh _-auc_ and later -oc, -og.
Postvocalic -tr, -tl become -dr, -dl as in Welsh, but in Middle Breton
they pass into -zr, -zl, which in the modern language appear as _-er,
-el; e.g._ Mid. Br. _lazr_, Mod. Br. _laer_, "robber," W. _lleidr_,
Lat. _latro_. Further, -lt becomes -ot, -ut, e.g. Br. _aot_, _aout_,
"cliff," W. _allt_; Br. _autrou_, "lord," Ir. _altram_, W. _alltraw_,
_athraw_, Corn. _altrou_; and, more important still, th, [+a] (W. dd)
become s, z, e.g. Mid. Br. _clezeff_, "sword," Mod. Br. _kleze_, W.
_cleddyf_. The orthography only followed the pronunciation very
slowly, and it is not until 1659 that we find any attempt made to
reform the spelling. In this year a Jesuit priest, Julien Maunoir (Br.
Maner), published a manual in which a new spelling is employed, and it
is usual to date Modern Breton from the appearance of this book,
although in reality it marks no new epoch in the history of the
language. It is only now that the initial mutations are consistently
denoted in writing (medially they are already written in the 11th
century), and the differences between the dialects first come into
view at this time. As in Welsh the accent is withdrawn during the
middle period from the final to the penultimate (except in the Vannes
dialect), which causes the modern unstressed vowel to be reduced in
many cases. Again, in Old Welsh and Old Breton a short stressed vowel
in words of one syllable was lengthened, e.g. _tad_, "father," pl.
_tadau_, but in Modern Breton the accent tends to lengthen all
stressed vowels. Breton has gone its own way in the matter of initial
mutation. The nasal mutation has been entirely given up in the initial
position, whilst a new mutation, called medial provection, has arisen
in the case of b, d, g, which become p, k, t after a few words which
originally ended for the most part in z or ch. The vocalic mutation of
initial g in Breton is _c'h_. We may also make mention of one or two
other points on which Breton differs widely from Welsh. Breton has
given up the combination ng