An Introduction to Early Welsh - Arthur Pendragon of Wales

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PREFACE
who has also added some further variants (marked a, b,
&c.) in the foot-notes.
Strachan had left behind no material for the Glossary
except a first rough list of words. In drawing it up
use was made of a letter to Thurneysen, in which he
expressed his intention to arrange the words according
to their actual sounds. His only doubts were about
the phonetic value of final c, t, p. On this point
he wrote: " Of course final b is common, also certain
of my texts write d for d. But none of them have g
for final g." In accordance with modern pronunciation,
Professor Meyer considered it desirable to substitute the
at which final c became voiced
letter g, though the period
has not yet been established.
No notes to the texts were found among Strachan 's
papers. He had brought back from Peniarth, from
MSS. No. 22, 44, 45, and 46, a large number of
variants to the Story of Lear and that of Arthur,
which he would no doubt have used for his notes.
Those to Lear have been printed in an Appendix ; but
the Peniarth versions of Arthur seem to differ so
much from those of the Red Book and the Additional
MS. 19,709 that they would have to be printed in full.
Since the great work of Zeuss, this is the first attempt
to write a grammar of Early Welsh on historical
principles. It was the hope of the author expressed in
letters to friends that his work would stir up Welsh
scholars to investigate more thoroughly than they
have done hitherto the history of their language. But
no one was more conscious of the gaps still left by
" his
work than Strachan himself. It is
only a beginning,"
he wrote to "
Thurneysen. I
hope people will make
some allowance for the difficulties of the work and the
scanty amount of trustworthy material. One is
continually finding out something new." References to
the need of further investigation will be found in many
places throughout the Grammar. His own discoveries