I've never been particularly fond of writing introductory blog posts. To be honest, I think I usually just write the one post and then give up on the blog altogether. So this time I don't think I'll dwell on introducing myself and just get straight into the cool stuff. You will get to learn that I use the term 'cool' lightly.

Do not judge me lest ye be judged: I take an immense amount of joy in reading about old orthographies, and I am hopelessly interested in their development. So, yesterday, while looking for an online copy of William Owen Pughe's hilariously fantastic dictionaries from the 19th century, I came across this absolute gem of an orthography and I have fallen madly in love with it. 
It appears to be based on Coelbren y Beirdd, the Welsh bardic alphabet invented by Iolo Morgannwg.  It's unfortunate that the book is so old that the diacritics aren't very clear. Here's a copy of the alphabet. The Coelbren-inspired orthography is on the left, while the modern orthography is on the right: 
The graphemes for <w> are a little hard to decipher. They look a bit like Cyrillic <ϭ> or Greek <σ>. I know that in Mediæval Welsh texts, a letter that looked similar to the number <6> was used for this letter, so it's likely based on that (I don't think it's available in Unicode yet). Since neither of these however will combine with a circumflex, I'm going to be boring and just use the <ϭ> for both <w> and <ŵ>.


a ... [a]
â ... [a:]
b ... [b]
b̓ ... [v]
b̔ ... [m]
c ... [k]
c̓ ... [g]
c̔ ... [ŋʰ]
ć ... [x]
d ... [d]
d̓ ... [ð]

d̔ ... [n]
e ... [ɛ]
ê ... [e:]
v ... [v]
f ... [f]

g ... [g]
g̔ ... [ŋ]
h ... [h]
i ... [ɪ, i]

l ... [l]
l̔ ... [ɬ]



m ... [m]
m̓ ... [v]
n ... [n]
o ... [ɔ]
ô ... [o:]
p ... [p]
p̓ ... [b]
p̔ ... [mʰ]
ṕ ... [f]
r ... [r]

r̔ ... [rʰ]
s ... [s]
t ... [t]
t̓ ... [d]
t̔ ... [nʰ]
t́ ... [θ] 
u ... [ɪ, i, ɨ]
ϭ ... [w, u, u:]
y ... [ɪ, i, ɨ]
ᶌ ... [ə] 


In all fairness, it is a complete mess of an orthography. But it has its charms, and the fact that you can tell which letters are mutations is useful. Apart from that though, it's an awful, awful mess. Just for fun here's a little comparison of the first verse of the Welsh national anthem in both orthographies: 

Contemporary Welsh: 
Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi,
Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri;
Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mad,
Dros ryddid collasant eu gwaed.


This silly Welsh: 
Mae hen ϭlad vᶌ t̔adau ᶌn annϭyl i mi, 
Gϭlad beird̓ a ćantorion, enϭogion o b̓ri; 
Ei gϭrol rᶌvelϭyr, gϭladc̓arϭyr tra mad,
Dros rᶌd̓id col̔asant eu gϭaed. 


Despite being messy, I think it's fairly cool-looking. I'm personally a big fan of having lots and lots of diacritics (Vietnamese, hnngg). Being the big orthography geek that I am, I might spend lots of time learning to read and write this fluently. Maybe it would make a useful shorthand for Welsh? Or maybe it should just stay in that book forever where it belongs.