Welsh has the following consonant phonemes: Symbols in parentheses are either allophones, or found only in loanwords. The sound generally occurs in loanwords, e.g. sw , although this is usually realised as in northern accents, e.g.. The postalveolar affricates and occur mainly in loanwords, e.g. tsips and jeli , but also in some dialects as developments from and, e.g. from diafol . The voiceless nasals occur mostly word-initially, as a consequence of nasal mutation. Initial is colloquially realised as in the south, e.g. chwech pronounced. results from when preceded by, often as a result of h-prothesis of the radical word, e.g. iaith 'language' becomes ei hiaith 'her language'. It also occurs in some Northern dialects as the cluster in place of intervocalic in words like allan where it is pronounced rather than the more common . The stops are distinguished from by means of aspiration more consistently than by voicing, as are actually devoiced in most contexts. This devoiced nature is recognised in the spelling of as, although is orthographically for historical reasons. The fricatives may also be devoiced in some contexts, but are distinguished from by having a shorter frication length than the latter. There is a tendency in the spoken language not to pronounce these voiced fricatives in certain contexts, e.g. nesaf realised as or i fyny from mynydd . Historically, this occurred so often with the voiced velar fricative that it disappeared entirely from the language. Some speakers realise the voiceless lateral fricative as a voiceless palatal fricative in some or all contexts. The occurrence and distribution of the phoneme varies from area to area. Very few native words are pronounced with by all speakers, e.g. siarad , although it appears in borrowings, e.g. siop . In northern accents, it can occur when precedes or, e.g. mi es i . In some southern dialects it is produced when follows or, e.g. mis . The voiceless fricative is realised as uvular except by some southwestern speakers, who produce the sound in the velar region as. The phoneme is reportedly pronounced as a voiced uvular fricative by some speakers in Dyfed and Gwynedd, in a pronunciation known as tafod tew. In northern Welsh, the alveolar lateral approximant is consistently velarised or "dark" in all positions, but remains unvelarised or "clear" in the south, except in rare exceptions where the Dark L is found after /d/ in dlos 'pretty'.
Vowels
The vowel phonemes of Welsh are as follows: The vowels and survive from Old Welsh only in northern dialects; in southern dialects, these vowels have become and respectively. In all dialects, the contrast between long and short vowels is found in stressed word-final syllables, whereas in some southern dialects, the contrast is found in stressed non-word-final syllables in addition. The vowel does not occur in the final syllable of words. It is always pronounced short except when emphasised in the name of the letter y. The long counterpart to short is sometimes misleadingly transcribed. This is often found in solely quality-distinctive transcriptions to avoid using a length mark. The actual pronunciation of long is, which makes the vowel pair unique in that there is no significant quality difference. Regional realisations of may be or in north-central and south-eastern Wales or sporadically as in some southern areas undoubtedly under the influence of English. The diphthongs containing occur only in northern dialects; in southern dialects is replaced by, are merged with, and are merged with. There is a general tendency in the South to simplify diphthongs in everyday speech, e.g. Northern corresponding to in the South, or Northern and Southern.
Stress and pitch
in polysyllabic words occurs most commonly on the syllable, more rarely on the final syllable. Exceptions can arise in relation to borrowings from foreign words, such as ambiwlans and testament. According to its positioning, related words or concepts can sound quite different, as syllables are added to the end of a word and the stress moves correspondingly: Note also how adding a syllable to ysgrifennydd to form ysgrifenyddes changes the pronunciation of the second. This is because the pronunciation of depends on whether or not it is in the final syllable. Stress on penultimate syllables is characterised by a low pitch, which is followed by a high pitch on the word-final syllable. In words where stress is on the final syllable, that syllable also bears the high pitch. This high pitch is a remnant of the high-pitched word-final stress of early Old Welsh ; the stress shift from final to penultimate occurred in the Old Welsh period without affecting the overall pitch of the word.
