Welsh word lists, etc.,

Miscellaneous papers containing lists, notes, etc., in the hand of Edward Williams ('Iolo Morganwg') bound together in one volume. The contents consist largely of groups or lists of Welsh words. Included are lists with the superscriptions 'Geiriadur William Cynwal o Lyfr William Morys' with an added note 'medd Llyfr Dr. Williams o Gaernarfon o ba un y cymmerais i ef. I[orwer]th G[wily]m' (an incomplete alphabetical list A-D only; pp. 7- 38); 'Extracts from an old vocabulary' (pp. 111-13); 'Coincidences of Silurian and Cornish' (an incomplete alphabetical list A-G only; pp. 145- 60); 'Welsh Words from the Welsh Orbis Pictus (Merthyr)' (pp. 163-4); 'Cannons of Etymology' (pp. 171-3); 'North Walicisms' (p. 210); 'Welsh words collected in N[orth] W[ales]' (pp. 219-?20); 'Terms in sacred poetry, &c.' (p. 343); and '[Words from the] Gododin' (p. 375); and lists or groups without superscriptions. The Welsh words are often followed by English definitions or equivalents and the lists which appear on pp. 95- 110, 115-17, 127-8, 131-42, and 145-60 also give Breton or Cornish cognates. Pp. 255-69 contain an incomplete list of words (A-I only) with the superscription 'Welsh words from the Cotton MS.'. The words in this instance, however, are not Welsh but Cornish and correspond to those to be found in the old Cornish vocabulary which appears in [British Museum] Cottonian MS [Vespasian A. xiv] (see Henry Lewis: Llawlyfr Cernyweg Canol (Caerdydd, 1946), tt. 2-3. Internal evidence suggests that the present list may have been copied from that published in William Pryce: Archaeologia Cornu-Britannica . . . (Sherborne, 1790)). Also included in the volume are notes headed 'Deuddeg prif ragorgamp Cerdd dafod' (p. 170), a note on 'The Yniales Vocabulary . . . original (sic) compiled in this form by Hopkin ap Thomas . . .' (p. 174), a list of Glamorgan idioms (pp. 175-6), extracts from John Jones: The Tower of Babel or Essays on the confusion of tongues ( pp. 199-200), four stanzas of Welsh verse attributed to Watkin Powel 'o Ben y Fai' (p. 293), a list headed 'Barbarisms of Wm. Owain in D. G.' [? Barddoniaeth Dafydd ab Gwilym, 1789] (pp. 325-6), a list of 'Names of God in various Languages' (pp. 345-7), a list of seven 'Peculiarites (sic) of the North Walian Dialect' (p. 387), various grammatical and etymological notes relating to the Welsh language, and other miscellanea. Notes in one instance have been written on the dorse of a ? holograph letter, June 1817, from William Vaughan from Lanelay to Mr. Jones, overseer of the poor of Tythegston, giving an opinion concerning a pauper's settlement and his contract with his master, and in two other instances on the dorse or margins of copies of a printed leaflet announcing the printing of Edward Williams's two volumes of English verse Poems Lyric and Pastoral.

Title based on contents.

Formerly known as Llanover C. 55.

Preferred citation: NLW MS 13142A.

The description is also available in the Handlist of Manuscripts in the National Library of Wales, Volume IV (Aberystwyth, 1971).

Published