Welsh took place somewhere between 400 and 700 AD. The major problem in tracing this transition in paucity of evidence. Not a sentence of Brittonic has survived. The language was almost certainly written down, but the writing materials used more probably perishable, the more highly esteemed Latin being used for permanent inscriptions. Brittonic, like Latin, was a synthetic language; that is, much of its meaning was conveyed by a charge in the endings of words, as in Latin puella (girl), puellae (to the girl), puellarum (of the girls). In an analytic language, like Welsh, the relation of one word to another is conveyed by the use of prepositions or by the placing of the word in the sentence. It is difficult to date the change from synthetic to analytic, from Brittonic to Welsh, with any certainty. It is generally accepted that it had occurred by about 600 AD but it may have taken place in the spoken language much earlier. The most obvious sign of the change was the loss of the final syllables of nouns; when bardos (poet), aratron (plough) and abona (river) had become bardd, aradr and afon, Brittonic had become Welsh.
There are four periods in the history of the Welsh language: early, old, middle and new. Early Welsh, a phase in the history of the language, extending from its beginning to about 850, only survives in a few inscriptions and marginal notes or glosses. The most interesting of the inscriptions is that on a memorial in the Paris church of Tywyn in Мeirionnydd. It was carved in about 810 and consist of the words cingen celen tricet nitanam (the body of Cingen dwells beneath). Although the inscription incomprehensible to the Welsh speaker of the present day, the words celen, tricet, and tan (in nitanam) are related to the modern forms celein (corpse), trigo (dwells) and dan (beneath). In that time took place the influence of Latin and Irish. The Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD and their power had collapsed by 410 AD and Britannia ceased to be the part of the Empire. Of course during all that period Latin was influxing Welsh because it was the language of law and administration.
Words of Latin origin in Welsh
WELSH | LATIN
pont (bridge) | pons
eglwys (church) | ecclesia
lleeng (legion) | legio
ystafell (room) | stabellum
trawst (joist) | transtrum
bresych (cabbage) | brassica
Ireland never experienced Roman occupation but its settlers created colonies in western Britain before the collapse of the Empire. They were numerous in north-west Wales. That’s why there are a lot of Irish place-names; for example Dinllaen, Gwynedd, and a lot of words of Irish origin appeared in Welsh: cadach(rag), cnwc (hillock), talcen (forehead), codwm (fall).
Old Welsh, the succeeding phase in the history of the language, extends from about 850 to 1100. Again the evidence is slight of the material that has indubitably survived unchanged from that period, there is little beyond marginal notes and a few brief texts and poems. Approximately in 930 a few settlements or Norse appeared in Britain. I don't think that the norsemen influenced greatly on the Welsh language, because only one Welsh word - iarll, from iarl (earl) - is indisputably a Norse borrowing, but they influenced English (ugly, rotten and husband - borrowings from Scandinavian language) and Scots Gaelic.
Thus, by the end of the eleventh century, Welsh was a rich, supple, and versatile language. It had an oral literary tradition which was one of the longest in Europe. It had an enviable coherence, for the literary language was the same in old parts of Wales. It was spoken throughout the land to the west of Offa's Dyke and in some communities to the east of it. It was deeply rooted in the territory of the people who spoke it. They had used it to name their churches and their settlements, their rivers and their hills. Following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, it came face to face with the French of the Normans.
The victory of William of Normandy led to the expropriation of the land of England by the knew king and his followers.
French words become assimilated into Welsh (cwarel (windowpane), palffrai (palfrey), ffiol (viol), barwn (baron), gwarant (warrant)) and Welsh literature come to be influenced by French forms and conventions. A few places in Wales, such as Beaupry, Beaumaris, Grace Dieu and Hay (la Haie Taillee) were given French names and Norman French personal names - Richard, Robert and William, for example - eventually won popularity among the Welsh.
As a result of population movements English has been the spoken language of some communities in Wales for at least 800 years. That’s why in Welsh appeared words from it: capan (cap), sidan (silk), berfa (wheelbarrow), bwrdd (table), llidiart (gate). But despite the influx of French and English speakers, Wales remained overwhelmingly Welsh-speaking throughout the Middle Ayes and beyond. In most of the marcher lordships