Welsh orthography

Welsh orthography uses 29 letters (including eight digraphs) of the Latin script to write native Welsh words as well as established loanwords. The traditional names of the letters are a, bi, èc, èch, di, èdd, e, èf, èff, èg, èng, aets, i, je, èl, èll, èm, èn, o, pi, ffi (yff), èr, rhi, ès, ti, èth, u, w, y. In South Wales, where the letters i and u are pronounced identically, they are distinguished as i-dot and u-bedol (bedol means "horseshoe"). Thus the television channel S4C is pronounced ès pedwar èc. Informally, another way of saying the letters is often used, adding the sound [ɘ] after stop consonants and simply pronouncing the others: a, by, cy, ch, dy, dd, and so on. In a Welsh dictionary, the Welsh order of letters is strictly observed, so that cyngor 'council' is found before cyhyrog 'muscular', and lori 'lorry' is found before llaeth 'milk'. Welsh orthography makes use of multiple diacritics, which are primarily used on vowels, namely the acute accent (acen ddyrchafedig), the grave accent (acen ddisgynedig), the circumflex (acen grom, to bach, or hirnod) and the diaeresis (didolnod). They are considered variants of their base letter, i.e. they are not alphabetised separately. The Welsh alphabet also makes no use of ⟨K⟩ (ce, [keː]), ⟨Q⟩ (ciw, [kɪu̯]), ⟨V⟩ (fi, [viː]), ⟨X⟩ (ecs, [ɛks]), and ⟨Z⟩ (sèd, [sɛd]/[zɛd]).