By rank-word, as first, fifth, tenth, last.
An, a, the so-called indefinite article, is simply the tale mark-word an, one.
| Saxon, | an man. |
| Ger., | ein mann. |
| West Friesic, | in. |
| East Friesic, | en. |
| Holstein, | en. |
| New Friesic, | ien. |
We use a before a consonant, and an before a vowel, as a man, an awl. But it is not that we have put on the n to a against the yawning, but it is that the n has been worn off from an.
The Frieses and Holsteiners now say ien man and en mann.
The mark-word an, a is of use to offmark a common one-head name, as ‘I have been to a white church’ (common); or, without the mark-word, ‘I have been to Whitechurch’ (one-head), the name of a village so called. ‘He lives by a pool’; ‘he lives by Pool’ (a town in Dorset). ‘He works in a broad mead’; ‘he works in Broadmead’ (in Bristol).
As the Welsh has no such mark-word, it might be thought that it cannot give these two sundry meanings; and the way in which it can offmark them shows how idle it is to try one tongue only by another, or to talk of the unmeaningness or uselessness of the Welsh word moulding.
Llan-Tydno would mean a church of Tydno, but the parish called ‘The Church of Tydno’ is in Welsh Llandydno, which, as a welding of two words, hints to the Welsh mind that Llandydno is a proper name, and so that of a parish.
Hoel da would mean a good Hoel; but to Hoel, the good king, the Welsh gives as a welded proper name Hoel dda; and to Julius Cæsar the Welsh gives, as one welded proper name, Iolo-voel, Julius-bald, whereas Iolo-moel would mean some bald Julius.