Tafod Dwybig
Chronicle Entry - Secret Annex
Recorded by Brother Wyn of Caermynach, Anno Domini 920
Known As: The Dragon Tongue, The Fork Tongue
Origin Date: Taught during the westward migration, c. 4000 BC
Primary Teacher: Arawn ap Annwn, Guardian of the Western Veil
Status: Foundation of the Welsh language
Tafod Dwybig was the language taught to refugees fleeing the towers at Shinar during their westward migration to the Atlantic coasts. The merchants who preserve knowledge of this migration name it the Dragon Tongue, for it was spoken by Dragons before men walked the earth.
The Record
The language was taught by the stranger who walked among the westward-moving peoples during their generations-long trek from Mesopotamia to the western ocean. The merchants identify this stranger as Arawn, though they will not state this directly. He found the refugees struggling with two afflictions: tongues divided at Shinar and voices stolen by terror of what they had witnessed. Many among them had been struck silent, managing only whispers and fragments when they tried to speak.
Tafod Dwybig sang in harmonics, carrying multiple tones within one voice. Where the lord whom Greeks name Zeus had sought to force all voices into one unified tone before the towers fell, this tongue could hold many speakers within it. The teaching took generations, continuing throughout the westward trek. Those who learned it recovered their voices and their speech.
The language possessed properties that distinguished it from other tongues known to men. It held difference within unity, allowing a speaker to carry multiple meanings in a single utterance without contradiction. The merchants report that stone itself could be made to respond when the tongue was properly spoken, particularly volcanic stone such as that found in the western ridges. This property later proved essential in the construction of the resonance forts built by the Cymroth peoples.
History
The first among the refugees to learn Tafod Dwybig was Tafod Ddu, a blacksmith whose voice had been among those struck silent at Shinar. His name, which means Black Tongue, marked his recovery of speech as significant. He assisted in teaching others during the migration, serving as proof that healing from the terror of Shinar was possible through patient instruction.
The teaching method differed markedly from how men had been instructed at Shinar. The stranger who taught it walked beside the refugees, listened to their attempts, and corrected with patience rather than force. He did not command or instruct in the manner of the lord who had taught men to build the towers. The contrast was not lost on those who had fled the consequences of that earlier teaching.
By the time the westward-moving groups reached the Atlantic coasts after generations of travel, most who had continued the journey could speak the tongue with sufficient skill to use it in daily speech. Some settled along the Mediterranean shores and in the lands now called Gaul. Those who pressed farthest west, crossing the narrow sea to the island that would be named Cymru, brought the tongue with them to virgin ground.
The peoples who arrived near four millennia before Christ found ridges rising above valleys where volcanic stone hummed when struck. They settled the high country between what men now call Builth and the Epynt, naming themselves Cymroth and speaking Tafod Dwybig with the reverence of those who understood what it meant to lose speech and have it restored. This tongue became the foundation from which the language I write in descended, though five thousand years have changed it beyond what those first speakers would recognise.
Accounts
The merchants who preserve this account descend from those who made the westward journey. They speak of the teaching as the second gift given to their ancestors, the first being guidance toward the western ocean and the promise of ground where stone itself could sing. When I asked the eldest merchant why the tongue deserved such reverence, he replied that some languages are merely tools for naming things, while others restore what terror has broken.
He demonstrated what he meant by speaking a single phrase in what he claimed was the old form of the tongue. The sound carried multiple tones simultaneously, like a chord struck upon strings, and I felt a pressure in my chest as if the air itself had thickened. When he fell silent, the stone beneath our feet seemed to hum for a moment before settling. Whether this was genuine property of the language or clever trickery to impress a monk, I cannot say with certainty. The merchant smiled at my doubt and said that five thousand years had weakened what the tongue could do, but something of its nature remained in Welsh even now.
Final Entry
The Welsh language preserves elements of Tafod Dwybig, particularly in its capacity to carry multiple meanings within single utterances and in the musical quality of its phonetic structure. Scholars who study the tongue note that it differs markedly from neighbouring languages in its resistance to simplification and in patterns that suggest great age. Whether these properties descend directly from the Dragon Tongue or arose through separate development, the merchants insist derives from that first teaching during the westward migration.
The Church has no official position on Tafod Dwybig, as Scripture makes no mention of languages taught to scattered peoples after Babel. I record the merchants' account because truth sometimes requires two tellings, one preserved in sacred text and one preserved in careful memory across generations. If their tradition holds accuracy, then Welsh is not merely old but ancient beyond most reckoning, carrying within it echoes of the first healing that followed the first great shattering.
