ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Coelbren y Beirdd

Coelbren y Beirdd is a special type of alphabet that was invented a long time ago by some Welsh poets. It's made up of special lines and shapes that stand for different sounds in the Welsh language.

Imagine you have some toys that you want to put away in a special box. You might have a special way of organizing them so that you can find them easily later on. That's kind of like what the Welsh poets did with their language using Coelbren y Beirdd. They wanted to have a special way of organizing the sounds of their language so that it would be even more beautiful and interesting when they wrote poetry.

So when they wanted to write, they would use these special lines and shapes to represent different sounds, kind of like using blocks to build a tower. Each line and shape would be like a different block that they could use to create the sounds that they wanted. And just like how you can take apart the tower of blocks and rebuild it into something else, the poets could use these letters to create poems that were full of rich and complex sounds.

Even though Coelbren y Beirdd isn't used much today, it's still important because it helps us understand the history and culture of Wales, and how people in the past used language to express themselves in beautiful and creative ways.