''Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (GPC)'' (''The

University of Wales The University of Wales (Welsh language, Welsh: ''Prifysgol Cymru'') is a confederal university based in Cardiff, Wales. Founded by royal charter in 1893 as a federal university with three constituent colleges – Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff � ...

Dictionary'') is the only standard

historical dictionary A historical dictionary or dictionary on historical principles is a dictionary which deals not only with the latterday meanings of words but also the historical development of their forms and meanings. It may also describe the vocabulary of an earl ...

of the

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...

, aspiring to be "comparable in method and scope to the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

''". Vocabulary is defined in Welsh, and English equivalents are given. Detailed attention is given to variant forms, collocations, and etymology.GPC official website (in English)
2014, accessed 21 January 2015 The first edition was published in four volumes between 1967 and 2002, containing 7.3 million words of text in 3,949 pages, documenting 106,000

headword In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' a ...

s. There are almost 350,000 dated citations dating from the year 631 up to 2000, with 323,000 Welsh

definition A definition is a statement of the meaning of a term (a word, phrase, or other set of symbols). Definitions can be classified into two large categories: intensional definitions (which try to give the sense of a term), and extensional definitio ...

s and 290,000 English equivalents, of which 85,000 have included etymologies.

History

In 1921, a small team at the

National Library of Wales The National Library of Wales ( cy, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru), Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales and is one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies. It is the biggest library in Wales, holding over 6.5 million boo ...

Aberystwyth Aberystwyth () is a university and seaside town as well as a community in Ceredigion, Wales. Located in the historic county of Cardiganshire, means "the mouth of the Ystwyth". Aberystwyth University has been a major educational location in ...

, organised by the Rev. J. Bodvan Anwyl, arranged for volunteer readers to record words. The task of editing the dictionary was undertaken by

R. J. Thomas Roland Jay Thomas (June 9, 1900 – April 18, 1967), also known as R. J. Thomas, was a left-wing leader of the American automobile workers union in the 1930s and 1940s. He grew up in eastern Ohio and attended the College of Wooster for t ...

in the 1948/49 academic year. The first edition of Volume I appeared in 1967, followed by Volume II in 1987, Volume III in 1998, and Volume IV, edited by Gareth A. Bevan and P. J. Donovan, in December 2002. Work then immediately began on a second edition. Following the retirement of the previous editors Gareth A. Bevan and Patrick J. Donovan, Andrew Hawke was appointed as managing editor in January 2008. The second edition is based not only on the Dictionary's own collection of citation slips, but also on a wide range of electronic resources such as the ''Welsh Prose 1300-1425'' website (Cardiff University), ''JISC Historic Books'' including ''EEBO'' and ''EECO'' (The British Library), ''Welsh Newspapers Online'' and ''Welsh Journals Online'' (National Library of Wales), and the ''National Terminology Portal'' (Bangor University). In 2011, collaborative work began to convert the Dictionary data so that it could be used in the XML-based iLEX dictionary writing system, as well as to produce an online dictionary. After three years of work, on 26 June 2014, GPC Online was launched by then First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, AM, in the Welsh Assembly. GPC Online attracted 10,251 visitors to its search page on the first day after launch. On 12 May 2015, it was announced that the

Welsh Government The Welsh Government ( cy, Llywodraeth Cymru) is the Welsh devolution, devolved government of Wales. The government consists of ministers and Minister (government), deputy ministers, and also of a Counsel General for Wales, counsel general. Minist ...

had awarded the

Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics * Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

with a grant of £40,500 from the Welsh-language Technology and Digital Media Fund to aid development of a version of the Dictionary for mobile devices. A year later, on 24 February 2016, free mobile and tablet applications for the Dictionary were announced and launched. To accompany the launch, more than 400 new words were added to the dictionary. Within a week of the launch, over a thousand people had downloaded the application.

References

External links

Official website (in Welsh)Official website (in English)History of the DictionaryGPC Apps for iOS and Android
{{University of Wales, state=collapsed Internet properties established in 2001

Welsh Language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...

Welsh language Welsh non-fiction books Welsh dictionaries University of Wales

History

See also

References

External links