The Welsh Wikipedia ( cy, Wicipedia Cymraeg) is the
Welsh-language
Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language of the 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 Province, Argentina). Historically, it has al ...
edition of
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
. This edition was started in July 2003. On 23 June 2007, it reached 10,000 articles, the 66th Wikipedia to do so. On 20 November 2008, it attained 20,000 articles. Less than a year later, on 28 October 2009, it reached 25,000 articles. In July 2013 it reached 50,000 articles and is now the largest Wikipedia edition. It is the only internet resource of its kind in Welsh and has an average of 2.7 million hits every month, making it the most popular Welsh language website. It, therefore, has an important place in Welsh language online culture.
It has been referred to in the Welsh-language current affairs magazine ''
Golwg
''Golwg'' (Welsh for "View", ) is a Welsh-language magazine established in 1988. The magazine is published by the company with the same name on a weekly basis. It covers current events and features and claims a circulation of 12,000 a month, the ...
'' and ''Y Faner Newydd'', and is listed by 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 ...
as a Welsh-language e-resource.
In an August 2007 interview,
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...
, co-founder of Wikipedia, used the Welsh Wikipedia as an example of the rationale for having Wikipedias in smaller languages:
A direct link to the Welsh Wikipedia has been added to the Getting Started page of the Welsh-language version of the
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and a ...
web browser where it appears as the first of four recommended websites, above 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 ...
.
In September 2012 "Wici Cymru" was formed; this is a society whose aim is to develop Wikipedia in Wales. By October, BAFTA-winning actor
Rhys Ifans
Rhys Ifans (; born Rhys Owain Evans; 22 July 1967) is a Welsh actor and musician. He was the frontman of Welsh rock music bands the Peth and Super Furry Animals. As an actor, he is best known for his roles in ''Notting Hill'' (1999), ''Kevin & ...
had become its Patron.
In 2019, the Welsh Wikipedia was cited as one of the reasons for improvements in the handling of Welsh in
Google Translate
Google Translate is a multilingual neural machine translation service developed by Google to translate text, documents and websites from one language into another. It offers a website interface, a mobile app for Android and iOS, and an API t ...
, by providing a large corpus of machine-readable Welsh text.
See also
*''
Encyclopaedia Cambrensis''
*''
Encyclopaedia of Wales
The ''Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales'', published in January 2008, is a single-volume-publication encyclopaedia about Wales. The Welsh-language edition, entitled ''Gwyddoniadur Cymru'' is regarded as the most ambitious encyclopaedic work ...
''
*
Breton Wikipedia
The Breton Wikipedia ( br, Wikipedia e brezhoneg) is the Breton language version of Wikipedia, run by the Wikimedia Foundation.
History
The Breton Wikipedia was established in June 2004. As of August 2008 it had over 20,000 articles, making it ...
References
External links
Statistics for Welsh Wikipediaby Erik Zachte
*
Wici Cymru
Wici (pronounced: ''Vee-chee'') was a call to arms in the medieval Poland (lat. ''restis''), known from prehistoric times. It was a specific method to spread a warning that the country is in danger, and that warriors should immediately go to the ne ...
{{Authority control
Welsh-language encyclopedias
Wikipedias by language
Internet properties established in 2003
Welsh-language mass media