Page 26 - Ninnau Jan-Feb 2021

New Welsh Language Resources on Dear Ninnau readers.

Wikipedia Developed for My name is William Knox and I’d like to introduce you to a

History Students Welsh-language project I have been working on as a volunteer.
I think it’s a way to make a meaningful and lasting
contribution to the Welsh language. It involves contributing to
an online translation dictionary. There is no other dictionary
like this in Welsh and it is multilingual and includes words as
well as phrases and is available for free online and in an app. I
have already added over 100,000 terms manually and millions
of words have been uploaded on my behalf in bulk in English-
Welsh ‘equivalent texts’. The English-Welsh is found here:
www.glosbe.com/en/cy

The National Library of Wales

The National Library of This project has demonstrated a Kirsty Williams MS,
Wales, in partnership with new strategy for developing Minister for Education, said:
Menter Iaith Môn have flexible, openly licensed learn- "We've seen the use of online
released a series of new Welsh ing resources which can be used learning platforms increase
language educational resources in different settings in order to massively this year, with twice
via HWB and Wikipedia, maximise accessibility. as many users logging onto the
aimed at improving access to The National Library of Hwb platform compared to last
Welsh language resources for Wales has been supporting the year.
pupils studying History. Welsh language version of “These learning materials will
The work is the culmination Wikipedia, which has over be really valuable for pupils
of a 12-month pilot project 100,000 articles, since employ- studying History through the
funded by the Welsh ing a Wikipedian in Residence medium of Welsh and will be
Government, which saw the in 2015. Working with the excellent resources for use in
Library’s National Welsh Government, the Library our new Curriculum.”
Wikimedian working with has operated a number of Pedr ap Llwyd, Chief
Menter Iaith Môn, WJEC, Wicipedia projects; delivering Executive and Librarian at
HWB and subject specialists to Wikipedia editing and training The National Library of
identify the 100 most important events for various groups and Wales said: "Being able to
events and themes studied for institutions and shared its digital offer children and young people
the subject of History in Welsh content openly for use in digital access to the history and
primary and secondary schools. Wikipedia articles. culture of Wales through the In the image you can see where the line goes straight up. This
A subject specialist then devel- Jason Evans, Project medium of Welsh is vitally is from my manual contribution so far. I would like to add mil-
oped new Welsh Wikipedia arti- Manager and National important. Enabling a range of lions more terms/translations, including, but not limited to,
cles and a series of short educa- Wikimedian said: “Delivering new educational resources will slang, new words, personal names, placenames, animals, plants,
tional videos for these themes, this project against the backdrop stimulate and inspire young phrases, dialect forms, literary forms, and even phrases learners
adapting existing openly of the national lockdown only people to know more about his- could look up (I go, you go etc) - many things that aren’t in any
licenced learning resources served to underline the impor- torical events and the impact other Welsh dictionary, online or not. It would be great to try to
where possible. tance of free online learning they had on our development as get every existing Welsh word possible uploaded online and in
The content is available on resources. Welsh speaking stu- Welsh people." one place - although it’s an impossible feat. The top languages
Wicipedia where it can be dents can now easily seek out a Aaron Morris, Menter Iaith in this dictionary are French, English and Polish. French has
improved and updated by the wealth of reliable information Môn, said: “It has been a plea-
community over time. Static, about a range of historical top- sure working with the National almost 2 million entries. Welsh has roughly 150,000 plus the
expert reviewed copies of the ics in Welsh. And many of these Library on such an important bulk uploads of English-Welsh parallel texts. We could, over
articles are also available on articles focus on historical project. By creating these edu- time, catch up to these major languages. I believe a strong
HWB along with all the educa- events from a Welsh perspec- cational content not only do we online presence is more important than ever and that a dictio-
tional videos. tive, where the English highlight the interesting aspects nary is an important part of that and that it is in fact a realistic
Wikipedia is widely used by Wikipedia versions do not. I of Welsh history and making it goal to get to 2 million entries eventually. Welsh-Spanish and
pupils for research, but the qual- hope that our work here can be available freely for all, but we Welsh-Cornish entries would be added too. This dictionary is a
ity and coverage of Welsh lan- used as a template for a new delve into our history by using game-changer. A smaller goal might be acceptable too. For
guage content often means that approach to creating and distrib- our native tongue and encourag- example, a goal could be set to get to 500,000 entries and then
Welsh speaking students are uting Welsh language learning ing all to use the Welsh stop.
forced to turn to English lan- resources” Language with confidence and
guage content for information. pride.” Ideally, other people would join in and make their own con-
tributions and we could help each other, thereby helping to
make sure our contributions are correct. So this article is partly
a call on any Welsh-speakers to contribute to this in any way
they can.
Welsh Number Plates (Glosbe), and some people might not be too keen on that, but
These entries (contributions) go to a third party’s website
any contributions we make can be downloaded from that web-
site, so contributions are not lost, no matter what happens. If
anyone is interested in this project but not keen on any work
going towards a third party, I respect your point of view and
I’m open to a different arrangement, perhaps having instead a
bilingual English-Welsh dictionary only and based for example
on Python or Lisp, but in that case I’d need to get help coding
it. I do have someone in mind for that if needed, by the way.
Ideally I would get funding to help me continue doing
this, whether part-time or full-time. It would also be interesting
to attract other contributors to this project or to another possible
project, similar to this one. A lot would be accomplished but on
a very small budget.

‘Over the years I’ve had it, it has resulted in two business cards with Welsh notes
stuck under my wiper blades. I barely know how to pronounce the language, but
one of the card owners was a gentleman from North Wales who later did some

translation of old family letters for me.’ Y Dail are a band from Church Village, near Pontypridd in
South Wales. We formed in 2018, and I compose the songs and
Submitted by Lauretta Jones play guitar, keyboards and sing. At present, I'm recording a
series of singles with Cardiff-based producer Kris Jenkins (who
has worked with artists such as Cate Le Bon, Super Furry
Animals and H. Hawkline) with the intention of releasing an
album in the fall of next year. 'Y Tywysog a'r Teigr' ('The
Prince and the Tiger') is Y Dail's debut single, and it was
Please continue to send photos of license plate with a Welsh connection. Additional photos were released on the 30th of October. I'm 17 years of age, and my
songwriting influences include Euros Childs, Tamla-Motown
received and will be published in following issues of Ninnau records, Ani Glass and early Prefab Sprout. The lyrics for 'Y
Tywysog a'r Teigr' were written after I read The Bell Jar, and
ninnaupublications@gmail.com the accompanying music video was filmed with a school friend
in the Ynysangharad War Memorial Park in Pontypridd.

Page 26 NINNAU - The North American Welsh Newspaper January-February 2021
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