Welsh Dictionaries for Children

ABSTRACT:Welsh has a long bardic tradition, and glossaries of archaic vocabulary were first compiled for the training of poets. The first printed dictionary appeared relatively early in 1547 and was followed by much lexicographical activity over the following centuries. By the nineteenth century, there was a glut of bilingual dictionaries, but no dictionaries were available specifically for children until 1968. The majority of children's dictionaries up to the 1990s were either monolingual or bilingual picture dictionaries based on English publications lacking important Welsh words with no English equivalent and little or no grammatical information. Since that time there have been considerable developments: original dictionaries have been produced for different age groups, with due attention given to the grammatical information supplied and better use made of illustrations. An online Welsh dictionary demonstrates what could be achieved for children, given sufficient resources.