Welsh dictionary at your fingertips! New Welsh dictionary app and Welsh keyboard launch on Snowdon’s summit 23 October 2012

From today, you’ll be able to carry and use a Welsh dictionary anywhere in the world. The new Ap Geiriaduron, or Welsh-English dictionary app is available on iPhone, iPad and Android, and will be used for the first time on the summit of Snowdon, to show how mobile and useful it can be for anyone, whether they are Welsh learners, parents, teachers or students.

Two dictionaries form the data for Ap Geiriaduron, the general dictionary Cysgair, and the terminology dictionary Y Termiadur Addysg. The app will be distributed through the App Store, Google Play Store and Amazon.

Ap Geiriaduron has been created by Patrick Robertson, of the Language Technologies Unit at Bangor University’s Canolfan Bedwyr, who’s the youngest member of the team.

“We chose to launch the app on the summit of yr Wyddfa,” said Patrick, “to show how much easier it is to use the app compared to printed books. We’d planned to carry some paper dictionaries up the mountain with us, but they were too heavy!” After finishing this project, Patrick is planning to start his own software company.

“I’m hoping to travel the world, coding on beaches, mountains – wherever I am!”

Patrick’s work was partly funded by the Go Wales project, which offers young graduates work experience. Patrick is from a non Welsh-speaking family, and learned Welsh at Ysgol Tryfan, Bangor, before graduating in Aeronautics at Bristol University.

“Ap Geiriaduron would have been very useful for me and my parents while learning Welsh.” Patrick learned how to program computers as a hobby before deciding he wanted to use his skills to give something back to the Welsh language.

Elinor Churchill, Go Wales’s location co-ordinator said: “It was a great pleasure to support the Language Technologies Unit, Canolfan Bedwyr and Patrick in developing this pioneering app. It will make it easier for people to use Welsh wherever they are.”

Patrick’s work supervised by Dewi Bryn Jones and David Chan, the Language Technologies Unit’s software engineers. David said: “Although they’re far smaller, our electronic dictionaries can do a lot more that old paper dictionaries. Ap Geiriaduron can de-mutate and conjugate verbs, and that’s a great help for Welsh learners like me who can have difficulty finding Welsh words in traditional dictionaries.”

Also being launched on Snowdon tomorrow is a Welsh keyboard for Android which offers predictive texting in Welsh and English. This is a freelance project by David which uses the Language Technologies Unit’s dictionary data.

Having a Welsh dictionary and keyboard with over 100,000 words in small devices like a phone or tablet can allow anyone to use a dictionary anywhere. A crowd of Welsh learners and speakers, children and parents, will walk (or ride!) up to Snowdon’s summit to launch the iOS and Android app live on Tuesday 23 October. From then, anyone can load the app to their iPhone, iPad or Android device free of charge through Apple App Store, Google Play Store or Amazon App Store.

Publication date: 22 October 2012