Welsh Wikipedia

Last updated
Wikipedia's W.svg Welsh Wikipedia
Wikipedia-logo-v2-cy.svg
Screenshot
Cywiki.PNG
Type of site
Internet encyclopedia project
Available in Welsh
Headquarters Miami, Florida
Owner Wikimedia Foundation
URL cy.wikipedia.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional

The Welsh Wikipedia (Welsh : Wicipedia Cymraeg) is the Welsh-language edition of Wikipedia. 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 41st largest Wikipedia edition. [1] 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.

Contents

It has been referred to in the Welsh-language current affairs magazine Golwg [2] and Y Faner Newydd, and is listed by the National Library of Wales as a Welsh-language e-resource. [3]

In an August 2007 interview, Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, used the Welsh Wikipedia as an example of the rationale for having Wikipedias in smaller languages:

Certainly within Wikipedia right now we are seeing some fairly successful projects in small European languages. You don't really need a Welsh language Wikipedia, perhaps. The number of people who speak Welsh who don't also speak English is very small and getting smaller every year. So why do we have a Welsh Wikipedia? Well, people wanted it, so they're making it. And language preservation is the main motive. It is their mother tongue and they want to keep it alive, keep its literature alive. Certainly, some of the larger small languages like Basque and Catalan have very successful projects. I definitely see that preserving parts of your language and culture through collaborative projects makes a lot of sense. [4]

A direct link to the Welsh Wikipedia has been added to the Getting Started page of the Welsh-language version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser where it appears as the first of four recommended websites, above the National Library of Wales. [5]

In September 2012 "Wici Cymru" was formed; this is a society whose aim is to develop Wikipedia in Wales. By October, actor Rhys Ifans had become its Patron. [6] In 2013, it was stated translations of English Wikipedia were not allowed on the site and instead most articles are written from scratch. [7] [ needs update? ]

In 2019, the Welsh Wikipedia was cited as one of the reasons for improvements in the handling of Welsh in Google Translate, by providing a large corpus of machine-readable Welsh text. [8] In the same 2019 source, it was stated that the Welsh Wikipedia represents the ideological opinions of its community, it was claimed to be more supportive of separatism, for example it classes Catalonia as a country following its 2017 declaration, compared to English Wikipedia which still classes it as an "autonomous community". Comparisons of the article Game of Thrones, noted the more Welsh pride present on its Welsh version of the TV show. Many of the site's editors are children learning Welsh as part of bilingual school education programmes, with many the IP addresses banned on the site belonging to schools. However, when the site's managers visit schools and educate how to contribute to the site, the ban is usually lifted. The site uses Wikidata to develop a common source of structured data for the site. [8]

Most of Welsh Wikipedia editors are men, like English Wikipedia, however, the Welsh-language site has a smaller gender bias than English Wikipedia, with the Welsh site having a roughly 50/50 split on male/female biographies compared to less than 20% on English Wikipedia, at the time in 2019. [8]

In 2023, the site was credited with assisting the creation of a pronunciation map for Welsh place-names in the Welsh-language. [9]

Welsh Wikipedia statistics
Number of user accountsNumber of articlesNumber of filesNumber of administrators
86,672279,72811,34116

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Welsh language</span> Brittonic language spoken natively in Wales

Welsh 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Welsh Language Society</span> Organisation to promote the Welsh language

The Welsh Language Society is a direct action pressure group in Wales campaigning for the right of Welsh people to use the Welsh language in every aspect of their lives. The chair of the Welsh Language Society since October 2023 is Joseff Gnagbo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhys Ifans</span> Welsh actor (born 1967)

Rhys Owain Evans, better known as Rhys Ifans, is a Welsh actor. He is best known for his roles in Notting Hill (1999), Kevin & Perry Go Large (2000), and Enduring Love (2004) as well as his portrayals of Xenophilius Lovegood in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010), the supervillain Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), and Grigori Rasputin in The King's Man (2021). Other roles include Hector DeJean in the Epix thriller series Berlin Station, Mycroft Holmes in the CBS series Elementary, and Ser Otto Hightower in the HBO fantasy series House of the Dragon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible translations into Welsh</span> United Kingdom legislation

Parts of the Bible have been translated into Welsh since at least the 15th century, but the most widely used translation of the Bible into Welsh for several centuries was the 1588 translation by William Morgan, Y Beibl cyssegr-lan sef Yr Hen Destament, a'r Newydd as revised in 1620. The Beibl Cymraeg Newydd was published in 1988 and revised in 2004. Beibl.net is a translation in colloquial Welsh which was completed in 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urdd Gobaith Cymru</span> Welsh voluntary youth organisation

Urdd Gobaith Cymru is a national voluntary youth organisation, which claimed over 56,000 members in 2019 aged between 8 and 25. It provides opportunities for children and young people across Wales to take part in a range of experiences through the medium of Welsh. The Urdd turned 100 on 25 January 2022 and celebrated by breaking two Guinness World Records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. J. Gruffydd</span> Welsh scholar and politician (1881–1954)

William John Gruffydd was a Welsh scholar, poet, writer and editor, and the last Member of Parliament to represent the University of Wales seat.

Dr. Geraint Bowen was a Welsh language poet, academic and political activist.

This article is about the particular significance of the year 1968 to Wales and its people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media of Wales</span> Overview of mass media in Wales

The media in Wales provide services in both English and Welsh, and play a role in modern Welsh culture. BBC Wales began broadcasting in 1923 have helped to promote a form of standardised spoken Welsh, and one historian has argued that the concept of Wales as a single national entity owes much to modern broadcasting. The national broadcasters are based in the capital, Cardiff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Wales</span> Filmmaking in Wales or by Welsh

The cinema of Wales comprises the art of film and creative movies made in Wales or by Welsh filmmakers either locally or abroad. Welsh cinema began in the late-19th century, led by Welsh-based director William Haggar. Wales continued to produce film of varying quality throughout the 20th century, in both the Welsh and English languages, though indigenous production was curtailed through a lack of infrastructure and finance, which prevented the growth of the industry nationally. Despite this, Wales has been represented in all fields of the film making process, producing actors and directors of note.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Llwyd ab Owain</span> Welsh author, poet, and Wikipedian

Robin Llwyd ab Owain is a Welsh author, poet, and Wikipedian. He won the chair at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1991. In 2013, he was appointed Wikimedia UK's first Wales Manager. He is the son of poet and writer Owain Owain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basque Wikipedia</span> Basque language edition of Wikipedia

The Basque Wikipedia is the Basque language edition of Wikipedia. Founded on December 6, 2001, although its main page was created in November 2003, it reached 58,124 articles by August 19, 2010, making it the 45th-largest Wikipedia. As of January 2024, it has 487 active contributors, of which 12 are administrators, and has about 426,000 articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ysgol Gyfun Gymunedol Penweddig</span> Secondary school in Aberystwyth

Ysgol Gyfun Gymunedol Penweddig is a Welsh-language, community comprehensive school situated in Llanbadarn Fawr, Aberystwyth, Wales. The school was established in 1973. The school was the first Welsh language secondary school in Ceredigion and is named after the cantref of Penweddig, the northern part of the Kingdom of Ceredigion, between the rivers Dyfi and Ystwyth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. E. Nicholas</span> Welsh poet, preacher and political activist

Thomas Evan Nicholas, who used the bardic name Niclas y Glais, was a Welsh language poet, preacher, radical, and champion of the disadvantaged of society.

Simon Brooks is a Welsh academic and writer.

The Dictionary of Welsh Biography (DWB) is a biographical dictionary of Welsh people who have made a significant contribution to Welsh life over seventeen centuries. It was first published in 1959, and is now maintained as a free online resource.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golwg360</span>

Golwg360 is a Welsh-language news website. It aims to provide a rolling news service from Wales and elsewhere, as well as sport and cultural news. Published by Golwg Newydd, it includes some content from the weekly Welsh-language magazine Golwg as well as web-only content produced by its own staff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nation.Cymru</span> Welsh news service

Nation.Cymru (transl. Nation.Wales) is a Welsh news service established in 2017 with the aim of creating a national English-language news service for Wales. It receives £20,000 a year from the Books Council of Wales and the rest of its financial support comes from 1,000 monthly subscribers to the site.

Rhiannon Ifans, FLSW is a Welsh academic specialising in English, Medieval and Welsh literature. She was an Anthony Dyson Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, in University of Wales Trinity St. David. She twice won a Tir na-n-Og prize for her work and won the literary medal competition at the Welsh Eisteddfod, for her 2019 debut novel, Ingrid, which was chosen for the Welsh Literature Exchange Bookshelf. In 2020, Ifans was elected as a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

References

  1. List of Wikipedias on Meta-Wiki.
  2. Jac Codi Baw, "Wiki-peidio", Golwg , October 16, 2008, p. 30
  3. National Library of Wales [ permanent dead link ]
  4. "巷に溢れ出す風俗たち". geekillustrated.com. Archived from the original on July 20, 2008.
  5. Cychwyn Arni, Mozilla Firefox (Welsh).
  6. "University honours for ex-Swans star Guillermo Bauza and actor Rhys Ifans", South Wales Evening Post, 20 July 2015. Accessed 12 February 2016 Archived 25 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  7. "Wicipedia Cymraeg: New manager looks to expand Wiki in Welsh". BBC News. 2013-07-22. Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  8. 1 2 3 Stephen Harrison (Aug 7, 2019). "Welsh Wikipedia Gives Me Hope". Slate.
  9. Owens, David (2023-08-14). "The interactive map that shows you how to pronounce Welsh placenames". Nation.Cymru. Retrieved 2024-01-04.

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Welsh Wikipedia at Wikimedia Commons