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At a time in history when the Oxford English Dictionary itself was still being edited, the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru-the University of Wales Dictionary-was an idea already in its infancy. The stirrings of Welsh nationalism that had led to the Welsh university system, the National Library of Wales, the National Museum of Wales, and the shining new capital city at Cardiff, also led to the establishment of a historical Welsh dictionary. This project began in 1921. The entire first edition was finished just recently, at the end of 2002.
The work that went into the ultimate completion of the GPC was exhaustive, and required huge amounts of volunteer manpower in order to collect and collate the necessary citation slips for each dictionary entry. Rev. Bodvan Anwyl, the Dictionary Secretary, was at the head of this tremendous project at its genesis in 1921. Says Assistant Editor and Systems Manager Andrew Hawke, "No editing was undertaken: the aim was to read and excerpt as many manuscripts and printed books and journals as possible, concentrating on the period up to 1800 initially." A fleet of volunteer readers began excerpting texts and sending them in to the in-house staff, who not only filed incoming slips but also did excerpting work themselves, from manuscripts and rare materials in the National Library.
From this basic description of the project and its intentions, it is certainly possible to see the similarities between the GPC and its venerable Saesneg brother, the OED. However, though the OED served as model and inspiration for the GPC, the GPC differs in scope and scale. This is partially due, of course, to differences in the structure of Welsh language as opposed to English; another reason is the difficulty of attributing meaning to words excerpted from poetic works. In general, says Mr. Hawke, the GPC is less inclusive than the OED. One example is the frequent compound words that occur in Welsh, words whose meanings are apparent from their parts; such compound words often contain cross-references to their separate elements. In addition, words are usually excluded if they are not substantiated by two independent writers, or if they are "dictionary-only words" or technical terms.
Also, the subdivision of meanings within each dictionary entry is generally less precise in the GPC than in the OED. With the OED, dictionary staff had significantly more source material to draw upon for their citations. Moreover, many previously unedited early works were edited by the Early English Text Society. On the other hand, difficulties were encountered by the GPC in terms of the "obscure nature" of much of the Welsh poetry, especially early works; according to Mr. Hawke, this often made it "quite impossible to distinguish confidently between the various meanings." He also notes that "much of the most difficult body of Welsh poetry, the works of the Gogynfeirdd, was first edited only in the 1990s." Therefore, the GPC is considered to be less comprehensive than the OED, as well as being less precise in its subdivisions of meaning.
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