About the Book
A new edition of a highly popular and valuable Welsh-English / English-Welsh dictionary comprising an introduction in English to some Welsh language characteristics, mutations, grammar elements, proverbs, sayings and technical terms. First published in 1953.
Review :
English review follows
Rhaid imi gyfaddef fod gennyf berthynas arbennig â’r Geiriadur Newydd gan mai dyma oedd fy ngeiriadur Cymraeg cyntaf i yn ôl yng nghanol y saith degau (y mileniwm diwethaf). Dyna oedd wrth fy mhenelin yn Lloegr bell wrth imi baratoi at yr arholiad Lefel ‘O’ (TGAU i’r to iau). Bwriadwyd y geiriadur hwn yn wreiddiol ar gyfer disgyblion ysgol, ond rwy’n amau a yw’n gallu bodloni gofynion y Cwricwlwm Cenedlaethol erbyn hyn.
Yr hyn sy’n drawiadol wrth imi edrych ar y trydydd argraffiad ar hugain yw’r ffaith nad oes dim wedi newid heblaw am ddyluniad y clawr. Mae’r un map o siroedd Cymru sy’n dangos y siroedd ‘newydd’ (sef y siroedd a ddaeth i fodolaeth yn 1974) yn dal yno, er bod siâp y siroedd wedi newid eto yn 1996.
Yn ogystal â’r map hwnnw, mae cryn dipyn o ddeunydd ychwanegol yn y Geiriadur Newydd, e.e. hanes y Gymraeg, tabl o’r treigladau a’r rheolau treiglo a nodweddion gramadegol. Yn bersonol, roeddwn i wrth fy modd gyda’r llu o restri o enwau personol, enwau lleoedd, anifeiliaid, adar, pysgod, planhigion, ffrwythau, diarhebion a dywediadau sy’n cael eu cynnwys ynddo. Maent yn wych i bobl fel fi sy’n ymhyfrydu mewn pori mewn geiriaduron fel gweithgarwch hamdden ac sydd wrth eu boddau yn creu brawddegau fel ‘Hwyliodd Gwrtheyrn am Gaergystennin lle y gwleddodd ar lymarch, llysywen a llysiau’r llwynog’. Ond os yw dyn yn darllen llyfr sy’n cynnwys y gair ‘lleden chwithig’, wiw iddo chwilio amdano yng nghorff y geiriadur, ac oni bai fod rhywbeth yn y cyd-destun yn awgrymu mai math o bysgodyn ydyw, pam y byddai’n edrych yn y rhestr o enwau pysgod amdano yn hytrach na’r rhestr ffrwythau?
Mae’n wir hefyd fod y geiriadur hwn yn methu’r prawf ‘row’. Hynny yw, os ydw i eisiau dweud ‘I had another big row with my boss yesterday’, mae dau gofnod ar gyfer yr enw ‘row’. Y cyfystyron ar gyfer y ‘row’ cyntaf yw ‘rhes, rhestr, gwanaf’, y cyfystyron ar gyfer yr ail ‘row’ yw ‘ffrae, terfysg, ffrwgwd’. Drwy gyfeirio yn ôl at yr adran Gymraeg-Saesneg, mae modd dewis ‘ffrae’ yn briodol, ac mae’n rhaid imi gyfeirio'n ôl at yr adran honno i gael cenedl y gair a’i ffurf luosog. Wedi dweud hynny, mae rhyw ymgais i wahanu ystyron geiriau yn y geiriadur hwn, e.e. o dan y gair ‘brand’ ceir ‘1. pentewyn. 2. nod (gwarth). 3. math (o nwyddau, etc.) – ond yr hyn nas ceir yw cyfarwyddyd ynghylch beth yn union yw’r ystyron gwahanol.
Agwedd hyfryd ar y geiriadur hwn yw’r wybodaeth ychwanegol a gewch chi wrth chwilio am rywbeth arall, e.e. nid yw’n bodloni ar gofnodi ystyron sylfaenol ‘bwrw’ a rhoddir yr ymadroddion ‘bwrw amcan’ ‘bwrw eira’ ‘bwrw glaw’ ‘bwrw prentisiaeth’ a ‘bwrw’r Sul’. Dyma eiriadur i chwilotwyr.
Richard Crowe
* * *
I have to admit to having a ‘special relationship’ with the New Welsh Dictionary as it was my first Welsh dictionary back in the mid seventies (the last millennium). It was at my side in the depths of Dorset as I prepared for my ‘O’ level Welsh (GSCE for the younger readers). This dictionary was originally intended for school pupils back in the 1950s but I doubt that it can satisfy the demands of the National Curriculum today.
What strikes me as I look at the twenty-third impression of the dictionary is that the only thing that has changed is the cover. The same map of the ‘new’ Welsh counties is there (‘new’ as in the counties created in 1974 and superceded by yet ‘newer’ ones in 1996).
As well as that map, there is a fair amount of additional material in the New Welsh Dictionary e.g. a history of the Welsh language, a table of the mutations and the rules and grammatical features. Personally, I love the lists of personal names, place names, names of animals, birds, fish, plants and fruit, together with proverbs and sayings included in it. They are wonderful for people like me who like nothing better than whiling away the hours browsing through dictionaries as a leisure pursuit and who delight in conjuring up sentences such as ‘Hwyliodd Gwrtheyrn am Gaergystennin lle y gwleddodd ar lymarch, llysywen a llysiau’r llwynog’ (Vortigern set sail for Constantinople where he feasted on an oyster, an eel and herb robert). But, if you happen to come across a ‘lleden chwithig’ while reading a book, there is no point looking for an explanation of it in the body of the dictionary, and unless the context suggests it is a fish, why would one look for it in the list of fish names rather than the list of fruit names?
It is also true that this dictionary fails the ‘row’ test. That’s to say, if I want to say ‘I had another big row with my boss yesterday’, there are two entries for the noun ‘row’. The equivalents for the first ‘row’ are ‘rhes, rhestr, gwanaf’, and the equivalents for the second ‘row’ are ‘ffrae, terfysg, ffrwgwd’. By referring back to the Welsh-English section I am able to choose ‘ffrae’ as the appropriate word and I also have to refer back to that section to find the gender and plural form of ‘ffrae’. Having said that, there is a limited attempt to differentiate between meanings e.g. under the word ‘brand’, we have ‘1. pentewyn. 2. nod (gwarth). 3. math (o nwyddau, etc.)' – but what we don’t have is what exactly these three different meanings are in English.
One thing I like about this dictionary is the additional information that may be gleaned while looking for something else, e.g. it doesn’t just note the basic meanings of the verb ‘bwrw’, but it goes on to give the expressions ‘bwrw amcan’ (‘to guess’), ‘bwrw eira’ (‘to snow’), ‘bwrw glaw’ (‘to rain), ‘bwrw prentisiaeth’ (‘to serve an apprencticeship’) and ‘bwrw’r Sul’ (‘to spend the weekend’). This is definitely a dictionary for the avid browser.
