About the Book
A Welsh-English/English-Welsh Dictionary for use in school, the home and office, comprising over 20,000 words and idioms, examples and definitions, together with useful notes on Welsh grammar for Welsh Learners. First published 2001.
Review :
English review follows
Nid yw’r llyfr hwn yn datgelu pwy yw’r golygydd, Edwin C. Lewis, na beth yw ei gymwysterau. Mae’r llyfr yn hynod o debyg i’r Geiriadur Mawr (gol. H. Meurig Evans a W.O.Thomas) a gyhoeddwyd ar y cyd gan Christopher Davies a Gwasg Gomer am y tro cyntaf ym 1958, llyfr sydd wedi bod mewn print byth oddi ar hynny, ac efallai fod cysylltiad rhwng y ddau. Disgrifir Edwin C. Lewis fel golygydd Y Geiriadur Cryno, ond nid oes esboniad am beth oedd ei ran yn y gwaith. Ymddangosodd y llyfr hwn am y tro cyntaf yn 2001. Er hynny, mae’n darparu map o Gymru sydd yn dangos yr hen siroedd a oedd wedi hen ddiflannu erbyn y flwyddyn honno.
Mae trefn y llyfr presennol yn dilyn yr hen eiriadur bron ym mhob manylyn, gyda rhai ychwanegiadau megis nifer o atodiadau ar sut i ynganu’r Gymraeg, gramadeg cryno, ynghyd â nodiadau ar y berfau, yr ansoddeiriau, y rhagenwau personol, yr arddodiaid, a’r treigladau. Ond yn y bôn geiriadur sylfaenol sydd yma, gyda’r ddwy ran arferol, sef Cymraeg-Saesneg a Saesneg-Cymraeg.
Amcan y llyfr clawr papur hwn yw ‘cwrdd ag anghenion ysgolion, colegau a gwerin ddiwylliedig yr unfed ganrif ar hugain’. Ceir ynddo dros 20,000 o brifeiriau, ffurfiau lluosog, diffiniadau, enghreifftiau eglurhaol, idiomau, termau treigledig, ac yn y blaen. Yn ddiau, mae e’n addas ar gyfer disgyblion yr ysgolion uwchradd, gan ei fod yn cynnwys cyn lleied â phosibl o dermau technegol a gramadegol. Yn wir, yn union fel yr hen Geiriadur Mawr, trefn syml sydd gan y llyfr hwn, gan ei fod i bob pwrpas yn ddim ond rhestr o eiriau gyda’r geiriau cyfatebol yn yr iaith arall. Rhaid dweud, serch hynny, bod rhai o’r diffiniadau yn taro dyn yn chwithig dros ben, er enghraifft ‘gwrteithio . . . a manuring, dunging cultivation’.
Mae pris y llyfr yn eithaf rhesymol, ond mae safon yr argraffwaith yn siomedig a’r print yn rhy fach.
Meic Stephens
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This book does not reveal the identity of its editor, Edwin C. Lewis, nor what his qualifications are. The book is remarkably similar to Y Geiriadur Mawr (ed. H. Meurig Evans and W. O. Thomas) which was first published jointly by Christopher Davies and Gomer Press in 1958, a work which has been in print ever since, and perhaps there is a connection between the two.
Edwin C. Lewis is described as editor of Y Geiriadur Cryno but there is no explanation of what his part in the work has been. The book was first published in 2001. Nevertheless, it includes a map of Wales which shows the old counties which had disappeared long before that year.
The arrangement of the present work follows the old dictionary in almost every detail, with a few additions such as a number of appendices on how to pronounce Welsh, a concise grammar, and notes on the verbs, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions and the mutations. But what we have here in essence is a basic dictionary, with the two usual parts, namely a Welsh-English section and an English-Welsh.
The aim of this paperback is ‘to cater for the needs of schools, colleges and the general public of the twenty-first century’. It includes more than 20,000 headwords, plural forms, definitions, illustrative examples, idiomatic usage, mutated forms, and so on. The book is doubtless suitable for use by pupils in secondary schools, since it employs as few technical and grammatical terms as possible. Indeed, exactly like Y Geiriadur Mawr, this book has a simple arrangement, because to all intents and purposes it is only a list of words with their equivalents in the other language. Even so, it must be said that some of the definitions strike the reader as very clumsy, for example ‘gwrteithio . . . a manuring, dunging cultivation.’
The book is reasonably priced, but the quality of the press-work leaves something to be desired and the print is too small.
