The CorCenCC project (Corpws Cenedlaethol Cymraeg Cyfoes – the National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh), is creating a major language resource for Welsh speakers, Welsh learners, Welsh language researchers, and indeed anyone who is interested in the Welsh language. Multiple language samples will be gathered from real-life communication, and presented in a searchable online ‘corpus’, allowing users to explore Welsh as it is actually used. To find out more about CorCenCC, click to view the video below:
CorCenCC is a community driven project. Welsh speakers from all kinds of backgrounds, of all abilities, can get involved in the project by:
- sharing their Welsh language with us, in the form of spoken, written, or electronic language such as SMS messages, blogs, websites and e-mails
- helping us to categorise materials held in the corpus
- contributing to our discussion forum
The project is offering all users of Welsh an opportunity to be proactive in contributing to a Welsh language resource that will be useful to us, and to generations to come.
Here’s what our CorCenCC ambassadors say:
“I’m delighted to support the National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh…a free, online Welsh language resource that will be a rich source of information for creative artists, software developers, translators, learners, teachers, policy makers, and anyone wanting to engage with the complexity, versatility and beauty of real, living, Welsh.” Cerys Matthews
“This project takes our knowledge and use of Welsh to a new level. The corpus will include examples of Welsh from all domains: from the rugby pitch and the TV studio, to political speeches and academic text books. At last, learners, dictionary makers, broadcasters and all of us who use the language every day will have a record of real life language which will help us to see how modern Welsh is actually used.” Nigel Owens
“The project will provide us with real insight into how our language is evolving and how we use it. It is a window into our beautiful, rich, exquisite, poetic, ancient language, giving us a real depth of understanding and insight into our future. We will learn about how we use sentence structures and patterns, mutations, slang, text talk and e-mail, how we abbreviate, what we say and how we say it. In my opinion this work is of real historic importance, not only linguistically but as a record of our essence as a nation and our place in the world.” Nia Parry
“CorCenCC alliterates; it is all about interconnection. A collaboration between crowds and colleges, its goal of a corpus that reflects our multimodal lives and our many identities will offer a lens on the live conditions of Welsh. It will bring together all users of the language as equal partners. It is a necessary project: from streetwelsh to webwelsh, it will reveal more than words can say.” Damian Walford Davies