page_title: Irish lexicography
section_title: 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: Irish lexicography / 21st century
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Academy House
context_page_description: Lexicography evolved in order to serve one of two needs i.e. in order to explain in a simple way difficult words and expressions or in order to explain the words and expressions of one language in another. In this case we can trace the tradition of lexicography in Irish back to the 8th century.
context_section_description: The diversification of Irish lexicography has continued since the turn of the century, with an Irish-Spanish dictionary published by Coiscéim, an Irish-German dictionary published by Buske and an online Irish-Russian dictionary has been created by Alexey Shibakov, bringing the number of major European languages provided for to five. Meanwhile, of the other living Celtic languages the only one without an Irish dictionary is now Cornish thanks to the work of Kevin Scannell in creating dictionaries for the other Gaelic languages and of Joe Mitchell who has created a Welsh-Irish dictionary.
  The internet has notably become a far greater medium for dictionaries since the turn of the century. Ó Dónaill and de Bhaldraithe's bilingual dictionaries and the monolingual Foclóir Beag can be searched for free online and Foras na Gaeilge's New English-Irish Dictionary is available exclusively electronically, as is the national terminology database provided by Fiontar in DCU. Intergaelic, a resource for speakers of Gaelic languages is provided by Kevin Scannell and Michal Boleslav Měchura. The Royal Irish Academy also republished their comprehensive dictionary of early Irish online as the eDIL and work is ongoing on a comprehensive historical dictionary of Irish covering the period 1600-2000.
  Those great lexicographers who practiced lexicography in Irish were for the most part learned men who had a particular love for Irish. The precise methodologies employed by most of them remain unknown to us. They had no hesitancy, however, in borrowing from dictionaries that already existed. This point has been skillfully shown with no little humour in many articles written by one of the great lexicographers of the 20th century, Tomás de Bhaldraithe. In general their research and use of pre-existing sources greatly increased the value and scope of their work. They sometimes erred in selection of specific word versions which they gleaned from their sources, however. On other occasions one cannot be sure that it is not without a degree of humour that they chose to include certain comical versions. It is not clear whether ignorance or wit was responsible for the following examples from some of the aforementioned works – “giolla earbuill, a page or train-bearer”; “lachaim, I duck or dive”; “calaoiseach, a juggler”; “bol, a poet; a cow”. When in future appointing a dictionary editor perhaps the job description should state that a “siollaire” is required – “siollaire, a scanner of every word, a carper, a dictator; a beater, striker, smiter, a dexterous harper also a good singer; siollaire mná, a strong comely woman” – those are the descriptions found in some of the dictionaries for a person deemed a “siollaire”. It will be interesting to note how the word “siollaire will be employed by those lexicographers who come after us. In any case the journey of over one thousand two hundred years travelled by Irish lexicography from the glossist of Würzburg to the new Foras na Gaeilge dictionary is one of which we can be justifiably proud.
caption: Headquarters of the RIA, which is engaged in long-running lexicographical projects.
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