1.2 A National Corpus of Contemporary Welsh: Context and Vision

In 2017, Welsh Government (WG) published an ambitious vision: to achieve a million Welsh speakers by 2050, almost doubling current numbers. The initial workplan to realise this aim, which includes a section on linguistic infrastructure, undertakes (by 2021) to: ‘support the production of more high-quality lexicographical, corpus and terminology resources to support learners and fluent speakers’ (Welsh Government, 2017). While the conceptualisation and commencement of the CorCenCC project pre-dated the publication of this WG plan, both result from – and contribute to – interest in building momentum for using Welsh with new technologies. Although the CorCenCC project is independent of WG, continued dialogue between the two entities has been a key feature of the project. From the hosting, at the Senedd (Welsh parliament), of the first briefing to potential stakeholders about the CorCenCC vision, regular meetings with WG through the project have focussed attention on how CorCenCC can inform the corpus planning efforts which must underpin the realisation of the Cymraeg 2050: A Million Speakers strategy.