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Professor (Personal Chair) / Senior Editor of the University of Wales Dictionary
Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies (CAWCS)
Email: apo@cymru.ac.uk
Role in the University
Professor (Personal Chair) / Senior Editor of the University of Wales Dictionary
Background
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Professor Ann Parry Owen has been a member of the Centre’s staff since 1 October 1985, when the Centre was opened as part of the University of Wales. She was a Research Fellow on the ‘Poets of the Princes’ project (1985–93), editing poetry by the great twelfth-century poet Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr. In 1993 she was appointed leader of the ‘Poets of the Nobility’ project, which would produce 44 volumes of poetry over twenty years, as a result of fruitful collaboration between the Centre and staff from the Welsh departments of the universities. She recently deposited the whole Poetry of the Notility Series in the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol’s research repository, where they are freely available to download. In 2007 she was awarded a grant of nearly £900K by the AHRC to lead a team of researchers to re-edit the work of the important 15th-century poet, Guto’r Glyn. The project ran between 2008 and 2013 and its main output was the fully bilingual and innovative Guto’r Glyn Website. Since then Professor Parry Owen has been Co-Investigator on the ‘Cult of Saints in Wales’ project (re-editing the three major twelfth-century poems for the saints Dewi, Cadfan and Tysilio); ‘Sacred Landscapes of the Medieval Monasteries’ project; and ‘Poetry of Myrddin’ project. Since 2017 Professor Parry Owen has been Senior Editor on the University of Wales Dictionary and is particularly interested in the early history of words and the vocabulary of the poets. She is also particularly interested in Welsh historical lexicography, and recently published a study of a vast body of contemporary words recorded by the Flintshire scribe John Jones of Gellilyfdy in 1632–3 when he was incarcerated in the Fleet prison in London as a debtor. She is currently researching and transcribing the vast Latin͏–Welsh dictionary produced by the physician Thomas Wiliems of Trefriw in 1604͏–7; this dictionary, which laid the foundations for Welsh lexicography, is currently only available in manuscript (National Library of Wales, Peniarth 228). Professor Parry Owen is the Chief Editor of Studia Celtica and a member of the Editorial Board of the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) Library of Medieval Welsh Literature. She is also a member of the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Place-Names Standardisation Panel. |
Academic Interests
- Medieval Welsh poetry (from the 12th to the 15th century)
- Guto’r Glyn
- Welsh language and grammar
- John Jones, Gellilyfdy, and his lexical work
- Historical lexicography
- Manuscripts and scribes
Research Interests
- Welsh language and grammar
- Medieval Welsh poetry
- Creating digital editions and using technology for research
- Place-names
- Historical lexicography
- Manuscripts and palaeography
Publications
(Selection)
Geiriadura.cymru (a collection of short articles on historical aspects of the Welsh language)
‘Casglfa Ddirfawr o Eiriau Cymraeg, Henion a Newyddion’: Geiriadur Thomas Wiliems, Trefriw (c.1545–1622/3) yn LlGC Peniarth 228’, Llên Cymru, 47 (2024), 54–83.
Geirfâu’r Fflyd, 1632–1633: Casgliad John Jones, Gellilyfdy o Eiriau’r Cartref, Crefftau, Amaeth a Byd Natur (Caaerdydd: Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru, 2023), 540pp.
‘A–Z Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru: 100 mlynedd mewn 30 gair’, BBC Cymru Fyw, 20 September 2021
‘Enwau lleoedd a Beirdd y Tywysogion’, in Gareth A. Bevan, G. Angharad Fychan, Hywel Wyn Owen and Ann Parry Owen (eds.), Ar Drywydd Enwau Lleoedd: Casgliad o Ysgrifau i Anrhydeddu’r Athro Gwynedd O. Pierce ar ei Ben Blwydd yn Gant Oed / A Collection of Essays to Honour Professor Gwynedd O. Pierce on his Hundredth Birthday (Tal-y-bont: Y Lolfa, 2021)
‘Index of place-names in medieval Welsh poetry’, geiriadura.cymru (February 2021)
‘Canu i Ddewi’ by Gwynfardd Brycheiniog, ‘The Cult of Saints in Wales’ website (November 2020)
‘Canu Tysilio’ by Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr, ‘The Cult of Saints in Wales’ website (September 2019)
‘Canu i Gadfan’ by Llywelyn Fardd, ‘The Cult of Saints in Wales’ website (October 2018)
Plu porffor a chlog o fwng ceiliog: Cynddelw Brydydd Mawr a Guto’r Glyn, J. E. Caerwyn Williams and Mrs Gwen Williams Memorial Lecture 2015 (Aberystwyth, 2017)
‘Gramadeg Gwysanau: a fragment of a fourteenth-century Welsh bardic grammar’, in Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell (eds.), Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales (Oxford, 2016), pp. 181–20’
“An audacious man of beautiful words”: Ieuan Gethin (c.1390–c.1470)’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 34 (2014), 1–34
Gwaith Ieuan Gethin (Aberystwyth, 2013)
‘Golygiadau electronig: Gwefan Guto’r Glyn’, Tu Chwith (Spring 2013), 40–8
Editions of poems 103–18 by Guto’r Glyn (see www.gutorglyn.net) and General Editor of the website (2012)
‘Cywydd Gofyn Cloc gan Ddafydd ab Owain o Fargam ar ran Morys o Ardal y Fenni’, Llên Cymru, 35 (2012), 3–18
with William Linnard, ‘Horological Requests in Early Welsh Poems’, Antiquarian Horology, 33 (September 2012), 631–6
‘Gramadeg Gwysanau (Archifdy Sir y Fflint, D/GW 2082)’, Llên Cymru, 33 (2010), 1–31