A comprehensive modern Irish dictionary is to be compiled over the next five years.
The Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Éamon Ó Cuív, and Foras na Gaeilge chief executive, Mr Seosamh Mac Donncha, yesterday launched the first phase of the project.
Mr Mac Donncha said "an extremely experienced and capable team" which included British dictionary production company Lexicography Master Class and Irish academics would tackle the project.
He hoped this will be the "most sophisticated lexicography project in the world". The first phase of the project will assemble a "corpus" of over 30 million Irish and 25 million English words.
This will create an infrastructure on which the rest of the project will be based. In the initial phases, the public, the media and experts are asked to contribute directly with material and citations at www.focloir.ie.
The finished product will be available in both print format - as a "good sized desk dictionary" - and in electronic format, which will give more data. Ms Sue Atkins of Lexicography Master Class said that even faced with "watch-making terminology" they would find the word and put it in.