Aberdaron was born in 1780 in the coastal town of
Aberdaron with the herbalist
Alice Griffith as midwife. He had little or no formal education, but was reputed to have taught himself 14 or 15 languages, both ancient and modern, including Latin at the age of 11. Aberdaron's Welsh, Greek and Hebrew dictionary is now kept at
St Asaph Cathedral. He is buried in the parish church of
St Asaph, north
Wales.
William Roscoe, the writer, wrote a
Memoir of him and the
Welsh poet R. S. Thomas, who was once the vicar of
Aberdaron, wrote a poem about him, simply titled
Dic Aberdaron.
T. H. Parry-Williams wrote a somewhat different poem with the same title in Welsh, stressing his eccentricity and the pointlessness of his learning, since he never appears to have used any of his languages, but concludes: "Chwarae-teg i Dic – nid yw pawb yn gwirioni'r un fath" (Fair play to Dic – not everybody is silly in the same way). ==Notes==