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'Chinese dictionaries' date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important. For additional information, see Jerry Norman (1988:170-180) for an overview or Paul Fu-mien Yang (1985) for a scholarly bibliography.
Chinese dichotomizes dictionaries for written and spoken forms; ''zidian'' "character/logograph dictionary" and ''cidian'' "word/phrase dictionary". For character dictionaries, ''zidian'' () combines ''zi'' ( "character, graph; letter, script, writing; word") and ''dian'' ( "dictionary, encyclopedia; standard, rule; statute, canon; classical allusion"). For word dictionaries, ''cidian'' is interchangeably written (/辞典; ''cídiǎn''; ''tz'u-tien''; "word dictionary") or (/词典; ''cídiǎn''; ''tz'u-tien''; "word dictionary"); using ''cí'' (; "word, speech; phrase, expression; diction, phraseology; statement; a kind of poetic prose; depart; decline; resign"), and its graphic variant ''cí'' (; "word, term; expression, phrase; speech, statement; part of speech; a kind of tonal poetry"). ''Zidian'' is a much older and more common word than ''cidian'', and Yang (1985:xxii) notes ''zidian'' is often "used for both 'character dictionary' and 'word dictionary'."
The precursors of Chinese dictionaries are primers designed for children to learn Chinese characters. The earliest of them only survive in fragments or quotations within Chinese classic texts. For example, the ''Shi Zhou Pian'' (史籀篇 "Compilation by Historian Zhou") was supposedly written by Shi Zhou, a scribe or historian in the court of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827 BCE- 782 BCE), and is associated with the Large seal script. Or, the ''Cang Jie Pian'' (倉頡篇 "Compilation by Cang Jie"), named after the legendary inventor of writing, was edited by Li Si, and helped to standardize the Small seal script during the Qin Dynasty.
The collation or lexicographical order of a dictionary depends upon its writing system. For a language written in an alphabet or syllabary, dictionaries are usually ordered alphabetically. Samuel Johnson, who held a low opinion of the Chinese writing system,[1] defined "dictionary" in his dictionary as "a book containing the words of any language in alphabetical order, with explanations of their meaning." But for a language like Chinese that is written with characters or logographs, how can a dictionary be internally arranged? The Chinese developed three original systems for lexicographical ordering: semantic categories, graphic components, and pronunciations.
The first system of dictionary organization is by semantic categories. The circa 3rd century BCE ''Erya'' (爾雅 "Approaching Correctness") is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary, and scholarship reveals that it is a pre-Qin compilation of glosses to classical texts. It contains lists of synonyms arranged into 19 semantic categories (e.g., "Explaining Plants," "Explaining Trees"). The Han Dynasty dictionary ''Xiao Erya'' (小爾雅 "Little Erya") reduces these 19 to 13 chapters. The early 3rd century CE ''Guangya'' (廣雅 "Expanded Erya"), from the Northern Wei Dynasty, followed the ''Erya's original 19 chapters. The circa 1080 CE ''Piya'' (埤雅 "Increased Erya"), from the Song Dynasty, has 8 semantically-based chapters of names for plants and animals. For a dictionary user wanting to look up a character, this arbitrary semantic system is inefficient unless one already knows, or can guess, the meaning.
Two other Han Dynasty lexicons are loosely organized by semantics. The 1st century CE ''Fangyan'' (方言 "Regional Speech") is the world's oldest known dialectal dictionary. The circa 200 CE ''Shiming'' (釋名 "Explaining Names") employs paranomastic glosses to define words.
The second system of dictionary organization is by recurring graphic components or radicals. The famous 100-121 CE ''Shuowen Jiezi'' (說文解字 "Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters") arranged characters through a system of 540 ''bushou'' (部首 "section header") radicals. The 543 CE ''Yupian'' (玉篇 "Jade Chapters"), from the Liang Dynasty, rearranged them into 542. The 1615 CE ''Zihui'' (字彙 "Character Glossary"), edited by Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚) during the Ming Dynasty, simplified the 540 ''Shuowen Jiezi'' radicals to 214. It also originated the "radical-stroke" scheme of ordering characters on the number of residual graphic strokes besides the radical. The 1627 ''Zhengzitong'' (正字通 "Correct Character Mastery") also used 214. The 1716 CE ''Kangxi Zidian'' (康熙字典 "Kangxi Dictionary"), compiled under the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, became the standard dictionary for Chinese characters, and popularized the system of 214 radicals. As most Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic ones (形聲字), the radical method is usually effective, thus it continues to be widely used in the present day. However, sometimes the radical of a character is not obvious. To compensate this, a "Chart of Characters that Are Difficult to Look up" (難檢字表), arranged by the number of strokes of the characters, is usually provided.
The third system of lexicographical ordering is by character pronunciation. This type of dictionary collates its entries by syllable rime and tones, and comprises the so-called "rime dictionary". The first surviving rime dictionary is the 601 CE ''Qieyun'' (切韻 "Cutting [Spelling] Rimes") from the Sui Dynasty; it became the standard of pronunciation for Middle Chinese. During the Song Dynasty, it was expanded into the 1011 CE ''Guangyun'' (廣韻 "Expanded Rimes") and the 1037 CE ''Jiyun'' (集韻 "Collected Rimes").
The clear problem with these old phonetically arranged dictionary is that the would-be user needs to have the knowledge of rime. Thus, dictionaries collated this way can only serve the literati.
A great number of modern dictionaries published today arrange their entries by pinyin or other methods of romanisation, together with a radicals index. Some of these pinyin dictionaries also contain indices of the characters arranged by number and order of strokes, by the four corner encoding (四角碼) or by the cangjie encoding (倉頡碼).
Some dictionaries employ more than one of these three methods of collation. For example, the ''Longkan Shoujian'' (龍龕手鑑) of the Liao Dynasty uses radicals, which are grouped by tone. The characters under each radical are also grouped by tone.
While we can classify the ancient Chinese dictionaries according to the method of collation they employ, we can also classify them by their functions. In the imperial collection ''Siku Quanshu'', under the tag of ''Xiaoxuelei'' (小學類 "Category of the Elementary Studies", which comprises linguistic works), the works are further divided into three types: ''Xungu'' (訓詁 "exegesis"), ''Zishu'' (字書 "character book") and ''Yunshu'' (韻書 "rime book").
The ''Xungu'' type comprises ''Erya'' and its descendants, which focus on the meaning of words.
The ''Zishu'' type comprises ''Shuowen Jiezi'', ''Yupian'', ''Zihui'', ''Zhengzitong'', and ''Kangxi Zidian''. This type of dictionary focuses on the shape and structure of the characters. Thus, it also comprises the "orthography dictionary", such as the ''Ganlu Zishu'' (干祿字書) of the Tang Dynasty, and the "script dictionary", such as the ''Liyun'' (隸韻) of the Song Dynasy. Though focusing on the graphic properties of the characters, this type of dictonary does not necessarily collate the characters by radical. For instance, ''Liyun'' is a clerical script dictionary collated by tone and rime.
The ''Yunshu'' type focuses on the pronunication of the characters. They are always collated by rimes.
While the above traditional pre-20th century Chinese dictionaries focused upon the meanings and pronunciations of words in classical texts, they practically ignored the spoken language and vernacular literature.
The ''Kangxi Zidian'' served as the standard Chinese dictionary for generations, is still published and is now online. Contemporary lexicography is divisible between bilingual and monolingual Chinese dictionaries.
The foreigners who entered China in late Ming and Qing Dynasties needed dictionaries for different purposes than native speakers. Wanting to learn Chinese, they compiled the first grammar and bilingual dictionaries. Westerners adapted the Latin alphabet to represent Chinese pronunciation, and arranged their dictionaries accordingly.
Two Bible translators edited early Chinese dictionaries. The Scottish missionary Robert Morrison wrote Chinese-English and English-Chinese lexicons (1815-1823). The British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst wrote Hokkien (Min Nan) dialect (1832) and Chinese-English (1842) dictionaries. Both were flawed in their representation of pronunciations, such as aspirated stops. The American philologist and diplomat Samuel Wells Williams applied the method of dialect comparison in his dictionary (1874), and refined distinctions in articulation.
The British diplomat and linguist Herbert Giles compiled a lexicon (1892, 1912) that Norman (1988:173) calls "the first truly adequate Chinese-English dictionary". It contained 13,848 characters and numerous compound expressions, with pronunciation based upon Beijing Mandarin, which it compared with nine southern dialects such as Hakka, Cantonese, and Min. Giles modified the Chinese romanization system of Thomas Francis Wade to create the Wade-Giles system, which was standard in the West until 1979 when pinyin was adopted. The American missionary Robert H. Mathews updated and condensed Giles for his (1931, 1943) Chinese-English dictionary, which was popular for decades.
Trained in American Structural linguistics, Yuen Ren Chao and Lien-sheng Yang wrote a dictionary of colloquial Chinese (1947) that emphasized the spoken rather than the written language. Main entries were listed in Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and they detailed grammatical topics like free morphemes and bound morphemes.
The Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren wrote the seminal (1957) ''Grammata Serica Recensa'' with his reconstructed pronunciations for Middle Chinese and Old Chinese.
Chinese lexicography advanced during the 1970s. The translator Lin Yutang wrote a semantically sophisticated dictionary (1972) that is now available online. The author Liang Shiqiu edited two full-scale dictionaries: Chinese-English (Liang and Fang 1971) with over 8,000 characters and 100,000 entries, and English-Chinese (Liang 1975) with over 160,000 entries.
The linguist and professor of Chinese, John DeFrancis edited a groundbreaking Chinese-English dictionary (1996) giving more than 196,000 entries alphabetically arranged in a single-sort pinyin order.
When the Republic of China began in 1912, educators and scholars recognized the need to update the 1716 ''Kangxi Zidian''. It was thoroughly revised in the (1915) ''Zhonghua Da Zidian'' (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"), which corrected over 4,000 ''Kangxi Zidian'' mistakes and added more than 1,000 new characters. Lu Erkui's (1915) ''Ci Yuan'' (辭源 "Sources of Words") was a groundbreaking effort in Chinese lexicography and can be considered the first ''cidian'' "word dictionary".
Shu Xincheng's (1936) ''Cihai'' (辭海 "Sea of Words") was a comprehensive dictionary of characters and expressions, and provided near-encyclopedic coverage in fields like science, philosophy, history. The ''Cihai'' remains a popular dictionary and has been frequently revised.
The (1937) ''Guoyu cidian'' (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language") was a four-volume dictionary of words, designed to standardize modern pronunciation. The main entries were characters listed phonologically by Zhuyin Fuhao and Gwoyeu Romatzyh. For example, the title in these systems is ㄍㄨㄛㄩ ㄘㄉ一ㄢ and Gwoyeu tsyrdean.
Wei Jiangong's (1953) ''Xinhua Zidian'' (新华字典 "New China Character Dictionary") is a pocket-sized reference, alphabetically arranged by pinyin. It is the world's most popular dictionary, and the 10th edition was published in 2004.
Lu Shuxiang's (1973) ''Xiandai Hanyu cidian'' (现代汉语词典 "Contemporary Chinese Dictionary") is a middle-sized dictionary of words. It is arranged by characters, alphabetized by pinyin, which list compounds and phrases, with a total 56,000 entries (expanded to 65,000 in the 2005 edition). Both the ''Xinhua zidian'' and the ''Xiandai Hanyu cidian'' followed a simplified scheme of 189 radicals.
Two outstanding achievements in contemporary Chinese lexicography are the (1986-93) ''Hanyu Da Cidian'' (漢語大詞典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Words") with over 370,000 word and phrase entries listed under 23,000 different characters; and the (1986-89) ''Hanyu Da Zidian'' (漢語大字典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters") with 54,678 head entries for characters. They both use a system of 200 radicals.
In recent years, the computerization of Chinese has allowed lexicographers to create ''dianzi cidian'' (電子詞典/电子词典 "electronic dictionaries") usable on computers, PDAs, etc. There are proprietary systems, such as Wenlin Software for learning Chinese, and there are also free dictionaries available online. Paul Denisowski started the volunteer CEDICT (Chinese-English dictionary) project in 1997. It has grown into a standard reference, and many Internet dictionaries of Chinese are based on CEDICT. It is included in the Unihan Database.
The 20th century saw the rapid progress of the studies of the lexicons found in the Chinese vernacular literature, which includes novels, dramas and poetry. Important works in the field include:
★ Zhang Xiang 張相, ''Shiciqu Yuci Huishi'' (詩詞曲語辭匯釋 "Compilation and Explanations of the Colloquial Terms Found in Classical Poetry and Dramas"). Pioneering work in the field, completed in 1945 but published posthumously in 1954 in
Shanghai by Zhonghua Book Company. Many reprints.
★ Jiang Lihong 蔣禮鴻, ''Dunhuang Bianwen Ziyi Tongshi'' (敦煌變文字義通釋 "A Comprehensive Glossary of the Special Terms Found in the Genre of Dunhuang Bianwen"), revised and enlarged edition with supplements. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. 1997. First published 1962.
★ Wang Ying 王锳, ''Shiciqu Yuci Lishi'' (诗词曲语辞例释 "Explanations of the Colloquial Terms Found in Classical Poetry and Dramas, Illustrated by Examples"), 2nd revised and enlarged edition. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 2005. First published 1980.
★ Gu Xuejie 顧學頡 & Wang Xueqi 王學奇, ''Yuanqu Shici'' (元曲釋詞 "Explanation of the Special Terms Found in the Yuan Operas"). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. 1983-1990. 4 volumes.
★ Wang Ying 王锳, ''Tangsong Biji Yuci Huishi'' (唐宋笔记语辞汇释 "Compilation and Explanations of the Colloquial Terms Found in the Biji of the Tang and Song Dynasties"), revised edition. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 2001. First published 1990.
★ Wang Ying 王锳, ''Songyuanming Shiyu Huishi'' (宋元明市语汇释 "Compilation and Explanations of the Jargon and Slang used in the Song and Yuan Dynasties"). Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe. 1997.
★ Fang Linggui 方龄贵, ''Gudian Xiqu Wailaiyu Kaoshi Cidian'' (古典戏曲外來语考释词典 "A Dictionary of Loanwords in Classical Dramas of China"). Shanghai: Hanyu da cidian chubanshe; Kunming: Yunnan daxue chubanshe. 2001. First published in 1991 as ''Yuanming Xiqu Zhong De Mengguyu'' (元明戲曲中的蒙古語 "Mongolian Expressions in Yuan and Ming Dramas") by Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian chubanshe. Covering mainly the loanwords form Mongolian.
A small number of foreign words found their way into Chinese during the Han Dynasty after Zhang Qian's exploration of the Western Regions. A great deal of Buddhist terms entered Chinese after the Southern and Northern Dynasties, when the religion began to flourish in China. During the late 19th century, when China's door was forced open by the West, a huge amount of loanwords, many through Japanese, entered Chinese. Many of them have become obsolete, while others an indispensable part of modern Chinese vocabulary.
★ Cen Qixiang 岑麒祥 ed. ''Hanyu Wailaiyu Cidian'' (汉语外来语词典 "Dictionary of Loanwords in Chinese"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1990.
★ Liu Zhengtan 劉正談 ... et al. ed. ''Hanyu Wailaici Cidian'' (漢語外來詞詞典 "Dictionary of Loanwords in Chinese"). Hong Kong: Commercial Press; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe. 1985.
★ Chao, Yuen Ren and Yang, Lien-sheng, eds. ''Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1947. ISBN 0-674-12350-6
★ DeFrancis, John, ed. ''The ABC [Alphabetically Based Computerized] Chinese-English Dictionary''. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1996. ISBN 0-8248-2766-X
★ Giles, Herbert A., ed. ''A Chinese-English Dictionary''. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1892. 2nd. ed. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1912.
★ Hanyu da zidian bianji weiyuanhui 汉语大字典编辑委员会, eds. ''Hanyu da zidian'' (汉语大字典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters"). 8 vols. Wuhan: Hubei cishu chubanshe. 1986-1989.
★ Hixson, Sandra and James Mathias. (1975). ''A Compilation of Chinese Dictionaries''. New Haven: Far Eastern Publications.
★ Karlgren, Bernhard, ed. ''Grammata Serica Recensa''. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. 1957.
★ Liang Shiqiu [Liang Shih-chiu] 梁實秋, ed. ''Far East English-Chinese Dictionary''. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1975. ISBN 957-612-041-1
★ Liang Shiqiu and Zhang Fangjie [Chang Fang-chieh] 張芳杰, eds. ''Far East Chinese-English Dictionary''. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1971. ISBN 957-612-463-8
★ Lin Yutang, ed. ''Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage''. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1972.
★ Lu Erkui 陸爾奎, ed. ''Ciyuan'' (辭源 "Sources of Words"). Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1915. Rev. ed. 1939.
★ Lu Shuxiang 吕叔湘, ed. ''Xiandai Hanyu cidian'' (现代汉语词典 "The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1973. ISBN 7-100-03477-9
★ Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風, ed. ''Hanyu da cidian'' (汉语大词典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese"). 12 vols. Shanghai: Cishu chubanshe. 1986-1994. ISBN 7-5432-0013-9
★ Mathews, Robert H., ed. ''Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary''. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press. 1931. Rev. American ed. 1943. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
★ Mathias, James, Thomas Creamer, and Sandra Hixson. (1982). ''Chinese Dictionaries: An Extensive Bibliography of Dictionaries in Chinese and Other Languages''. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313235058
★ Medhurst, Walter, ed. ''A Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language: According to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms: Containing about 12,000 Characters'' Macao: East India Company. 1832. Reprint Ganesha. 2006. ISBN 1-86210-067-5
★ Medhurst, Walter, ed. ''Chinese and English dictionary: Containing all the words in the Chinese imperial dictionary, arranged according to the radicals''. Batavia: Parapattan. 1842.
★ Morrison, Robert, ed. ''A dictionary of the Chinese language.'' Macao: East India Company. 1815-1823. Part 1: ''Chinese and English arranged according to the radicals''; Part 2: ''Chinese and English arranged alphabetically''; Part 3: ''English and Chinese''.
★ Norman, Jerry. ''Chinese''. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1988. ISBN 0521296536
★ Shu Xincheng 舒新城, ed. ''Cihai'' (辭海 "Sea of Words"). 3 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1936.
★ Wei Jiangong 魏建功, ed. ''Xinhua zidian'' (新华字典 "New China Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1953. 10th rev. ed. Beijing: Commercial Press. 2004. ISBN 7-100-03931-2
★ Williams, Samuel, ed. ''A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, arranged according to the Wu-fang yuan yin, with the pronunciation of the characters as heard in Peking, Canton, Amoy and Shanghai''. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. 1874. Reprint Ganesha. 2001. ISBN 1-86210-021-7
★ Xu Yuan'gao 徐元誥, ed. ''Zhongwen Da Zidian'' (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"). 4 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1915.
★ Yang, Paul Fu-mien. ''Chinese Lexicology and Lexicography: A Selected and Classified Bibliography''. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. 1985. ISBN 962-201-312-0
★ Zhongguo cidian bianzuanchu 中國辭典編纂處, eds. ''Guoyu cidian'' (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language"). 8 vols. Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1937.
1. James Boswell reported that Johnson, in the year of 1778, told him that the Chinese "have not been able to form what all other nations have formed", referring to the alphabet. See his ''Life of Samuel Johnson'', Everyman's Library, 1992, p.865
★ CEDICT: Chinese-English Dictionary, Mandarintools
★ Chinese Characters Dictionary Web, Rick Harbaugh
★ Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, Chinese University of Hong Kong
★ 國語辭典, ''Guoyu cidian'' (in Chinese)
★ 康熙字典網上版, ''Kangxi zidian'' (in Chinese)
★
★ A brief history of Chinese lexicons, Dylan W.H. Sung
★ Chinese dictionaries, Open Directory Project
★ Research Tools for Chinese Studies - 2. Dictionaries, Fabrizio Pregadio
★ Several Important Chinese Dictionaries, ChinaCulture
★ Word Lists and Online Glossaries/Dictionaries, Marjorie Chan's ChinaLinks
Terminology
Chinese dichotomizes dictionaries for written and spoken forms; ''zidian'' "character/logograph dictionary" and ''cidian'' "word/phrase dictionary". For character dictionaries, ''zidian'' () combines ''zi'' ( "character, graph; letter, script, writing; word") and ''dian'' ( "dictionary, encyclopedia; standard, rule; statute, canon; classical allusion"). For word dictionaries, ''cidian'' is interchangeably written (/辞典; ''cídiǎn''; ''tz'u-tien''; "word dictionary") or (/词典; ''cídiǎn''; ''tz'u-tien''; "word dictionary"); using ''cí'' (; "word, speech; phrase, expression; diction, phraseology; statement; a kind of poetic prose; depart; decline; resign"), and its graphic variant ''cí'' (; "word, term; expression, phrase; speech, statement; part of speech; a kind of tonal poetry"). ''Zidian'' is a much older and more common word than ''cidian'', and Yang (1985:xxii) notes ''zidian'' is often "used for both 'character dictionary' and 'word dictionary'."
Traditional Chinese lexicography
The precursors of Chinese dictionaries are primers designed for children to learn Chinese characters. The earliest of them only survive in fragments or quotations within Chinese classic texts. For example, the ''Shi Zhou Pian'' (史籀篇 "Compilation by Historian Zhou") was supposedly written by Shi Zhou, a scribe or historian in the court of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827 BCE- 782 BCE), and is associated with the Large seal script. Or, the ''Cang Jie Pian'' (倉頡篇 "Compilation by Cang Jie"), named after the legendary inventor of writing, was edited by Li Si, and helped to standardize the Small seal script during the Qin Dynasty.
The collation or lexicographical order of a dictionary depends upon its writing system. For a language written in an alphabet or syllabary, dictionaries are usually ordered alphabetically. Samuel Johnson, who held a low opinion of the Chinese writing system,[1] defined "dictionary" in his dictionary as "a book containing the words of any language in alphabetical order, with explanations of their meaning." But for a language like Chinese that is written with characters or logographs, how can a dictionary be internally arranged? The Chinese developed three original systems for lexicographical ordering: semantic categories, graphic components, and pronunciations.
Semantically organized dictionaries
The first system of dictionary organization is by semantic categories. The circa 3rd century BCE ''Erya'' (爾雅 "Approaching Correctness") is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary, and scholarship reveals that it is a pre-Qin compilation of glosses to classical texts. It contains lists of synonyms arranged into 19 semantic categories (e.g., "Explaining Plants," "Explaining Trees"). The Han Dynasty dictionary ''Xiao Erya'' (小爾雅 "Little Erya") reduces these 19 to 13 chapters. The early 3rd century CE ''Guangya'' (廣雅 "Expanded Erya"), from the Northern Wei Dynasty, followed the ''Erya's original 19 chapters. The circa 1080 CE ''Piya'' (埤雅 "Increased Erya"), from the Song Dynasty, has 8 semantically-based chapters of names for plants and animals. For a dictionary user wanting to look up a character, this arbitrary semantic system is inefficient unless one already knows, or can guess, the meaning.
Two other Han Dynasty lexicons are loosely organized by semantics. The 1st century CE ''Fangyan'' (方言 "Regional Speech") is the world's oldest known dialectal dictionary. The circa 200 CE ''Shiming'' (釋名 "Explaining Names") employs paranomastic glosses to define words.
Graphically organized dictionaries
The second system of dictionary organization is by recurring graphic components or radicals. The famous 100-121 CE ''Shuowen Jiezi'' (說文解字 "Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters") arranged characters through a system of 540 ''bushou'' (部首 "section header") radicals. The 543 CE ''Yupian'' (玉篇 "Jade Chapters"), from the Liang Dynasty, rearranged them into 542. The 1615 CE ''Zihui'' (字彙 "Character Glossary"), edited by Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚) during the Ming Dynasty, simplified the 540 ''Shuowen Jiezi'' radicals to 214. It also originated the "radical-stroke" scheme of ordering characters on the number of residual graphic strokes besides the radical. The 1627 ''Zhengzitong'' (正字通 "Correct Character Mastery") also used 214. The 1716 CE ''Kangxi Zidian'' (康熙字典 "Kangxi Dictionary"), compiled under the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, became the standard dictionary for Chinese characters, and popularized the system of 214 radicals. As most Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic ones (形聲字), the radical method is usually effective, thus it continues to be widely used in the present day. However, sometimes the radical of a character is not obvious. To compensate this, a "Chart of Characters that Are Difficult to Look up" (難檢字表), arranged by the number of strokes of the characters, is usually provided.
Phonetically organized dictionaries
The third system of lexicographical ordering is by character pronunciation. This type of dictionary collates its entries by syllable rime and tones, and comprises the so-called "rime dictionary". The first surviving rime dictionary is the 601 CE ''Qieyun'' (切韻 "Cutting [Spelling] Rimes") from the Sui Dynasty; it became the standard of pronunciation for Middle Chinese. During the Song Dynasty, it was expanded into the 1011 CE ''Guangyun'' (廣韻 "Expanded Rimes") and the 1037 CE ''Jiyun'' (集韻 "Collected Rimes").
The clear problem with these old phonetically arranged dictionary is that the would-be user needs to have the knowledge of rime. Thus, dictionaries collated this way can only serve the literati.
A great number of modern dictionaries published today arrange their entries by pinyin or other methods of romanisation, together with a radicals index. Some of these pinyin dictionaries also contain indices of the characters arranged by number and order of strokes, by the four corner encoding (四角碼) or by the cangjie encoding (倉頡碼).
Some dictionaries employ more than one of these three methods of collation. For example, the ''Longkan Shoujian'' (龍龕手鑑) of the Liao Dynasty uses radicals, which are grouped by tone. The characters under each radical are also grouped by tone.
Classified by functions
While we can classify the ancient Chinese dictionaries according to the method of collation they employ, we can also classify them by their functions. In the imperial collection ''Siku Quanshu'', under the tag of ''Xiaoxuelei'' (小學類 "Category of the Elementary Studies", which comprises linguistic works), the works are further divided into three types: ''Xungu'' (訓詁 "exegesis"), ''Zishu'' (字書 "character book") and ''Yunshu'' (韻書 "rime book").
The ''Xungu'' type comprises ''Erya'' and its descendants, which focus on the meaning of words.
The ''Zishu'' type comprises ''Shuowen Jiezi'', ''Yupian'', ''Zihui'', ''Zhengzitong'', and ''Kangxi Zidian''. This type of dictionary focuses on the shape and structure of the characters. Thus, it also comprises the "orthography dictionary", such as the ''Ganlu Zishu'' (干祿字書) of the Tang Dynasty, and the "script dictionary", such as the ''Liyun'' (隸韻) of the Song Dynasy. Though focusing on the graphic properties of the characters, this type of dictonary does not necessarily collate the characters by radical. For instance, ''Liyun'' is a clerical script dictionary collated by tone and rime.
The ''Yunshu'' type focuses on the pronunication of the characters. They are always collated by rimes.
While the above traditional pre-20th century Chinese dictionaries focused upon the meanings and pronunciations of words in classical texts, they practically ignored the spoken language and vernacular literature.
Modern Chinese lexicography
The ''Kangxi Zidian'' served as the standard Chinese dictionary for generations, is still published and is now online. Contemporary lexicography is divisible between bilingual and monolingual Chinese dictionaries.
Chinese-English dictionaries
The foreigners who entered China in late Ming and Qing Dynasties needed dictionaries for different purposes than native speakers. Wanting to learn Chinese, they compiled the first grammar and bilingual dictionaries. Westerners adapted the Latin alphabet to represent Chinese pronunciation, and arranged their dictionaries accordingly.
Two Bible translators edited early Chinese dictionaries. The Scottish missionary Robert Morrison wrote Chinese-English and English-Chinese lexicons (1815-1823). The British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst wrote Hokkien (Min Nan) dialect (1832) and Chinese-English (1842) dictionaries. Both were flawed in their representation of pronunciations, such as aspirated stops. The American philologist and diplomat Samuel Wells Williams applied the method of dialect comparison in his dictionary (1874), and refined distinctions in articulation.
The British diplomat and linguist Herbert Giles compiled a lexicon (1892, 1912) that Norman (1988:173) calls "the first truly adequate Chinese-English dictionary". It contained 13,848 characters and numerous compound expressions, with pronunciation based upon Beijing Mandarin, which it compared with nine southern dialects such as Hakka, Cantonese, and Min. Giles modified the Chinese romanization system of Thomas Francis Wade to create the Wade-Giles system, which was standard in the West until 1979 when pinyin was adopted. The American missionary Robert H. Mathews updated and condensed Giles for his (1931, 1943) Chinese-English dictionary, which was popular for decades.
Trained in American Structural linguistics, Yuen Ren Chao and Lien-sheng Yang wrote a dictionary of colloquial Chinese (1947) that emphasized the spoken rather than the written language. Main entries were listed in Gwoyeu Romatzyh, and they detailed grammatical topics like free morphemes and bound morphemes.
The Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren wrote the seminal (1957) ''Grammata Serica Recensa'' with his reconstructed pronunciations for Middle Chinese and Old Chinese.
Chinese lexicography advanced during the 1970s. The translator Lin Yutang wrote a semantically sophisticated dictionary (1972) that is now available online. The author Liang Shiqiu edited two full-scale dictionaries: Chinese-English (Liang and Fang 1971) with over 8,000 characters and 100,000 entries, and English-Chinese (Liang 1975) with over 160,000 entries.
The linguist and professor of Chinese, John DeFrancis edited a groundbreaking Chinese-English dictionary (1996) giving more than 196,000 entries alphabetically arranged in a single-sort pinyin order.
Chinese-Chinese dictionaries
When the Republic of China began in 1912, educators and scholars recognized the need to update the 1716 ''Kangxi Zidian''. It was thoroughly revised in the (1915) ''Zhonghua Da Zidian'' (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"), which corrected over 4,000 ''Kangxi Zidian'' mistakes and added more than 1,000 new characters. Lu Erkui's (1915) ''Ci Yuan'' (辭源 "Sources of Words") was a groundbreaking effort in Chinese lexicography and can be considered the first ''cidian'' "word dictionary".
Shu Xincheng's (1936) ''Cihai'' (辭海 "Sea of Words") was a comprehensive dictionary of characters and expressions, and provided near-encyclopedic coverage in fields like science, philosophy, history. The ''Cihai'' remains a popular dictionary and has been frequently revised.
The (1937) ''Guoyu cidian'' (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language") was a four-volume dictionary of words, designed to standardize modern pronunciation. The main entries were characters listed phonologically by Zhuyin Fuhao and Gwoyeu Romatzyh. For example, the title in these systems is ㄍㄨㄛㄩ ㄘㄉ一ㄢ and Gwoyeu tsyrdean.
Wei Jiangong's (1953) ''Xinhua Zidian'' (新华字典 "New China Character Dictionary") is a pocket-sized reference, alphabetically arranged by pinyin. It is the world's most popular dictionary, and the 10th edition was published in 2004.
Lu Shuxiang's (1973) ''Xiandai Hanyu cidian'' (现代汉语词典 "Contemporary Chinese Dictionary") is a middle-sized dictionary of words. It is arranged by characters, alphabetized by pinyin, which list compounds and phrases, with a total 56,000 entries (expanded to 65,000 in the 2005 edition). Both the ''Xinhua zidian'' and the ''Xiandai Hanyu cidian'' followed a simplified scheme of 189 radicals.
Two outstanding achievements in contemporary Chinese lexicography are the (1986-93) ''Hanyu Da Cidian'' (漢語大詞典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Words") with over 370,000 word and phrase entries listed under 23,000 different characters; and the (1986-89) ''Hanyu Da Zidian'' (漢語大字典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters") with 54,678 head entries for characters. They both use a system of 200 radicals.
In recent years, the computerization of Chinese has allowed lexicographers to create ''dianzi cidian'' (電子詞典/电子词典 "electronic dictionaries") usable on computers, PDAs, etc. There are proprietary systems, such as Wenlin Software for learning Chinese, and there are also free dictionaries available online. Paul Denisowski started the volunteer CEDICT (Chinese-English dictionary) project in 1997. It has grown into a standard reference, and many Internet dictionaries of Chinese are based on CEDICT. It is included in the Unihan Database.
Specialized dictionaries
For vernacular literature
The 20th century saw the rapid progress of the studies of the lexicons found in the Chinese vernacular literature, which includes novels, dramas and poetry. Important works in the field include:
★ Zhang Xiang 張相, ''Shiciqu Yuci Huishi'' (詩詞曲語辭匯釋 "Compilation and Explanations of the Colloquial Terms Found in Classical Poetry and Dramas"). Pioneering work in the field, completed in 1945 but published posthumously in 1954 in
Shanghai by Zhonghua Book Company. Many reprints.
★ Jiang Lihong 蔣禮鴻, ''Dunhuang Bianwen Ziyi Tongshi'' (敦煌變文字義通釋 "A Comprehensive Glossary of the Special Terms Found in the Genre of Dunhuang Bianwen"), revised and enlarged edition with supplements. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe. 1997. First published 1962.
★ Wang Ying 王锳, ''Shiciqu Yuci Lishi'' (诗词曲语辞例释 "Explanations of the Colloquial Terms Found in Classical Poetry and Dramas, Illustrated by Examples"), 2nd revised and enlarged edition. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 2005. First published 1980.
★ Gu Xuejie 顧學頡 & Wang Xueqi 王學奇, ''Yuanqu Shici'' (元曲釋詞 "Explanation of the Special Terms Found in the Yuan Operas"). Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. 1983-1990. 4 volumes.
★ Wang Ying 王锳, ''Tangsong Biji Yuci Huishi'' (唐宋笔记语辞汇释 "Compilation and Explanations of the Colloquial Terms Found in the Biji of the Tang and Song Dynasties"), revised edition. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company. 2001. First published 1990.
★ Wang Ying 王锳, ''Songyuanming Shiyu Huishi'' (宋元明市语汇释 "Compilation and Explanations of the Jargon and Slang used in the Song and Yuan Dynasties"). Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe. 1997.
★ Fang Linggui 方龄贵, ''Gudian Xiqu Wailaiyu Kaoshi Cidian'' (古典戏曲外來语考释词典 "A Dictionary of Loanwords in Classical Dramas of China"). Shanghai: Hanyu da cidian chubanshe; Kunming: Yunnan daxue chubanshe. 2001. First published in 1991 as ''Yuanming Xiqu Zhong De Mengguyu'' (元明戲曲中的蒙古語 "Mongolian Expressions in Yuan and Ming Dramas") by Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian chubanshe. Covering mainly the loanwords form Mongolian.
For loanwords
A small number of foreign words found their way into Chinese during the Han Dynasty after Zhang Qian's exploration of the Western Regions. A great deal of Buddhist terms entered Chinese after the Southern and Northern Dynasties, when the religion began to flourish in China. During the late 19th century, when China's door was forced open by the West, a huge amount of loanwords, many through Japanese, entered Chinese. Many of them have become obsolete, while others an indispensable part of modern Chinese vocabulary.
★ Cen Qixiang 岑麒祥 ed. ''Hanyu Wailaiyu Cidian'' (汉语外来语词典 "Dictionary of Loanwords in Chinese"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1990.
★ Liu Zhengtan 劉正談 ... et al. ed. ''Hanyu Wailaici Cidian'' (漢語外來詞詞典 "Dictionary of Loanwords in Chinese"). Hong Kong: Commercial Press; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe. 1985.
References
★ Chao, Yuen Ren and Yang, Lien-sheng, eds. ''Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1947. ISBN 0-674-12350-6
★ DeFrancis, John, ed. ''The ABC [Alphabetically Based Computerized] Chinese-English Dictionary''. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1996. ISBN 0-8248-2766-X
★ Giles, Herbert A., ed. ''A Chinese-English Dictionary''. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1892. 2nd. ed. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh. 1912.
★ Hanyu da zidian bianji weiyuanhui 汉语大字典编辑委员会, eds. ''Hanyu da zidian'' (汉语大字典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters"). 8 vols. Wuhan: Hubei cishu chubanshe. 1986-1989.
★ Hixson, Sandra and James Mathias. (1975). ''A Compilation of Chinese Dictionaries''. New Haven: Far Eastern Publications.
★ Karlgren, Bernhard, ed. ''Grammata Serica Recensa''. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. 1957.
★ Liang Shiqiu [Liang Shih-chiu] 梁實秋, ed. ''Far East English-Chinese Dictionary''. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1975. ISBN 957-612-041-1
★ Liang Shiqiu and Zhang Fangjie [Chang Fang-chieh] 張芳杰, eds. ''Far East Chinese-English Dictionary''. Taipei: Far East Book Co. 1971. ISBN 957-612-463-8
★ Lin Yutang, ed. ''Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage''. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1972.
★ Lu Erkui 陸爾奎, ed. ''Ciyuan'' (辭源 "Sources of Words"). Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1915. Rev. ed. 1939.
★ Lu Shuxiang 吕叔湘, ed. ''Xiandai Hanyu cidian'' (现代汉语词典 "The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1973. ISBN 7-100-03477-9
★ Luo Zhufeng 羅竹風, ed. ''Hanyu da cidian'' (汉语大词典 "Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese"). 12 vols. Shanghai: Cishu chubanshe. 1986-1994. ISBN 7-5432-0013-9
★ Mathews, Robert H., ed. ''Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary''. Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press. 1931. Rev. American ed. 1943. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
★ Mathias, James, Thomas Creamer, and Sandra Hixson. (1982). ''Chinese Dictionaries: An Extensive Bibliography of Dictionaries in Chinese and Other Languages''. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313235058
★ Medhurst, Walter, ed. ''A Dictionary of the Hok-këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language: According to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms: Containing about 12,000 Characters'' Macao: East India Company. 1832. Reprint Ganesha. 2006. ISBN 1-86210-067-5
★ Medhurst, Walter, ed. ''Chinese and English dictionary: Containing all the words in the Chinese imperial dictionary, arranged according to the radicals''. Batavia: Parapattan. 1842.
★ Morrison, Robert, ed. ''A dictionary of the Chinese language.'' Macao: East India Company. 1815-1823. Part 1: ''Chinese and English arranged according to the radicals''; Part 2: ''Chinese and English arranged alphabetically''; Part 3: ''English and Chinese''.
★ Norman, Jerry. ''Chinese''. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1988. ISBN 0521296536
★ Shu Xincheng 舒新城, ed. ''Cihai'' (辭海 "Sea of Words"). 3 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1936.
★ Wei Jiangong 魏建功, ed. ''Xinhua zidian'' (新华字典 "New China Dictionary"). Beijing: Commercial Press. 1953. 10th rev. ed. Beijing: Commercial Press. 2004. ISBN 7-100-03931-2
★ Williams, Samuel, ed. ''A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language, arranged according to the Wu-fang yuan yin, with the pronunciation of the characters as heard in Peking, Canton, Amoy and Shanghai''. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. 1874. Reprint Ganesha. 2001. ISBN 1-86210-021-7
★ Xu Yuan'gao 徐元誥, ed. ''Zhongwen Da Zidian'' (中華大字典 "Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary"). 4 vols. Shanghai: Zhonghua. 1915.
★ Yang, Paul Fu-mien. ''Chinese Lexicology and Lexicography: A Selected and Classified Bibliography''. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. 1985. ISBN 962-201-312-0
★ Zhongguo cidian bianzuanchu 中國辭典編纂處, eds. ''Guoyu cidian'' (國語辭典 "Dictionary of the National Language"). 8 vols. Shanghai: Commercial Press. 1937.
Notes
1. James Boswell reported that Johnson, in the year of 1778, told him that the Chinese "have not been able to form what all other nations have formed", referring to the alphabet. See his ''Life of Samuel Johnson'', Everyman's Library, 1992, p.865
Online Chinese dictionaries
★ CEDICT: Chinese-English Dictionary, Mandarintools
★ Chinese Characters Dictionary Web, Rick Harbaugh
★ Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, Chinese University of Hong Kong
★ 國語辭典, ''Guoyu cidian'' (in Chinese)
★ 康熙字典網上版, ''Kangxi zidian'' (in Chinese)
See also
★
External links
★ A brief history of Chinese lexicons, Dylan W.H. Sung
★ Chinese dictionaries, Open Directory Project
★ Research Tools for Chinese Studies - 2. Dictionaries, Fabrizio Pregadio
★ Several Important Chinese Dictionaries, ChinaCulture
★ Word Lists and Online Glossaries/Dictionaries, Marjorie Chan's ChinaLinks
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