The regular script is the newest of the major Chinese script styles , emerging during the Three Kingdoms period c. 230 CE , and stylistically mature by the 7th century. It is the most common style used in modern text. In its traditional form it is the third-most common in publishing after the Ming and Gothic types used exclusively in print.
70-616: The 1615 Zìhuì is a Chinese dictionary edited by the Ming Dynasty scholar Mei Yingzuo ( 梅膺祚 ). It is renowned for introducing two lexicographical innovations that continue to be used in the present day: the 214-radical system for indexing Chinese characters, which replaced the classic Shuowen Jiezi dictionary's 540-radical system , and the radical-and-stroke sorting method. The dictionary title combines zì 字 "character; script; writing; graph; word" and huì 彙 "gather together; assemble; collection; list". Early forms of
140-522: A calligrapher in the state of Cao Wei (220–266), being credited as its first master, known as the father of regular script. His famous works include the Xuanshi biao ( 宣示表 ), Jianjizhi biao ( 薦季直表 ), and Liming biao ( 力命表 ). Palaeographer Qiu Xigui describes the script in Xuanshi biao as: ...clearly emerging from the womb of early period semi-cursive script. If one were to write
210-527: A comprehensive and integrated format that many subsequent Chinese dictionaries followed. Volume 1 contains the front matter , including Mei Yingzuo's preface dated 1615, style guide, and appendices. For instance, the "Sequences of Strokes" shows the correct stroke order , which is useful for students, "Ancient Forms" uses early Chinese script styles to explain the six Chinese character categories , and "Index of Difficult Characters" lists graphs whose radicals were difficult to identify. Volume 14 encompasses
280-466: A dictionary generally depends upon its writing system . For a language written in an alphabet or syllabary , dictionaries are usually ordered alphabetically. Samuel Johnson defined dictionary as "a book containing the words of any language in alphabetical order, with explanations of their meaning" in his dictionary . But Johnson's definition cannot be applied to the Chinese dictionaries, as Chinese
350-583: A few foreign wailaici ( 外來詞 / 外来词 " loanwords ") during the Han dynasty , especially after Zhang Qian 's exploration of the Western Regions . The lexicon absorbed many Buddhist terms and concepts when Chinese Buddhism began to flourish in the Southern and Northern dynasties . During the late 19th century, when Western powers forced open China's doors, numerous loanwords entered Chinese, many through
420-520: A few representative fields. Dictionaries of Ancient Chinese give definitions, in Modern Chinese, of characters and words found in the pre-Modern (before 1911) Chinese literature. They are typically organized by pinyin or by Zihui radicals, and give definitions in order of antiquity (most ancient to most recent) when several definitions exist. Quotes from the literature exemplifying each listed meaning are given. Quotes are usually chosen from
490-436: A foreign language . These specialized Chinese dictionaries are available either as add-ons to existing publications like Yuan's 2004 Pocket Dictionary and Wenlin or as specific ones like Victor H. Mair lists eight adverse features of traditional Chinese lexicography, some of which have continued up to the present day: (1) persistent confusion of spoken word with written graph; (2) lack of etymological science as opposed to
560-418: A number of methods to order and sort characters to facilitate more convenient reference. Chinese dictionaries have been published for over two millennia, beginning in the Han dynasty . This is the longest lexicographical history of any language. In addition to works for Mandarin Chinese , beginning with the 1st-century CE Fangyan dictionaries also been created for the many varieties of Chinese . One of
630-585: 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 ("New China Character Dictionary")
700-680: 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 or by the cangjie encoding . Some dictionaries employ more than one of these three methods of collation. For example, the Longkan Shoujian of the Liao dynasty uses radicals, which are grouped by tone. The characters under each radical are also grouped by tone. Besides categorizing ancient Chinese dictionaries by their methods of collation, they can also be classified by their functions. In
770-590: A repository of late Qing documentary Chinese, although there is little or no indication of the citations, mainly from the Kangxi Zidian [ Kangxi Dictionary ]." Giles modified the Chinese romanization system of Thomas Francis Wade to create the Wade-Giles system, which was standard in English speaking countries until 1979 when pinyin was adopted. The Giles dictionary was replaced by the 1931 dictionary of
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#1732773015222840-517: A standard reference database. The CEDICT is the basis for many Internet dictionaries of Chinese, and is included in the Unihan Database . Chinese publishing houses print diverse types of zhuanke cidian ( 專科詞典 / 专科词典 " specialized dictionary "). One Chinese dictionary bibliography lists over 130 subject categories, from "Abbreviations, Accounting" to "Veterinary, Zoology." The following examples are limited to specialized dictionaries from
910-455: A straightforward way find a term whose pronunciation is known rather than searching by radical or character structure, the latter being a 2-tiered approach. This project had long been advocated by another pinyin proponent, Victor H. Mair . When the Republic of China began in 1912, educators and scholars recognized the need to update the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary . It was thoroughly revised in
980-573: A style of calligraphy like that in the "Xuān shì biǎo". However, very few wrote in this script at the time other than a few literati; most continued writing in the neo-clerical script, or a hybrid form of semi-cursive and neo-clerical. The regular script did not become dominant until the 5th century during the early Northern and Southern period (420–589); there was a variety of the regular script which emerged from neo-clerical as well as regular scripts known as ' Wei regular' ( 魏楷 ; Wèikǎi ) or 'Wei stele' ( 魏碑 ; Wèibēi ). Thus,
1050-512: 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. After Paul Denisowski started the volunteer CEDICT (Chinese–English dictionary) project in 1997, it has grown into
1120-524: Is a much older and more common word than cidian , and Yang notes zidian is often "used for both 'character dictionary' and 'word dictionary'. The precursors of Chinese dictionaries are primers designed for students of Chinese characters. The earliest of them only survive in fragments or quotations within Chinese classic texts . For example, the Shizhoupian was compiled by one or more historians in
1190-421: Is a pocket-sized reference, alphabetically arranged by pinyin. It is the world's most popular reference work . The 11th edition was published in 2011. Lü Shuxiang 's (1973) Xiandai Hanyu Cidian ("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 70,000 in
1260-487: Is by semantic categories. The circa 3rd-century BCE Erya ("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 ("Little Erya") reduces these 19 to 13 chapters. The early 3rd century CE Guangya ("Expanded Erya"), from
1330-429: Is interchangeably written ( 辭典 / 辞典 ; cídiǎn ; tzʻŭ²-tien³ ; "word dictionary") or ( 詞典 / 词典 ; cídiǎn ; tzʻŭ²-tien³ ; "word dictionary"); using cí ( 辭 ; "word, speech; phrase, expression; diction, phraseology; statement; a kind of poetic prose; depart; decline; resign"), and its graphic variant cí ( 詞 ; "word, term; expression, phrase; speech, statement; part of speech; a kind of tonal poetry"). Zidian
1400-507: Is now available online. The author Liang Shih-Chiu edited two full-scale dictionaries: Chinese-English with over 8,000 characters and 100,000 entries, and English-Chinese with over 160,000 entries. The linguist and professor of Chinese John DeFrancis edited the ABC Chinese–English Dictionary (1996), giving more than 196,000 words or terms alphabetically arranged in a single-tier pinyin order. The user can therefore in
1470-473: Is the world's oldest known dialectal dictionary. The circa 200 CE Shiming ("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 ("Explaining Simple and Analyzing Compound Characters") arranged characters through a system of 540 bushou ( 部首 ; "section header") radicals. The 543 CE Yupian ("Jade Chapters"), from
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#17327730152221540-532: Is written in characters or logograph , not alphabets. To Johnson, not having an alphabet is not to the Chinese's credit, as in 1778, when James Boswell asked about the Chinese characters, he replied "Sir, they have not an alphabet. They have not been able to form what all other nations have formed". Nevertheless, the Chinese made their dictionaries, and developed three original systems for lexicographical ordering: semantic categories, graphic components, and pronunciations. The first system of dictionary organization
1610-736: The Chinese and English Dictionary in 1842. Both were flawed in their representation of pronunciations, such as aspirated stops. In 1874 the American philologist and diplomat Samuel Wells Williams applied the method of dialect comparison in his dictionary, A Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language , which refined distinctions in articulation and gave variant regional pronunciations in addition to standard Beijing pronunciation . The British consular officer and linguist Herbert Giles criticized Williams as "the lexicographer not for
1680-470: The "power radical" 力 , only lists three: nan 男 ("man; male"), sheng 甥 ("nephew; niece"), and jiu 舅 ("uncle; brother in law"). In contrast, the Zihui eliminates the "man radical" and lists nan 男 under the "power radical", sheng 甥 under the "life radical" 生 , and jiu 舅 under the "mortar radical" 臼 . The 214 radicals are arranged according to stroke number, from the single-stroke "one radical" 一 to
1750-605: The Fangyan was the first Chinese specialized dictionary. The usual English translation for fangyan ( 方言 ; lit. "regional/areal speech") is " dialect ", but the language situation in China is said to be uniquely complex. In the "dialect" sense of English dialects , Chinese has Mandarin dialects , yet fangyan is also used to mean "non-Mandarin languages, mutually unintelligible regional varieties of Chinese ", such as Cantonese and Hakka . Some linguists like John DeFrancis prefer
1820-615: The Japanese language . While some foreign borrowings became obsolete, others became indispensable terms in modern vocabulary. 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: Employing corpus linguistics and lists of Chinese characters arranged by frequency of usage (e.g., List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese ) , lexicographers have compiled dictionaries for learners of Chinese as
1890-577: 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
1960-515: The Kangxi Zidian adopted Mei's 214-radical system, they have been known as the Kangxi radicals rather than "Zihui radicals". The author Thomas Creamer says Mei Yingzuo's Zihui was "one [of] the most innovative Chinese dictionaries ever compiled" and it "changed the face of Chinese lexicography". The best-known lexicographical advances in the Zihui are reducing the unwieldy Shuowen Jiezi 540-radical system for collating Chinese characters into
2030-573: The Liang dynasty , rearranged them into 542. The 1615 CE Zihui ("Character Glossary"), edited by Mei Yingzuo [ zh ] 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 ("Correct Character Mastery") also used 214. The 1716 CE Kangxi Dictionary , compiled under
2100-527: The Liyun ( 隸韻 ) of the Song dynasty. Although these dictionaries center upon the graphic properties of Chinese characters, they do not necessarily collate characters by radical. For instance, Liyun is a clerical script dictionary collated by tone and rime. The Yinyun type, called yùnshū ( 韻書 "rime book"), focuses on the pronunciations of characters. These dictionaries are always collated by rimes. While
2170-649: The Northern Wei dynasty, followed the Erya ' s original 19 chapters. The circa 1080 CE Piya ("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 ("Regional Speech")
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2240-626: The Qing dynasty (1644–1912); the calligrapher Huang Ziyuan [ zh ] wrote a guidebook illustrating these rules, with four characters provided as an example for each. The Eight Principles of Yong encapsulate varieties of most strokes that appear in the regular script. Regular script characters with dimensions larger than 5 cm (2 in) are usually classified as 'large' ( 大楷 ; dàkǎi ); those smaller than 2 cm (0.8 in) are usually classified as 'small' ( 小楷 ; xiǎokǎi ), and those in between are 'medium' ( 中楷 ; zhōngkǎi ). Notable works written in regular script include
2310-411: The Zihui eliminates the "man radical" and lists nan 男 under the "power radical", sheng 甥 under the "life radical" 生 , and jiu 舅 under the "mortar radical" 臼 . The 214 radicals are arranged according to stroke number, from the single-stroke "one radical" 一 to the seventeen-stroke "flute radical" 龠 . The Zihui character entries are arranged according to the stroke number left after subtracting
2380-487: The Zihui , and which have been used in many dictionaries up to the present day (1983). First, the Zihui includes both formal seal script and clerical script as well as informal regular script characters, and gives the latter more significance than previously. Second, character entry presentation is improved by including both fanqie and homophonic phonetic notation, initiating a "more scientific format" for displaying definitions from original through extended meanings, using
2450-403: The Zihui , then purchased by Liao Wenying (廖文英) and republished as the 1671 Zhengzitong . Another Qing dynasty scholar Wu Renchen published the 1666 Zihui bu (字彙補 "Zihui supplement"). The most important of the works based on the Zihui model was undoubtedly the 1716 Kangxi Zidian , which soon became the standard dictionary of Chinese characters, and continues to be used widely today. After
2520-424: The back matter , with three main appendices. "Differentiation" lists 473 characters with similar forms but different pronunciations and meanings, such as 刺 and 剌 or 段 and 叚 . "Rectification" corrects misunderstandings of 68 characters commonly used in contemporary printed books. "Riming" gives rime tables intended to explain the four tones of Middle Chinese and fanqie pronunciation glosses. Note that
2590-562: The (1915) Zhonghua Da Zidian ("Comprehensive Chinese-Character Dictionary"), which corrected over 4,000 Kangxi Dictionary mistakes and added more than 1,000 new characters. Lu Erkui's (1915) Ciyuan ("Sources of Words") was a groundbreaking effort in Chinese lexicography and can be considered the first cidian "word dictionary". Shu Xincheng's (1936) Cihai ("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
2660-615: The 2016 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 ("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 ("Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters") with 54,678 head entries for characters. They both use
2730-685: The Australian missionary Robert Henry Mathews . Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary , which was popular for decades, was based on Giles and partially updated by Y.R. Chao in 1943 and reprinted in 1960. Trained in American structural linguistics , Yuen Ren Chao and Lien-sheng Yang wrote a Concise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese (1947), that emphasized the spoken rather than the written language. Main entries were listed in Gwoyeu Romatzyh , and they distinguished free morphemes from bound morphemes . A hint of non-standard pronunciation
2800-582: The Chinese classics. The Wenzi dictionaries, called zìshū ( 字書 "character book"), consist of Shuowen Jiezi , Yupian , Zihui , Zhengzitong , and the Kangxi Dictionary . This type of dictionary, which focuses on the shape and structure of the characters, subsumes both " orthography dictionaries", such as the Ganlu Zishu ( 干祿字書 ) of the Tang dynasty, and " script dictionaries", such as
2870-523: The Ming Dynasty were modeled on the Shuowen Jiezi 540-radical format, and new dictionaries were generally no more than minor revisions and enlargements of older works. Mei Yingzuo's Zihui represents the "first important lexicographic advance" after this long period. He greatly simplified and rationalized the traditional set of radicals, introduced the principle of indexing graphs according to
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2940-464: The Song dynasty, it was expanded into the 1011 CE Guangyun ("Expanded Rimes") and the 1037 CE Jiyun ("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
3010-411: The above image of early Zihui dictionaries shows the traditional hand representation of the four tone classes. The main body of the Zihui dictionary is divided into 12 volumes (2-13) called ji ( 集 , collections) and numbered according to the twelve Earthly Branches . Each one begins with a grid diagram showing all the radicals included in the volume and their page numbers. This reference guide to
3080-597: 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 Dictionary 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
3150-479: The analysis of script; (3) absence of the concept of word; (4) ignoring the script's historical developments in the oracle bones and bronze inscriptions; (5) no precise, unambiguous, and convenient means for specifying pronunciations; (6) no standardized, user-friendly means for looking up words and graphs; (7) failure to distinguish linguistically between vernacular and literary registers, or between usages peculiar to different regions and times; and (8) open-endedness of
3220-470: The arrangement of meanings, the use of plain language, and usage examples from informal language, made the book "exceptional at the time". The best-known lexicographical advances in Mei Yingzuo's Zihui are reducing the unwieldy Shuowen Jiezi 540-radical system for collating Chinese characters into the more logical 214-radical system , and arranging graphs belonging to a single radical according to
3290-558: The court of King Xuan of Zhou (r. 827 BCE – 782 BCE), and was the source of the 籀文 zhòuwén variant forms listed in the Han dynasty Shuowen Jiezi dictionary. The Cangjiepian ("Chapters of 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 ordering of
3360-540: The first grammar books 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 A Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1815–1823). The British missionary Walter Henry Medhurst wrote a Hokkien ( Min Nan ) dialect dictionary in 1832 and
3430-452: The future but of the past", and took nearly twenty years to compile his A Chinese-English Dictionary (1892, 1912), one that Norman 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 Cantonese , Hakka , and Fuzhou dialect . It has been called "still interesting as
3500-501: The general literate public by using the current regular script form of characters. Beginning with the Shuowen jiezi , earlier Chinese dictionaries were arranged according to radicals written in the obsolete seal script . The basic format of each Zihui character entry comprised first the pronunciations including variants, and then the definitions, giving the primary meaning followed by common and extended meanings. In addition to using
3570-607: The graph huì 彙 depicted a "hedgehog" ( wèi 猬 ), and it was borrowed as a phonetic loan character for the word huì 匯 "gather together; collection", both of which, in the simplified character system , are 汇 . In modern Chinese usage, zìhuì 字匯 or 字彙 means "glossary; wordbook; lexicon; dictionary; vocabulary; (computing) character set " ( Wenlin 2016). English translations of Zihui include "Compendium of Characters", "Collection of Characters", "The Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters", and "Character Treasure". The Zihui dictionary comprises 14 volumes ( 巻 ), with
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#17327730152223640-457: The label 〇 to display characters with multiple pronunciations and meanings, and indicating characters that have multiple parts of speech , all of which are standard format elements in modern Chinese dictionaries. Third, radicals and character entries are classified in a more logical manner, as explained above. Fourth, the Zihui was the first Chinese dictionary to integrate the main body and appendices into one whole, thus improving practicality for
3710-399: The more logical 214-radical system , and arranging graphs belonging to a single radical according to the number of residual strokes, making finding character entries a relatively simple matter. To illustrate the inefficiencies of the Shuowen Jiezi system, only a few characters are listed under some radicals. For instance, its "man radical" 男, which compounds the modern "field radical" 田 and
3780-1028: The most influential Chinese dictionaries ever published was the Kangxi Dictionary , finished in 1716 during the Qing dynasty , with the list of 214 Kangxi radicals it popularized are still widely used. The general term cishu (Chinese: 辭書 ; pinyin: císhū ; lit. 'lexicographic books') semantically encompasses "dictionary; lexicon; encyclopedia; glossary". The Chinese language has two words for dictionary: zidian (character dictionary) for written forms, that is, Chinese characters , and cidian (word/phrase dictionary), for spoken forms. For character dictionaries , zidian ( Chinese : 字典 ; pinyin : zìdiǎn ; Wade–Giles : tzŭ⁴-tien³ ; lit. 'character dictionary') combines zi ( 字 ; "character, graph; letter, script, writing; word") and dian ( 典 "dictionary, encyclopedia; standard, rule; statute, canon; classical allusion"). For word dictionaries, cidian
3850-510: The number of residual strokes, and wrote characters in contemporary regular script instead of ancient seal script. The importance of Mei's innovations is confirmed by the fact that they were promptly imitated by other Ming and Qing period dictionaries. The Zihui also formed the basis for the Zhengzitong , written and originally published by Zhang Zilie (張自烈) as the 1627 Zihui bian (字彙辯; " Zihui Disputations") supplemental correction to
3920-443: The number of residual strokes, making finding character entries a relatively simple matter. To illustrate the inefficiencies of the Shuowen Jiezi system, only a few characters are listed under some radicals. For instance, its "man radical" 男, which compounds the modern "field radical" 田 and the "power radical" 力 , only lists three: nan 男 ("man; male"), sheng 甥 ("nephew; niece"), and jiu 舅 ("uncle; brother in law"). In contrast,
3990-493: 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 produces a so-called " rime dictionary ". The first surviving rime dictionary is the 601 CE Qieyun ("Cutting [Spelling] Rimes") from the Sui dynasty ; it became the standard of pronunciation for Middle Chinese . During
4060-741: The pre-Han Classical literature when possible, unless the definition emerged during the post-Classical period. Dictionaries intended for historians, linguists, and other classical scholars will sometimes also provide Middle Chinese fanqie readings and/or Old Chinese rime groups, as well as bronze script or oracle bone script forms. While dictionaries published in mainland China intended for study or reference by high school/college students are generally printed in Simplified Chinese , dictionaries intended for scholarly research are set in Traditional Chinese . Twenty centuries ago,
4130-456: The regular script is descended both from the early semi-cursive style as well as from the neo-clerical script. The script is considered to have become stylistically mature during the Tang dynasty (618–907), with the most famous and oft-imitated calligraphers of that period being the early Tang's Four Great Calligraphers ( 初唐四大家 ): Ouyang Xun , Yu Shinan , Chu Suiliang , and Xue Ji , as well as
4200-443: The respective radical, for instance, the characters under the "mouth radical" 口 begin with 卟 , 古 , and 句 and end with 囔 , 囕 , and 囖 . This " radical-and-stroke " system remains one of the most common forms of Chinese lexicographic arrangement today, With the possible exception of the 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun , there were few advances in Chinese lexicography between the sixth and seventeenth centuries. Many dictionaries prior to
4270-518: The seventeen-stroke "flute radical" 龠 . The Zihui character entries are arranged according to the stroke number left after subtracting the respective radical, for instance, the characters under the "mouth radical" 口 begin with 卟 , 古 , and 句 and end with 囔 , 囕 , and 囖 . This " radical-and-stroke " system remains one of the most common forms of Chinese lexicographic arrangement today. The Chinese scholar Zou Feng (邹酆) lists four major lexicographical format innovations that Mei Yingzuo established in
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#17327730152224340-561: The tandem of Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan . During the Northern Song (960–1127), Emperor Huizong created an iconic style known as 'slender gold' ( 瘦金體 ; shòujīntǐ ). During the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) also became known for his own calligraphic style for the regular script, called Zhaoti ( 趙體 ). 92 rules governing the fundamental structure of regular script were established during
4410-404: The tidily written variety of early period semi-cursive script in a more dignified fashion and were to use consistently the pause technique [( 頓 ; dùn )], used to reinforce the beginning or ending of a stroke when ending horizontal strokes, a practice which already appears in early period semi-cursive script, and further were to make use of right-falling strokes with thick feet, the result would be
4480-515: The traditional fanqie spelling, Mei indicated pronunciation with a commonly used homophonous character, no doubt in recognition of the fact that it was "almost impossible for the average reader to derive correct current readings from Tang dynasty fanqie ". Definitions are for the most part brief and readily understandable, and reference to a text is almost always given by way of examples, generally from ancient books and partly from colloquial language. Zihui innovations in dictionary format, such as
4550-831: The traditional bibliographic divisions of the imperial collection Complete Library of the Four Treasuries , dictionaries were classified as belonging to xiǎoxué ( 小學 , lit. "minor learning", the premodern equivalent of " linguistics "), which was contrasted with dàxué ( 大學 , "major learning", i.e., learning that had moral implications). Xiaoxue was divided into texts dealing with xùngǔ ( 訓詁 , "exegesis" similar to " philology "), wénzì ( 文字 , "script", analogous to " grammatology "), and yīnyùn ( 音韻 , "sounds and rhymes," comparable to " phonology "). The Xungu type, sometimes called yǎshū ( 雅書 , "word book"), comprises Erya and its descendants. These exegetical dictionaries focus on explaining meanings of words as found in
4620-795: The translation "topolect", which are very similar to independent languages. (See also- Protection of the Varieties of Chinese .) The Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwan Minnan is an online dictionary of Taiwanese Hokkien . Here are some general fangyan cidian ( 方言词典 ; "topolect dictionary") examples. Chinese has five words translatable as " idiom ": chengyu ( 成語 / 成语 "set phrase; idiom"), yanyu ( 諺語 / 谚语 ; "proverb; popular saying, maxim; idiom"), xiehouyu ( 歇後語 / 歇后语 ; "truncated witticism, aposiopesis ; enigmatic folk simile"), xiyu ( 習語 / 习语 ; "idiom"), and guanyongyu ( 慣用語 / 惯用语 ; "fixed expression; idiom; locution"). Some modern dictionaries for idioms are: The Chinese language adopted
4690-428: The user. Footnotes Chinese dictionary There are two types of dictionaries regularly used in the Chinese language : 'character dictionaries' ( 字典 ; zìdiǎn ) list individual Chinese characters , and 'word dictionaries' ( 辞典 ; 辭典 ; cídiǎn ) list words and phrases. Because tens of thousands of characters have been used in written Chinese , Chinese lexicographers have developed
4760-467: The volumes made looking up characters more convenient than in the previous dictionaries. The Zihui included 33,179 head character entries, most of which were from Song Lian 's 1375 Hongwu zhengyun (洪武正韻, Hongwu Dictionary of Standard Rhymes). The entries included common characters used in the Chinese classics and some popular or nonstandard characters ( súzì 俗字), both contemporary and early. Mei Yingzuo made his dictionary more easily accessible to
4830-565: The writing system, with current unabridged character dictionaries containing 60,000 to 85,000 graphs. Footnotes Regular script The Xuanhe Calligraphy Manual ( 宣和書譜 ) credits Wang Cizhong [ zh ] with creating the regular script, based on the clerical script of the early Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE). It became popular during the Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms periods, with Zhong Yao ( c. 151 – 230 CE),
4900-522: Was also given, by marking final stops and initial voicing and non-palatalization in non-Mandarin dialects. 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 the semantically sophisticated Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (1972) that
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