Dai Kan-Wa Jiten
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The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten (
History[edit]
Tetsuji Morohashi was originally motivated to create a dictionary in 1917 when he went to China to study Chinese. Trying to look up words in the largest available Chinese dictionaries was frustrating; the Kangxi Dictionary defines characters but not phrases, the Peiwen Yunfu lists phrases without definitions, and the Zhonghua Da Zidian had just been published. Morohashi's autobiography explains (Wilkinson 2000:74) that "he had to spend between a quarter and a third of his study time trying to find the meanings of words and phrases. This tedium he felt could be avoided if there were a dictionary that provided both citations and definitions." When Morohashi returned to Japan in 1919, he had 20 notebooks filled with Chinese vocabulary.
In 1925, Ippei Suzuki (
First edition[edit]
The original (1955–1960) Dai Kan-Wa Jiten has 13 volumes totaling 13,757 pages, and includes 49,964 head entries for characters, with over 370,000 words and phrases. This unabridged dictionary, often called the Morohashi in English, focuses upon Classical Chinese and Literary Chinese vocabulary. It provides encyclopedic information about poetry, book titles, historical figures, place names, Buddhist terms, and even modern expressions. The Dai Kan-Wa Jiten is intended for reading Chinese and does not cover Japanese words created since the Meiji era.
This is the format for main character entries:
- Pronunciations, in Sino-Japanese borrowings, Middle Chinese with every fanqie spelling and rime dictionary category listed in the Jiyun, and Modern Standard Chinese in the Zhuyin (or Bopomofo) system and in Wade-Giles romanization. Volume 1 contains Hanrei (
凡例 , "Introductory Remarks") and a comprehensive chart comparing the Zhuyin, Wade-Giles, and Pinyin systems for every phoneme used in modern Chinese. - 10,000 Seal script characters, plus other variant written forms.
- Meanings, diachronically arranged by earliest citations. Usage examples are given from numerous classical texts and Chinese dictionaries.
- Character etymologies are occasionally included. These are not instances of word etymology as the term is understood in comparative linguistics, but character analysis, as originated by the Shuowen Jiezi.
- 2,300 Illustrations are included where useful, often copied from sources like the 1609 Sancai Tuhui.
One archaism of the first edition is giving Japanese pronunciations of characters in historical kana usage rather than modern, retaining for instance now-obsolete ゐ wi and ゑ we.
Each individual volume has a radical-and-stroke sorting index arranged by Chinese radical or signific (following the 214 Kangxi radicals), and subdivided by the total number of remaining strokes in the character. For Dai Kan-Wa Jiten users unfamiliar with this traditional system of dictionary collation, the final index volume is an essential tool.
Volume 13 contains four indices to the dictionary, which cite volume and page numbers for each character.
- The Sōkaku sakuin (
総画 索引 , "Total Stroke Count Index") divides characters by overall stroke count (1-64), subdivided by radicals. - The Jion sakuin (
字音 索引 , "Sino-Japanese Reading Index") arranges characters by their borrowed Chinese pronunciations (on'yomi), then by stroke count. - The Jikun sakuin (
字訓 索引 , "Japanese Reading Index") arranges characters by their native Japanese pronunciations (kun'yomi), and further by stroke count. - The Shikaku gōma sakuin (
四角號碼 索引 , "Four corner method Index") organizes characters using a complex Chinese system of four-digit numbers (0000-9999), plus an optional extra number, then subdivided by the number of strokes.
Volume 13 also contains a Hoi (
Supplemental volumes[edit]
Since the death of Tetsuji Morohashi in 1982 at the age of 99, Taishukan has published two Dai Kan-Wa Jiten augmentations that amount to Volumes 14 and 15.
The 1990 Goi sakuin (
The 2000 Hokan (
Other editions[edit]
The (1962–1968) Zhongwen Da Cidian, sometimes called the Chinese Morohashi, is very similar in structure to Dai Kan-Wa Jiten and was one of the most comprehensive Chinese dictionaries available until 1993.
In 1982, Taishukan published an abridged "family edition" of the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten. Their four-volume Kō Kan-Wa Jiten (
Kida Jun'ichirō wrote a Japanese book (1986) about the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten, and edited another (1994) about lexicographers that discusses Morohashi's contributions (chap. 4) and Ishii's creation of characters (chap. 11).
In November 2018, Taishukan released an electronic edition of Dai Kan-Wa Jiten (for Windows PCs).[1][2]
See also[edit]
- Han-Han Dae Sajeon
- Hanyu Da Cidian
- Hanyu Da Zidian
- Kangxi Dictionary
- Zhonghua Da Zidian
- Zhongwen Da Cidian
References[edit]
- Kamata Tadashi
鎌田 正 , and Yoneyama Toratarō米山 寅太郎 , eds. Dai kanwa Jiten hokan大 漢和 辞典 補 巻 ("Supplemental Volume to the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten). 2000. Tokyo: Taishukan. (in Japanese) - Kida Jun'ichirō
紀田 順一郎 . Dai Kan-Wa Jiten o yomu大 漢和 辞典 を読 む ("On Reading the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten"). 1986. Tokyo: Taishukan. (in Japanese) - Kida Jun'ichirō, ed. Nihongo Daihakubutsukan – Akuma no moji to tatakatta hito-bito
日本語 大 博物館 —悪魔 の文字 と闘 った人々 ("Museum of Japanese – the people who battled the devil's characters"). 1994. Tokyo: Just System ジャストシステム. ISBN 4-88309-046-9 (in Japanese) - Morohashi Tetsuji
諸橋 轍次 , chief ed. Dai Kan-Wa Jiten大 漢和 辞典 ("Comprehensive Chinese–Japanese Dictionary"). 13 vols. 1955–1960. Revised and enlarged ed. 1984–1986. Tokyo: Taishukan. (in Japanese) - Morohashi Tetsuji, Kamata Tadashi, and Yoneyama Toratarō, eds. Kō Kan-Wa Jiten
広 漢和 辞典 ("Extensive Chinese–Japanese Dictionary"). 4 vols. 1982. Tokyo: Taishukan; reprint 2000; ISBN 9784469031584. (in Japanese) - Shirane, Haruo. "Bibliography for Research in Japanese Literature." 2003. New York: Columbia University.
- Tōyō Gakujutsu Kenkyujo
東洋 学術 研究所 , eds. Dai kanwa Jiten: goi sakuin大 漢和 辞典 語彙 索引 ("Vocabulary Index to the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten"). 1990. Tokyo: Taishukan. (in Japanese) - Wilkinson, Endymion. Chinese History: a manual. Revised and enlarged ed. 2000. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 0-674-00249-0
- ^ "「
大 漢和 辞典 」ついに!デジタル化 " [Dai Kan-Wa Jiten finally digitized!]. Kyodo News (in Japanese). 2018-10-25. Retrieved 2020-01-23. - ^ "
大 漢和 辞典 デジタル版 " [Dai Kan-wa Jiten Digital Edition]. Taishukan (in Japanese). 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2020-05-30.
External links[edit]
- Taishukan's Daikanwa Jiten page (in Japanese)