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Zilin

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Zilin
Chinese name
Chinese字じ林りん
Literal meaningcharacter forest
Korean name
Hangul字じ林りん
Hanja자림
Japanese name
Kanji字じ林りん
Hiraganaじりん

The Zilin (Chinese: 字じ林りん; c. 350) or Forest of Characters was a Chinese dictionary compiled by the Jin dynasty (266–420) lexicographer Lü Chen (呂りょ忱まこと). It contained 12,824 character head entries, organized by the 540-radical system of the Shuowen Jiezi. In the history of Chinese lexicography, the Zilin followed the Shuowen Jiezi (121; with 9,353 character entries) and preceded the Yupian (c. 543; with 12,158 entries).

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Lü Chen compiled the Zilin to supplement the Shuowen jiezi, and included more the 3,000 uncommon and variant Chinese characters. Yong and Peng describe the Zilin as a "more influential character dictionary" than the Shuowen jiezi.[1]

Lü Chen's younger brother Lü Jing (呂りょ靜せい) was also a lexicographer, who compiled the Yunji (韻いん集しゅう; "Assembly of Rimes"; c. 280). Other than their dictionaries, little is known about either brother.

The title Zilin, translated as "Forest of Characters"[2] or "The Character Forest",[3] combines zì 字じ "character; script; writing; graph" and lín 林はやし "forest; woods; grove; group; collection of literary works; many; numerous". Titles of several Japanese dictionaries adapted this rin 林はやし "forest" metaphor, such as Daijirin (大辞林だいじりん; "Great Forest of Words", 1988) and Dai Kangorin (大だい漢語かんご林りん; "Great Forest of Chinese"; 1992).

History

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The Zilin was popular in the Northern and Southern dynasties period (420–589), when "lexicography in China entered the stage of exploration and development. There were more new dictionary types coming into being and discoveries were waiting to be made in format and style, in mode of definition, and in phonetic notation.".[4]

During the Liu Song dynasty (420–479), Wu Gongceng (吳ご恭きょう曾) from Yang Province compiled the first commentary to the Zilin, the Zilin yinyi (字じ林りん音義おんぎ; "Pronunciations and Meanings in the Zilin") in 5 volumes.

Jiang Shi (江こう式しき) was a renowned calligrapher and epigraphist during the Northern Wei (386–535) dynasty. His biography in the Book of Wei (554) history included the Lunshu biao (論ろん書しょ表ひょう; "Memorial on Calligraphy"; 514), in which Jiang Shi described the Zilin. When Prince of Yiyang (r. 349–350) was enfeoffed at Rencheng (任にん城じょう) commandery (present-day Yanzhou District), Lü Chen presented the Zilin in 6 volumes.

It generally follows the example of the [Shuowen jiezi]. It cites extensively and identifies and differentiates ancient characters, characters of the zhou style, odd characters, and characters easily confusable. Its writing style is the standardized official script of the Han dynasty. It has, to a large extent, captured the essence of xiaozhuan.[5]

Zhòuwén (籀文; "Large Seal Script") and xiǎozhuàn (小篆しょうてん; "Small Seal Script") were archaic forms of Chinese calligraphy. Thus, the Zilin followed the Shuowen jiezi format of giving the head character entry in Small Seal Script and the definition in clerical script.

The Northern Qi dynasty (550–577) scholar Yan Zhitui's (581) Yanshi jiaxun (顏かお氏家うじいえ訓さとし; "Family Instructions of the Yan Clan") referred to the usefulness of consulting the Zilin. After accompanying the Emperor on a tour, Yan Zhitui wanted to look up the origins and archaic pronunciations of two obscure place names, but could not find the answers in any books, until he checked the Zilin and Yunji character dictionaries.[1] Yan Zhitui also referred to Lü Chen (without the Zilin title) in stressing the importance of character dictionaries.[6] "Words and characters are fundamental. For students nowadays, they rarely have a better knowledge of characters: when they read the Five Classics" they follow the civil official Xu Miao rather than the lexicographer Xu Shen, "and when they practice writing fu-poems," they believed in the Chuci poet Qu Yuan's interpretations but neglected Lü Chen's.

The Book of Sui (636), the official Sui dynasty (581–618) history, "Biography of Pan Hui" (潘はん徽) criticized the Cangjiepian and Jijiupian character primers and Shuowen jiezi and Zilin character dictionaries and praised the Shenglei and Yunji rime dictionaries.

Previous works like Three Cang Primer [三さん蒼あお] and The Instant Primer [急きゅう就] have merely retained some texts and quotations; those like An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters [說せつ文ぶん] and The Character Forest [字じ林りん] only focus on differentiating the form and structure of characters. As for the study of speech sounds and rhymes, there is much doubt and confusion. Either through speculation on ancient characters or interpretation of contemporary ones, the investigations have mostly missed the target. It is in The Dictionary of Initial Consonants [聲こえ類るい] and The Collection of Rhymes [韻いん集しゅう] that the voiceless is differentiated from the voiced and the tones are demarcated in five scales [始はじめ判ばん清濁せいだく才ざい分ぶん宮みや羽わ]. (76)[7]

The Book of Sui "Bibliography" section includes Lü Chen's Zilin in 7 volumes and Wu Gongceng's Zilin yinyi (字じ林りん音義おんぎ) in 5 volumes.

Up through the Tang dynasty (618–907), the Zilin "was considered as important as the Shuowen jiezi, but it was later lost.[8] Yan Yuansun (顏かお元もと孫まご; d. 732), the Tang author of Ganlu Zishu "Lexicon for Seeking a Salary", used the Zilin as a source for determining the zheng 正せい "correct" (suitable for government examinations) forms of characters.

The Fengshi wenjianji (封ふう氏し聞見記き; "Master Feng's Record of Knowledge"; c. 770), written by the Tang dynasty scholar Feng Yan (封ふう演えんじ), described the Zilin in a list of early Chinese dictionaries (2[9]). During the Jin dynasty, Lü Chen sought out unusual characters and compiled the Zilin in 7 volumes, following the [Shuowen jiezi system of] 540 radicals, it included 12,824 characters. Among all the Shuowen jiezi-based dictionaries, Lü Chen's was the most beneficial.

The last remaining copies of the Zilin were lost before the Song dynasty (960–1279). The Book of Song (1493) only mentions this dictionary once. A discussion of different vehicle types (18, 禮れい五ご) quotes the Zilin that a píngchē (軿車; "curtained carriage") had cloth curtains but no rear yuán (轅ながえ; "(cart/carriage) shaft"), while a zīchē (輜車; "ancient covered wagon") had a rear shaft.

During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), scholars collected surviving fragments of the Zilin and quotations in other books. For example, the Kangxi Dictionary (1716) quotes its definitions and pronunciations over 180 times. Ren Dazhuang (任にん大だい樁; 1738–1789) compiled the 8-volume Zilin kaoyi (字じ林りん考こう逸いっ; "Examining the Lost Zilin") in, and Tao Fangqi (陶すえ方かた琦; 1845–1884) compiled the Zilin kaoyi buben (字じ林りん考こう逸いっ補ほ本ほん; "Supplement to Examining the Lost Zilin").

References

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  • Yong, Heming; Peng, Jing (2008). Chinese Lexicography: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911. Oxford University Press.

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Yong & Peng 2008, p. 186.
  2. ^ Zhou Youguang (2003), The Historical Evolution of Chinese Languages and Scripts, tr. by Zhang Liqing (張ちょう立たて青あお) National East Asian Languages Resource Center, Ohio State University. p. 72.
  3. ^ Yong & Peng 2008.
  4. ^ Yong & Peng 2008, p. 275.
  5. ^ Tr. Yong & Peng 2008, p. 186.
  6. ^ Tr. Yong & Peng 2008, pp. 186–7.
  7. ^ Tr. Yong & Peng 2008, p. 161.
  8. ^ McNair, Amy (1995), "Public Values in Calligraphy and Orthography in the Tang Dynasty", Monumenta Serica 43:263–278. p. 264.
  9. ^ cf. Yong & Peng 2008, p. 244.

Further reading

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  • Yip, Po-ching (2000), The Chinese Lexicon: A Comprehensive Survey, Psychology Press.
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