Zhonghua Zihai
Encyclopedia
Zhonghua Zihai is the largest Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

 dictionary available for print, compiled in 1994 and consisting of 85,568 different characters.

Details

The Zhonghua Zihai consists of two parts; the first section consists of characters covered in earlier dictionaries, such as the Shuowen Jiezi
Shuowen Jiezi
The Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary , it was still the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to give the rationale behind them , as well as the first to use the...

, Yupian
Yupian
The Yupian is a circa 543 CE Chinese dictionary edited by Gu Yewang during the Liang Dynasty. It arranges 12,158 character entries under 542 radicals, which differ somewhat from the original 540 in the Shuowen Jiezi...

, Guangyun
Guangyun
The Guangyun is a Chinese rime dictionary that was compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the auspices of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yong were the chief editors....

, Jiyun
Jiyun
The Jiyun is a Chinese rime dictionary published in 1037 during the Song Dynasty. The chief editor Ding Du and others expanded and revised the Guangyun. It is possible, according to Teng and Biggerstaff , that Sima Guang completed the text in 1067...

, Kangxi Dictionary
Kangxi dictionary
The Kangxi Dictionary was the standard Chinese dictionary during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Kangxi Emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty ordered its compilation in 1710. The creator innovated greatly by reusing and confirming the new Zihui system of 596 radicals, since then known as 596 Kangxi...

and Zhonghua Da Zidian
Zhonghua Da Zidian
The Zhonghua Da Zidian was an unabridged Chinese dictionary of characters published in 1915. The chief editors were Xu Yuan'gao , Lu Feikui , and Ouyang Pucun . It was based upon the 1716 Kangxi Zidian, and is internally organized using the 214 Kangxi radicals...

, which covers just under 50,000 individual characters. The second portion of the Zhonghua Zihai contains characters missed by previous dictionaries, as a result of manual error or due to lack of knowledge of such characters. Among these include complex characters hidden in old Buddhist texts, rare characters found within the Dunhuang manuscripts
Dunhuang manuscripts
The Dunhuang manuscripts is a cache of important religious and secular documents discovered in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China during the early 20th century. Dating from the 5th to early 11th centuries, the manuscripts include works ranging from history and mathematics to folk songs and dance...

, characters used during the Song
Song Dynasty
The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

, Yuan
Yuan Dynasty
The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...

, Ming
Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

 and Qing
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 Dynasties that fell from use, dialectal characters, newly created characters as a result of advancement in science and technology (such as the Chinese character for the element Darmstadtium
Darmstadtium
Darmstadtium is a chemical element with the symbol Ds and atomic number 110. It is placed as the heaviest member of group 10, but no known isotope is sufficiently stable to allow chemical experiments to confirm its placing in that group...

, which is not present in prior dictionaries), as well as rare characters used today in personal and location names. Additionally, regional characters and variant characters from Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

 and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, as well as non-native characters from Japanese Kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 and Korean Hanja
Hanja
Hanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...

, are also listed in the Zhonghua Zihai. All characters listed are in the Kaishu script.

One of the authors, Hu Mingyang, wrote in the preface of the Zhonghua Zihai stating that the problem regarding Chinese characters is that there is an exceedingly large number of them, which makes compilation very difficult, and a complete dictionary practically impossible due to the large number of variant characters and those that are unknown.

Development

The foundation in which the compilation of characters was undertaken are as follows:
  1. The copying of characters found in dictionaries from past dynasties, for the collection of those characters already listed in some published volume.
  2. The analysis of documents and literature from past dynasties for previously unlisted characters.
  3. The inclusion of all Simplified Chinese characters introduced by the government of the People's Republic of China
    People's Republic of China
    China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

    , already listed in the "Complete List of Simplified Characters" announced in 1986.
  4. The analysis of Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone script
    Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...

     and Bronze script texts, as well as historic silk writings, for comparative purposes in the decision process for accepting characters.
  5. The comparison of Variant Chinese character
    Variant Chinese character
    Variant Chinese characters are Chinese characters that are homophones and synonyms. Almost all variants are allographs in most circumstances, such as casual handwriting...

    s from past dynasties found in stone engravings (where characters with minimal variation are generally not accepted in the final listing).
  6. The analysis of local documents and that of regional dialects, such as dialectal dictionaries.
  7. The inclusion of newly created characters associated with modern concepts, such as those arising from new scientific and technological developments.
  8. The analysis of characters used in Proper nouns, such as the names of locations and characters used in personal name
    Personal name
    A personal name is the proper name identifying an individual person, and today usually comprises a given name bestowed at birth or at a young age plus a surname. It is nearly universal for a human to have a name; except in rare cases, for example feral children growing up in isolation, or infants...

    s.
  9. The analysis of modern publications which may include unofficial or informal character simplifications, in which they may not be present in the PRC government "Complete List of Simplified Characters" (a similar example of this would be Ryakuji
    Ryakuji
    Ryakuji are colloquial simplifications of Kanji.- Status :Ryakuji are not covered in the Kanji Kentei, nor are they officially recognized...

    ).
  10. The inclusion of characters from the failed simplified character reform in 1977 to introduce the Second-round simplified Chinese character
    Second-round simplified Chinese character
    The second round of Chinese character simplification, made by official document Second Chinese Character Simplification Scheme to introduce second round of simplified Chinese characters, was an aborted orthography reform promulgated on 20 December 1977 by the People's Republic of China...

    s, taken from the draft of the proposed bill.
  11. The inclusion of rare variants and popular regional characters from areas such as Hong Kong
    Hong Kong
    Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

    , Macau
    Macau
    Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

     and Taiwan
    Taiwan
    Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

    , plus the unique characters in use in Japan
    Japan
    Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

     and Korea
    Korea
    Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

     but not within China.

Other dictionaries

The previous character dictionary published in China was the Hanyu Da Zidian
Hanyu Da Zidian
The Hanyu Da Zidian is one of the best available reference works on Chinese characters. A group of more than 400 editors and lexicographers began compilation in 1979, and it was published in eight volumes from 1986 to 1989. A separate volume of essays documents the lexicographical complexities...

, introduced in 1989, which contained 54,678 characters. In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, the 2003 edition of the Dai Kan-Wa jiten
Dai Kan-Wa jiten
The is a Japanese dictionary of kanji compiled by Morohashi Tetsuji. Remarkable for its comprehensiveness and size, Morohashi's dictionary contains over 50,000 character entries and 530,000 compound words...

has some 50,000 characters, while the Han-Han Dae Sajeon
Han-Han Dae Sajeon
Han-Han Dae Sajeon is the generic term for Korean hanja-to-hangul dictionaries. There are several such dictionaries from different publishers. The most comprehensive one, published by Dankook University Publishing, contains 53,667 Chinese characters and 420,269 compound words...

completed in South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 in 2008 contains 53,667 Chinese characters (the project having lasted 30 years, at a cost of 31,000,000,000 KRW
South Korean won
The won is the currency of South Korea. A single won is divided into 100 jeon, the monetary subunit. The jeon is no longer used for everyday transactions, and appears only in foreign exchange rates...

 or US$25 million).

The Dictionary of Chinese Variant Form compiled by the Taiwan (ROC) Ministry of Education
Ministry of Education (Republic of China)
The Ministry of Education of the Republic of China is responsible for incorporating educational policies and managing public schools throughout the Free Area of the Republic of China. The ministry is a cabinet level governmental body of the Executive Yuan...

 in 2004 contains 106,230 individual characters, many being variants
Variant Chinese character
Variant Chinese characters are Chinese characters that are homophones and synonyms. Almost all variants are allographs in most circumstances, such as casual handwriting...

.

See also

  • Chinese character
    Chinese character
    Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

  • Hanyu Da Zidian
    Hanyu Da Zidian
    The Hanyu Da Zidian is one of the best available reference works on Chinese characters. A group of more than 400 editors and lexicographers began compilation in 1979, and it was published in eight volumes from 1986 to 1989. A separate volume of essays documents the lexicographical complexities...

  • Kangxi Zidian
  • Dai Kan-Wa jiten
    Dai Kan-Wa jiten
    The is a Japanese dictionary of kanji compiled by Morohashi Tetsuji. Remarkable for its comprehensiveness and size, Morohashi's dictionary contains over 50,000 character entries and 530,000 compound words...

  • Han-Han Dae Sajeon
    Han-Han Dae Sajeon
    Han-Han Dae Sajeon is the generic term for Korean hanja-to-hangul dictionaries. There are several such dictionaries from different publishers. The most comprehensive one, published by Dankook University Publishing, contains 53,667 Chinese characters and 420,269 compound words...

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