The ''Hanyu Da Cidian'' () is the most inclusive available

Chinese dictionary Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Han dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for the Chinese language, and this article discusses some of ...

. Lexicographically comparable to the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'', it has

diachronic Synchrony and diachrony are two complementary viewpoints in linguistic analysis. A ''synchronic'' approach (from grc, συν- "together" and "time") considers a language at a moment in time without taking its history into account. Synchronic l ...

coverage of the

Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...

, and traces usage over three millennia from

Chinese classic texts Chinese classic texts or canonical texts () or simply dianji (典籍) refers to the Chinese texts which originated before the imperial unification by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, particularly the "Four Books and Five Classics" of the Neo-Confucia ...

to modern slang. The chief editor Luo Zhufeng (1911–1996), along with a team of over 300 scholars and lexicographers, started the enormous task of compilation in 1979. Publication of the thirteen volumes began with first volume in 1986 and ended with the appendix and index volume in 1994. In 1994, the dictionary also won the National Book Award of China. The ''Hanyu Da Cidian'' includes over 23,000 head

Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the Written Chinese, writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are k ...

entries, defines some 370,000 words, and gives 1,500,000 citations. The head entries, which are

collated Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...

by a novel 200 radical system, are given in

traditional Chinese character Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...

s while

simplified Chinese character Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...

s are noted. Definitions and explanations are in simplified, excepting classical quotations. Volume 13 has both

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

and

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

count indexes, plus appendices. A separate index volume (1997) lists 728,000 entries for characters by their position within words and phrases, something like a reverse dictionary. For instance, the ''Hanyu da cidian'' enters ''

Daode jing The ''Tao Te Ching'' (, ; ) is a Chinese classic text written around 400 BC and traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated. The oldest excavated portion d ...

'' () under the head character ''dao''; this reverse-index lists it under both ''de'' and ''jing''. "Despite the fact that it weighs over 20 kilos and contains a total of 50 million characters spread over 20,000 large double-column pages," says Wilkinson, "the ''Hanyu da cidian'' is an easy dictionary to use to the full because it is unusually well indexed." It became even easier to use when

Victor H. Mair Victor Henry Mair (; born March 25, 1943) is an American sinologist. He is a professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania. Among other accomplishments, Mair has edited the standard '' Columbia History of Chinese Literature'' and the ''C ...

edited a single-sort alphabetically arranged pinyin index. ''Hanyu Da Cidian'' was consulted in the writing of ''

The First Series of Standardized Forms of Words with Non-standardized Variant Forms ''The First Series of Standardized Forms of Words with Non-standardized Variant Forms'' () published on December 19, 2001 and officially implemented on March 31, 2002, is a Standard Chinese style guide published in China. It contains 338 S ...

''.

Publications

''Hanyu Da Cidian''

*1st edition **

Mainland Mainland is defined as "relating to or forming the main part of a country or continent, not including the islands around it egardless of status under territorial jurisdiction by an entity" The term is often politically, economically and/or dem ...

edition (1986–1994): 13 volumes, vol. 1 published by Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House (上海辞书出版社), and vols. 2–13 published by Hanyu Da Cidian Publishing House (汉语大词典出版社): ***Vol. 1 (一 through 人): 1st impression, 上海辞书出版社, November 1986 (no ISBN) ***Vol. 2 (八 through 小): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, March 1988 () ***Vol. 3 (口 through 彐): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, March 1989 (, misprinted as "7-5432-0001-5" in the book) ***Vol. 4 (尸 through 支): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, November 1989 () ***Vol. 5 (犬 through 水): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, June 1990 () ***Vol. 6 (水 through 方): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, December 1990 () ***Vol. 7 (火 through 矢): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, June 1991 () ***Vol. 8 (禾 through 血): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, December 1991 () ***Vol. 9 (舟 through 酉): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, June 1992 () ***Vol. 10 (辰 through 角): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, December 1992 () ***Vol. 11 (言 through 金): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, June 1993 (, misprinted as "7-5432-0010-8" in the book) ***Vol. 12 (門 through 龜): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, November 1993 () ***Vol. 13 (appendices and indices): 1st impression, 汉语大词典出版社, April 1994 (, misprinted as "7-5432-0010-4" in the book) **Collector's edition (): Published by Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Company Limited. 13 volumes. ***?th impression (1995-11-01) **Compact edition (): 3 volumes. ***?th impression (1997-04) **Simplified edition (): Includes over 20,000 head characters, 200,000 words. 2 volumes. ***3-volume edition (/): ****?th impression (1999-06-01) ***2-volume edition (): 1 impression, 1 edition. ****?th impression (2000-02-01) **Popular edition () () ***?th impression (2000-08-01) *2nd edition: Originally announced in 2012, the publication was to begin in 2015, with all 25 volumes to be completed in 2020. The complete set would include about 60 million characters.

''Hanyu Da Cidian'' by Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House

*1st edition **correction volume () (/): Includes over 30,000 entries. 1 volume. ***?th impression (2010-12-??) **Popular edition () (//H.494): Includes over 200,000 entries. ***?th impression (2012-03-01) **Compact edition () (//H.331): Based on the 12-volume edition. Includes over 370,000 entries, over 23,000 head characters, 347,426 compound words. 3 volumes. ***?th impression (2007-12-01) ***?th impression (2008-04-01) **22-volume edition () (): 22 volumes. ***?th impression (2008-08-??) **23-volume edition () (): 23 volumes (12+1 index+14 addition). ***?th impression (2011-06-01)

''Hanyu Da Cidian'' by Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Company Limited

*1st edition **Volume 1 () (/) ***?th impression (1995-07-01) **Volume 2 () (/) ***?th impression (1995-07-01) **Volume 3 () (/) ***?th impression (1989-10-01) **Volume 4 () (/) ***?th impression (1990-04-01) **Volume 5 () (/) ***?th impression (1990-10-01) **Volume 6 () (ISBN ?/ISBN ?) ***?th impression (????-??-??) **Volume 7 () (/) ***?th impression (1992-03-01) **Volume 8 () (/) ***?th impression (1992-08-01) **Volume 9 () (/) ***?th impression (1993-04-01) **Volume 10 () (/) ***?th impression (1993-08-01) **Volume 11 () (/) ***?th impression (1994-01-01) **Volume 12 () (/) ***?th impression (1994-08-01) **Appendix/index () (/) ***?th impression (1995-03-01) **Overseas edition (-S): 13 volumes (12+1 appendix/index). ***?th impression (1995-07-01)

''Hanyu Da Cidian'' by Tung Hua Book Co.

*1st edition: Changes from Chinese Dictionary Publishing House version include omission of simplified Chinese forms in the head character, addition of Mandarin phonetic symbols for pronunciations. **12-volume edition () (): Includes over 50,000 characters, over 370,000 entries, 2,253 coloured pictures. 13(12+1 index) volumes. ***?th impression (1997-09-01) ***?th impression (2004-04-01)

Optical disc editions

The abridged CD-ROM version (2.0) contains 18,013 head characters, 336,385 words and phrases (without pinyin), and 861,956 citations. It includes male and female sound files for single-syllable pronunciation, and enables more than 20 search methods. It requires

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, with a Chinese locale setting due to its use of

GB 18030 GB 18030 is a Chinese government standard, described as ''Information Technology — Chinese coded character set'' and defines the required language and character support necessary for software in China. GB18030 is the registered Internet n ...

. The 3.0 CD-ROM version was released in 2007. This version includes

SecuROM SecuROM was a CD/DVD copy protection and digital rights management (DRM) product developed by Sony DADC. It aims to prevent unauthorised copying and reverse engineering of software, primarily commercial computer games running on Microsoft Win ...

DRM copy protection software in its installation, possibly in response to the earlier version's

ISO image An optical disc image (or ISO image, from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media) is a disk image that contains everything that would be written to an optical disc, disk sector by disc sector, including the optical disc file system. ...

being illegally distributed on

VeryCD VeryCD is a Chinese website that shares files via eD2k links. The website was begun in September 2003 by Huang Yimeng (). In June 2005, Shanghai Source Networking Technology Co., Ltd (, or ''VeryCD company'') was established. It is a for-profit ...

. Due to design errors, the 2007 version of 3.0 is incompatible with Windows 7 OS; rather than release a free software patch to fix the problem, the publisher began selling an otherwise unchanged, full-price Windows 7-compatible version of 3.0 in 2010. *1st edition: Based on the 12-volume edition. **Simplified Chinese optical disc 1.0 (漢語大詞典1.0版 CD-ROM) (/): Published by The Commercial Press (Beijing). Includes 27,986 head letters, 343,470 compound words, 23,650 idioms, 512,000 explanations, over 400,000 Chinese characters information, 520 black and white pictures, over 20 search methods. Supports Simplified Chinese Windows 95. ***?th impression (1998-10-??) **Traditional Chinese optical disc 1.0 (Hanyu Da Cidian CD-ROM Traditional Version/漢語大詞典光碟繁體版): ***Single-user edition () ****1st impression (????-??-??) ***Network business version (/) ****?th impression (????-??-??) ***Network education version () (/): Supports Windows 95 Traditional Chinese version. Server supports Windows NT 4.0. ****?th impression (1999-??-??) **Simplified Chinese 2.0: Includes 20,902 head letters, 343,307 compound words, 23,649 idioms, 515,524 explanations, 877,130 examples, 519 black and white pictures. Supports Windows 95 and above. **Traditional Chinese optical disc 2.0: Includes 18,014 head letters, 336,690 compound words, 23,383 idioms, 504,042 explanations, 861,956 examples, over 230,000 Chinese characters information, 515 black and white pictures, over 20 search methods. Supports Windows XP. ***1-user edition (Hanyu Da Cidian CD-ROM Traditional Version 2.0/) (/) ****?th impression (2003-07-??) ***5 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) ***10 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) ***15 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) ***20 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) ***25 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) ***30 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) ***50 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) ***70 users edition (/) ****?th impression (2006-01-??) **Traditional Chinese optical disc 3.0 (: Includes 18,014 head letters, 23,383 idioms, 861,956 examples, over 20 search methods. Supports Windows 2000 or later. Existing 2.0 users could obtain an upgrade to 3.0 single-user edition. Changes from 2.0 include text lookup for Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and other document formats from running software (except PDF); addition of context menu, HTML rendering engine, Unicode support. Messages can be displayed in GBK, BIG5, or Unicode format. Software is based on Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0. ***1-user edition (Hanyu Da Cidian CD-ROM Traditional Version 3.0/) (/) ****?th impression (2007-07-01) ****?th impression (2014-01-??)

Network editions

Network version is maintained by EWEN? (上海数字世纪网络有限公司). *1.0 (《漢語大詞典》1.0網絡版): Includes 15 million characters. *2.0 (《漢語大詞典》2.0網絡版): Includes 50 million characters. *2.1 (《漢語大詞典》2.1網絡版): Includes ?.

References

*Hanyu da cidian bianzuanchu and , eds., 1997. General-purpose index to the ''Hanyu da cidian''" Shanghai: Hanyu da cidian. * Footnotes

External links

*EWEN page
Hanyu Da Cidian network edition
*Hanyu Da Cidian Chubanshe

*The Commercial Press (H. K.) Ltd. page
Hanyu Da Cidian
:*Optical disc 1.0 version
Traditional Chinese Network 1.0 education version
:*Optical disc 2.0 version
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:*Optical disc 3.0 version
1 user
*Joint Publishing (H.K.) page
''Hanyu Da Cidian'' 1.0 CD-ROM international 1 user
*Tung Hua Book Co., Ltd./New Moon Education Co., Ltd. page
12-volume edition
{{Dictionaries of Chinese Chinese dictionaries