Eastern Han Chinese Dictionary Translation Project

FAIN: RQ-50525-10

Richard Sterling Cook
Unicode Consortium (Mountain View, CA 94043-3941)

Preparation of a print and online edition and interlinear translation of the Shuo Wen Jie Zi, a 2,000 year-old Chinese dictionary that serves as the basis for the study of East Asian languages. (36 months)

This project will create the first-ever English-language critical edition and interlinear translation of the 2,000 year-old Chinese dictionary Shuo Wen Jie Zi 'Interpreting the Ancient Pictographs, Analyzing the Semantic-Phonetic Compounds'. This influential ancient Chinese dictionary defines the elements of 'Han' writing that would spread over the next 2,000 years throughout Asia. Our edition of this work will be a resource for English and Chinese readers and translators of Chinese classics.

Associated Products

Digital Recension of the Eastern Han Chinese Grammaticon. (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Digital Recension of the Eastern Han Chinese Grammaticon.
Author: Cook, Richard S.
Abstract: Comprehensive electronic data underlying the "Eastern Han Chinese Dictionary Translation Project" (NEH RQ-50525-10), and arising from Cook's (2003) PhD dissertation, was published for the first time in February, 2011, as part of the bilingual (Chinese-English) Wenlin 4.0 software package. This data, the result of 17 years of work, includes the full reconstructed Shuowen Urtext in three parallel Chinese versions (Seal Script, Traditional, Modern), together with a wide variety of key contextual data needed for collation, proofing, interpretation and translation of the base text (including Chinese and English lexicographic data, and historical phonological and semantic data). The data is presented along with the large specialized fonts created for this project, including complete Unicode 6.0 CJK font support (CDL), linguistic transcription support, and Cook's Duan Yucai Seal font. Wenlin Institute's cutting-edge software serves as the primary platform for the Shuowen translation project, and is also the primary means of publishing project results; the ingenious user-interface streamlines access to the ancient text, and has been customized for enhanced cross-platform digital publication of the Shuowen translation project findings; Wenlin 4.0 runs on current Apple and Windows operating systems (see Wenlin 4.0, Bishop et al., 2011).
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.wenlin.com/
Primary URL Description: Wenlin Institute's website provides access to the published software.
Secondary URL: http://XN--P8SX0V3R4AYWA.COM
Secondary URL Description: This international domain name was registered for publication of project data. In the future is expected to redirect to a subdomain serving data arising from the Shuowen translation project.
Access Model: Hybrid: commercial software, with published source code.

Digital Recension of the Eastern Han Chinese Grammaticon. (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Digital Recension of the Eastern Han Chinese Grammaticon.
Author: Cook, Richard S.
Abstract: Comprehensive electronic data underlying the "Eastern Han Chinese Dictionary Translation Project" (NEH RQ-50525-10), a major update published in November, 2012, as part of the bilingual (Chinese-English) Wenlin 4.1 software package. This update presents numerous refinements of the Chinese/English data, reflecting developments in the prior year of work on the Shuowen translation project. Two prior incremental updates (4.0.1, 4.0.2) preceded this, subsequent to initial Wenlin 4.0 publication.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.wenlin.com/
Primary URL Description: Primary access point for project findings.
Secondary URL: http://XN--P8SX0V3R4AYWA.COM
Secondary URL Description: International domain name, for publication of project data.
Access Model: Hybrid: commercial software, with published source code.

Unabridged Hanyu Da Cidian Index — Wénlín Electronic Edition (Database/Archive/Digital Edition)
Title: Unabridged Hanyu Da Cidian Index — Wénlín Electronic Edition
Author: Richard Cook
Author: Thomas Bishop
Author: Victor Mair
Author: et al.
Abstract: Unabridged Hànyu Dà Cídian Index — Wénlín Electronic Edition. Integrated with the ABC English-Chinese/Chinese-English Dictionary. Corrected, expanded, compiled and published by Wenlin Institute, Inc. SPC. Based on the ABC Chinese Dictionary Series print edition: An Alphabetical Index to the Hanyu Da Cidian by Victor H. Mair. The Wenlin ABC HDC software edition merges Wenlin’s electronic version of the Unabridged HDC Index together with the electronic ABC Chinese-English Dictionary, so that their combined information (568,000 entries) is available in a friendly, intuitive and powerful interface. Ideal for students and specialists investigating Chinese literature. The Hanyu Da Cidian (Unabridged Dictionary of Sinitic) (HDC) is the first large-scale comprehensive word dictionary in Chinese history to include both ancient and modern language. HDC is an excellent reference, but it is difficult to find items in it because they are arranged by radicals and residual strokes — hence the need for an alphabetical index of words. The Wenlin ABC HDC software edition provides easy access to the more than 350,000 multisyllabic entries found in HDC. (An alphabetical index of monosyllabic entries is already available.) It uses Hanyu Pinyin to provide phonetic annotation for the character entries, which enables the user to locate them alphabetically. More information here: http://wenlin.com/products/hdcindex.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://wenlin.com/products/hdcindex
Primary URL Description: product info page; the HDC Index is instrumental to on-going Shuowen work
Secondary URL: http://wenlin.com/cdl/
Secondary URL Description: built with CDL technology
Access Model: commercial

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