Chinese Internet Slang Dictionary

Author: Yu Genyuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-06-01
Features: "Net Language" as an alternative language is gradually entering people's lives. In China, with over six years of internet development and a web user base of over 22.5 million, the China Internet Language Dictionary has been born. This lexical dictionary contains over 1,300 entries and approximately 400,000 words in the main text, edited by Professor Yu Genyuan, who served as the Director of the Institute of Language Application under the National Language Commission and is currently a doctoral supervisor at the of Beijing Broadcasting University. The editorial team, composed of numerous language experts, internet experts, and veteran netizens, including teachers in linguistics, teaching Chinese to foreigners, and broadcasting/hosting, took about a year to complete the work.
The internet has bridged the distance between people, making communication more convenient. However, online communication remains a virtual exchange without voice or images. Therefore, to facilitate and add humor to their text-based interactions, netizens have created a vast amount of "internet language." The internet is a magical world, and one of its greatest benefits is the ability to quickly access and disseminate information. For this reason, the birth of internet language has its distinctive characteristics. This dictionary helps new netizens overcome lexical barriers more quickly and enables relevant individuals to understand internet slang.
The entries in the dictionary are sorted by Pinyin, with concise and colloquial definitions. It includes both general internet terms, such as "fourth media," "mobile internet," and "e-commerce," and more specific words commonly used in chat rooms, like "banzhu (board owner)," "dashá (net master)," and "māo (modem)." It also incorporates commonly used foreign words and abbreviations, such as "E-mail (electronic mail)," "JJ (older sister)," and "MM (beautiful girl—little sister)." For words with multiple common usages, separate entries are provided with cross-references. Most entries include example sentences, emphasizing both knowledge and usage, and paying attention to differences in usage between mainland China and other regions like Taiwan. Additionally, the dictionary gives full attention to special numeric symbols, playful aliases, and colloquialisms used in internet language, and boldly includes them.
The publication of this dictionary has garnered significant attention from various media outlets, including CCTV, Beijing TV, China Youth News, Beijing Morning News, Science and Technology Daily, Sohu, and China News Network, all of which have reported on it.