Suzhou Dialect Dictionary

Author: Li Rong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-12-01
Features: The dialect dictionary is based on dialect surveys. The survey first identifies pronunciation collaborators. The collaborators are selected from the elderly and middle-aged, but young people are not excluded. The former is used to determine the phonetic system and record the corpus; the latter is used to supplement vocabulary while explaining the differences between the phonetic system and the former. The survey forms include two types: character tables and word tables. The former adopts the publicly published "Dialect Survey Character Table," while the latter is a newly compiled "Dialect Survey Word Table" specifically for this book. The single characters and words listed in these two tables are as far as possible clarified if they can be spoken in the local dialect. Only in this way can the corpus of different regions be compared for similarities and differences. This corpus is merely the largest common denominator for the local dictionaries. The local compilers have ample space to extensively collect the phonetic forms and vocabulary of the local dialect. The requirements for the local dialect dictionary are two: one is to prepare conditions for the comprehensive dialect dictionary, and the other is to reflect the characteristics of the local dialect. The content of the local dialect dictionary is divided into three parts: The main part is the dictionary proper, preceded by an introduction and followed by a category index and a index of entries.