Dictionary of Common Characters in Ancient Chinese (1998 Edition)

Author: Writing Group of "Dictionary of Common Characters in Ancient Chinese"
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-06-01
Features: This book is written by over ten experts and scholars, including renowned linguists such as Wang Li, Cen Lixiang, Lin Tao, Dai Li, Tang Zuofan, and Jiang Shaoyu, serving as a reference tool for learning ancient Chinese. It primarily includes common characters in ancient Chinese, supplemented by difficult characters and disyllabic words, totaling nearly 10,000 entries. The definitions are authoritative, the pronunciations are accurate, and the example sentences are well-chosen. For difficult example sentences, annotations and explanations are provided. The book also features dedicated sections for "Notes" and "Distinguishing between Similar Words," offering hints and clarifications for challenging characters and terms. Based on the revised edition of 1993, this dictionary has been revised and rearranged. It includes over 4,100 common characters in ancient Chinese (excluding variant forms). Characters with meanings identical to modern Chinese and widely used in contemporary language, rare and obscure characters with meanings rarely appearing in ancient texts, characters and meanings that emerged only in archaic colloquial language and modern Chinese, as well as meanings unique to poetry, songs, and quatrains are generally not included. A small number of disyllabic words are selectively included, totaling about 2,500. The dictionary also includes appendices such as the "Table of Difficult Characters" and the "Chronological Table of Dynasties in Chinese History." The "Table of Difficult Characters" contains over 2,500 characters, providing only phonetic transcriptions and definitions without examples, serving as a supplement to the main text of the dictionary. Characters in the table of difficult characters and the main text are uniformly listed in the index.