Modern Chinese Abbreviations Dictionary

Author: Wang Junxi (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1988-12-01
Features: Abbreviations in Modern Chinese are an important part of the modern Chinese lexical system. They are clear in meaning, fixed in form, and meet people's needs for saving time and improving efficiency in language and writing. In recent years, abbreviations have been frequently used in various newspapers, magazines, and books, showing a sharp increase in quantity. A significant portion of them are unfamiliar to many people, or their full names or meanings are not entirely clear. Therefore, it is very necessary to compile a completely new Dictionary of Modern Chinese Abbreviations to provide reference for a broad readership (including readers from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, overseas Chinese, and foreigners), helping them resolve doubts and difficulties. Generally, abbreviations include both shortenings and compound terms, such as "" (short for "" - the tertiary industry), "" (short for "" - the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China), "" (a compound term for "" - information theory, "" - control theory, and "" - systems theory), and "" (a compound term for "" - feudalism, "" - capitalism, and "" - revisionism). However, the scope of this book expands further on this basis, including terms like "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," "," and "." Although these terms do not strictly fall under the general category of shortenings or compound terms, they all share the characteristics of abbreviations—simple and fixed in form, with specific meanings. Therefore, including them in this book as abbreviations is reasonable.
During the 1980s, the author was deeply involved in foreign language translation and published dozens of translations of varying sizes in various newspapers and magazines. One of the most challenging aspects of translation was dealing with abbreviations in the original texts—acronyms consisting of several uppercase English letters—which often remained unresolved even after consulting all available foreign language dictionaries. This led the author to realize that foreigners reading or translating Chinese articles must also face similar difficulties, sparking the idea of compiling a dictionary of Chinese abbreviations and beginning to collect and accumulate relevant linguistic materials.
So far, there are not many such reference books published in China. The author only has two in hand: one is the Dictionary of Modern Chinese Abbreviations published by Qi Lu Book Society in 1986, which includes only over 700 entries and is relatively small in scale. Moreover, some of the terms listed do not strictly fall under the category of abbreviations, such as "" (non-staff), "" (participate in war), "" (investigate and deal with), "" (make an overseas visit), "" (pay attention), "" (internal and external investigation), "" (training), "" (review), "" (annihilate completely), and "" (respect teachers). The other is the Abbreviation Handbook published by Knowledge Press in 1986, which includes over 15,000 entries and is quite extensive. However, most of them are highly specialized terms that general readers rarely encounter. Even if the full names are found, they may still be incomprehensible, such as "" (urethane belt), "" (ampere-turn), "" (plate resistance), and "" (cytidine). Additionally, this book also includes some terms that do not strictly qualify as abbreviations, such as "" (cancer), "" (according to), "" (help and teach), "" (dusk), "" (maintain cleanliness), "" (go against), "" (be busy running about), "" (the author), "" (convenience the people), "" (supplement supply), "" (fish), "" (a straight heart), "" (escort), and "" (feel guilty). Among the examples cited above, some can also be identified as not being abbreviations from their definitions alone. During the compilation of this book, the author drew on the strengths of the two aforementioned books while striving to avoid similar deviations.