SINO-PLATONIC PAPERS

Number 1 February, 1986

The Need for an Alphabetically Arranged General Usage Dictionary

of Mandarin Chinese: A Review Article of Some Recent Dictionaries

and Current Lexicographical Projects

by

Victor H. Mair

Victor H. Mair, Editor Sino-Platonic Papers

Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA vmair@sas.upenn.edu www.sino-platonic.org

The Need for an Alphabetically Arranged General Usage Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese:

+. A R~view Article of Soiue Recelzt Dictionnrie,~ clrlcl C~~rreizt Lexicog~riphicnl Prq jects

AS a working Sinologist, each time I look up a word in my Webster's or Kcnkyusha'.~ I experience a sharp pang of deprivation. Having slaved over Chinese dictionaries arranged in every imaginable order (by K'ang-hsi ratfical, left-top radical. bottorn-right radical, left-right split. total strokc count. shape of successive strokes, four-corner, three-corner, two-comer, kuei-hsiel? , rs'nrzg-c17ieh, telegraphic codc , rhyme tables, "phonetic" keys, and so on (id izn~rsecirn), I have become deeply envious of specialists in those languages, such as Japanese, Indonesian, Hindi. Persian. Russian. Turkish, Korean. Vietnamese, and so forth, which possess alphabetically arranged dictionaries. Even Zulu. Swahili, Akkadian (Assyrian). and now Surncrian have alphabetically ordered dictionaries for the conven- ience of scholars in these areas of research.

It is a source of continual regrct and embarrassment that, in general. lny colleagues in Chinese studies consult their dictionaries Tar less frequently than do thosc in other fields of area studies. Rut this is really not due to any glaring fault of their own ancl, in fact,

4

they deserve rnore sympathy than censure. The difticultics are so enortnous that very few students of Chinese are willing to undertake

t integral translations of texts, prcfcrring instead to summarize. para- phrase, excerpt and render into their own language those passages which are relatively transparent. Only individuals with exceptional dctcrmination, fortitude. and starnina are capable of returning again

Victor I I . Mair, "Alphabetically Arranged Ilictionary of Mantlarin"

and again to thc search for highly elusive char:sters in a welter of unfriendly lexicons. This may be one reason why Western Sinology lags so far behind Indology (where is our Biithlingk and Roth or Monies-Wi Iliams?). Greek studies (where is our Liddell and Scott?). Latin studies (OU~fi)rd Latii7 Ilictioilcr~?~). Arabic studies (Lane's. dis- appointing in its arrangement by "roots" and its incompleteness but grand in its conception and scope), and other classical disciplines. Incrcdibly. many Chinese scholars with advanced degrees do not even know how to locate i t e i~~s in supposedly sta11da1-d refcrcnce works or do so only with the greatest reluctance and deliberation. For those who do rnake the effort, thc number of' hours wasted in looking up worcls in Chincsc dictionaries and other reference tools is absolutely staggering. What is most rlcpressing itbout this profli- gacy. however, is that i t is completely unnecessary. I propose. in this article, to show why.

First, a few definitions are required. What do I mean by an "al- phabetically armnged dictionary"'? I refer to a dictionary in which all words ( tz 'u) are interfiled strictly according to pronunciittion. This rnay be referred lo as a "singlc sort/tier/laycr alphabetical" order or series. I most emphatically do not mean a dictionary arranged according to the sounds of initial single graphs (tzlr), i.c. only the beginning syllables of whole words. With the latter type of arrange- ment, more than one sort is required to locate a given term. The head character must first be found anti then a separate sort is required for the next character, and so on. Modern Chinese languages and dialects are as polysyllabic as the vast majority of other languages spoken in the world today (De Francis, 1984). In my cstirnation, there is no reason to go on treating them as variants of classical Chinese, which is an entirely different type of language. Having dabbled in all of them. I believe that the difference between classical Chinese and nod ern Chinese languages is at least as grcat as that between Latin and Italian, between classical Greek and modern Grcck or between Sanskrit and Hindi. Yet no one confuses Italian with Latin, modern Greek with classical Greek. or Sanskrit with Hindi. As a matter of fact there are even several varieties of pre- rnodcrn Chinese just as with Greek (Homeric, Horatian, Demotic,

Sitro-Platonic. P(q)ers., 1 (February, 1986)

Koinc), Sanskrit (Vedic. Prakritic. Buddhist Hybrid), and Latin (Ciccronian, Low. Ecclesiastical, Medieval, Ncw, etc .). If we can agree that there are fundamental structural diffcrcnces between mod- ern Chinese languages and classical Chinese, perhaps we can see rhe need for devising appropriately dissimilar dictionaries for their study.

One of the most salient distinctions between classical Chinese and Mandarin is thc high degree of polysyllabicity of thc latter vis-it-vis the former. There was indeed a certain percentage of truly polysyllabic words in classical Chinese, but these were largely loan- words frorn foreign languages, onomatopoeic borrowings from the spoken language. and dialectical expressions of restricted currency. Convcrsely, if one were to compile a list of the 60,000 most com- rnonly used words and expressions in Mandarin, onc would discover that more than 92% of these are polysyllabic. Given this configura- tion. it seeriis odd. if not perverse. that Chinese lexicographers should continue to insist on ordering their general purpose dic- tionaries according to the sounds or shapes of the first syllables of words alone.

Even in classical Chinese, the vast majority of lexical items that need to be lookcd up consist of rnore than one character. The number of entries in multiple character phrase books (e.g., P'ieil-tzu lei-pieii [approximately 110.000 entries in 240 chiiun] . P'ei-werz yiiil-fu [roughly 560,000 iterris in 212 clliin~tJ) far exceeds those in the largest single character dictionaries (e.g., Chung-hua fti tzu-tien [48,000 graphs in four volumes], K'crilg-hsi tzil-ficrr [49.030 graphs]). While syntactically and granimatically Inany of these mul- tisyllabic entries may not be considered as discrete (i.e. bound) units, they still readily lend then-rselves to the principle of single-sort alphabetical searches. Furthermore. a large proportion of graphs in the exhaustive single character dictionaries were only used once in history or are variants and ~niswritten forms. Many of the111 are unpronounceable and the meanings of others are impossible to deter- mine. In short, rnost of the graphs in such dictionaries are obscure and arcane. Well over two-thirds of the graphs in thcsc comprehensive single character dictionaries would never be encountered iil the erltir-o

Victor 1 1 . Mair, "Alphabetically Arr;~ngctl Dictionary of Mandarin"

Iijiitit~r of even the most assiduous Sinologist (unless. of course, he himself were a lexicographer). This is not to say that large single character dictionaries arc unnecessary as a matter of record. It is, rather. only to point out that what bulk they do have is trenlcndously deceptive in terms of frequency of usage.

Just to give one example, only 622 characters account for 90% of the total running text of Lao She's KicksI7~1~' Boy (1.0-t ' (I h .s i~it lg-tz~t) and 1681 graphs account for 99%. Altogether these are a total of 107,360 characters in Ricks l ln~* Boy but only 2,413 different graphs. Compare this with the 660,773 total characters in the four volumes of Mao Tye-trli~g's Selected Works which are composed or only 2,981 different graphs. Thc figure is actually not much differcnt for the bulk of classical Chinesc writings (Brooks). In 700 of the best-known T'ang poems, a considcrablc number by a variety of pocts, thcre are no more than 3.856 different graphs (based on Stimson). It is generally acknowledged that a passivc command of about 5,500 characters is sufficient for reading the overwhelming rnajority of literary texts. Five to six thousand distinct graphs are certainly quite enough for anyone to cope with, but they are a fiu- cry fro111 fifty to sixty thousand.

Functional literacy (the ability to rcacl newspapers, lcttcrs, signs, and so forth) in today's world requires that an individual command u knowledgc of no more than 1,500-2,000 graphs (cf. Ha, p. 33). Not surprisingly, this figure is approximately the same as the amount of jfiyfi or rirq'fi knizji (characters approved for common use by the Japanese Ministry of Education). It would appear that thc mind of the comlnon Inan rebels at thc mcmorizaton of larger riumbcrs of graphs. Two or three years out of high school, rnost Japanese - including those who go on to college - can only reproduce about 500-700 graphs. This number goes down in successive years as they increasingly resort to knna or rorntlji to express themselves. Even the most highly litcrate Chinese scholars can almost never recognize more than 10.000 characters and the person who can accurately produce as many as 5,000 is exceedingly rare. It is a simple fact that the written vocabulary of modern Chinese texts consists largely of words that can bc written down using no more than 3,500 different

Si~lo-Pltrlonic Alpers, 1 ( Fe br-uary, 1986)

characters. By contrast to the exhaustive single character dictioriaries men-

tioned above, there exist large dictioriarics consisting wholly of common binomial expressions (e.g. Licil-i~lieti tzrr-tien [about 22.400 entries in six volurncs] and 'l2'rr-r'ut1,q [[around 55.000 entrics in two thick tomes]). Thc arrangement of the latter is both curious and signilicant. The same binome is printed in as many as half-a-dozen or more different combinations of characters that have bccn used throughout history lo write it out. This indicates powerfully the primacy of sound over written form as the ultimate dctcrminant of Chinese language. 'l'he great latc-Ch'ing early-Republican scholar. Wi~ig Kuo-wci (1877- 1927)' perceptively noted that these biriomes are. in fact. dissyllabic words and that they should be grouped primarily on the basis of sound (in his article entitled "Studies on Binorncs in Ancient Literature IKu wen-hsiich chiuig lien-mien-tzu chih yen-chiu]." cited in Hu Shih's prcfitce to TZ'U-t'zrilg. p. 9). Confirnmation of this view may be found in the fact that a large number of Chinese characters exist only as syllables of polynomes (e. g . cliieh-(-hutll~ ["wiggler"], p'iizg-p'nilg I "ping-pong"], po-li and lilt-li I "glass"], hrr-tiel? I "butterfly"], k'lrei-lei ["puppct"]. chi-tet~g- ku-tetzg ["faithful", "constant"], ctc.).

An examination of the largcst dictionaries cvcr conceived for Chinesc languages, tlie Chlriig-shcrrz tn tz'u-tien and the Harvard- Yenching Institute's Cltitzesc-Eilglisli Dictiotzu~y Project. provides a telling indication of thc proportional relationship between the usage of single characters and that of polysyllabic expressions. Although both of these dictionaries were abandoncd in tlie early stages of. compilation. fragrncntary samples were published. The Chr~ng-shnn t(r tz'rr-tierz volurne for the graph i ("one*') includes six pages of cntrics for the single character dividccl into 57 separatc cxplanatory definitions. Comrast this with thc 472 pages of polysyllabic entries which follow (a1 togcther 5.474 separatc items). The Harvard-Yen- ching fascicle for radical tzn ("child") consists of 12 pages of defin- itions for the single graph. dividcd into 29 categorics of meaning. and 49 pages of polysyllabic cntrics numbering in thc hundreds.

Nunctheless, conversations with older, highly litcratc Chinese.

Victo~. 1-1. Mair, "'Alphabetically Arranged Dictionary of Mandarin"

who are perhaps somewhat less perspicacious and flexible than Wang Kuo-wci and Hu Shih, have collviticed nic that i t is very difficult for many of them to think o f any variety of Chinese language as other than nionosyl labic. 'I'here arc exceptional individuals, such as the applied linguists, Zhcli~ Youguang and Ni Haishu, who are at the very vanguarcl of psogrcssive lexicographical seforrri. H u t the majority of Chinese who received their education before the advent of compulsory exposure to Piilyin (romanization) in schools - and this still includes most of today's Chinese dictionary makers - resist strongly the idea that the basic unit of coherent discourse may be larger than a syllabic in length.

Thcy presi~tiiabl y conceive of 1'11-shrl-krlatl ("library") as three separate graphs ("picturc book hall"[?]) rather than as a single tcrrn. Never mind the fact that there exists a cornn~only used graph (pronounced t'rl-sllrl-krr~rrl) which would sccm to indicate that i t is only onc word. By this same logic. we would be conlpelled to think of English "bibliotheca" as a "case for books" instead of as a library. I could cite othcr widely recognized (anlong serni-literate individu- als) but unofficial characters of this type. George Kcnncdy's persua- sive paper on "Thc Monosyllabic Myth" should have demolished forever the chimerical conception that Chinese languages consist of words that are only one syllable in length. Highly literate Chincse, however, have been living with and believing in thc myth of ~nonosyl- labism for so long that it will not die easily. Rccause many older Chinese cannot comprehend the idca of polysyllabic words ( t s ' ~ ~ ) , they cling tetlaciously to the inviolable independence of each sylln- ble. Hcnce acceptance of :i single-sort alphabetical serial listing rnuy be too large a concession to ask of many Chinese at this stage. In such cases, individual characters may be arranged by sound and multisyllabic entries can be listed in alphabetic order under these headings. Several dictionaries have utilized this compromise princi- ple, among thcnl John DeFrancis's lrldex Vulrnne, Wen-shun Chi's L)ic.tiui~crn~ of COII~~JI?I~OI'(IIY U S L I , ~ ~ , the Yale LIictiolrury of Spoke11 Chitzc~su, and - an early exalnple - MacG il l ivray 's M~z~~(~~ir i tz- Rmn~i~zized Uictiotlary (!/'Chit~ese. The bcttcr ( in the sensc of being tiandicr) dictionaries of this type combine in a single alphabetical

Sitlo-Plutotlic. P(ipers, 1 (February, 1986)

series all words having the same initial syllabic. regardless of which graphs the syllable represents. The result, however. as in DeFrancis' lrzcle-r Volurlle, is that we must hunt for r?zixin ("superstition") before r~lir!jiurl ("folk"). Less desirable is an alphabetical arrangement of head characters ancl total stroke counts for thc subsequent graphs in each en try (e .g. Sybil Wong 's C I I I ~ ~ Z C S C C'ottzr~z~ulist Agric~lltuwl E r - rnirlolo~y). Yet this is far preferable to a radical, corner, or strokc look-up of initial characters. At any rate. 1 am by no means alonc in pointing out the superior facility of sound look-ups over other types (cf. the astute and apposite remarks of Barnes, pp. 308-309 and DeFrancis. 1985).

So far. the best general dictionary of Mandarin known to me that employs the mixed or compromise principle is the Dic-tioittzclir-e Firrrlqais de I N Lirrzgrre Cllirrnisc edited by the Ricci Institute. It has so many excellent fcatures that 1 shall list a fcw of them here for the consideration of the compilers of the next generation of Chinese- E~iglish dictionaries. All charactcrs with the same pronunciation (regardlesss of tone) are printed together in one block at the beginning of each syllabic tabulation. The main order of the dictionary is according to Wade-Giles romanization but each syllable heading also prominently displays National Phonctic Syrr~bols (po-p'o-mo- jb), Pinyin. National Romanization (Gwoyeu Romatzyh). and the spellings devised by 1 '~co le Fran~aise de Extrkme-Orient. For each character, radical number and residual strokes are given. us well as an indication of its frequency of appcarance, variant pronunciations, and part of speech. Listed under each charactcr in alphabetical order are the multisyllabic words and expressions beginning with that ~ r a p h . The dictionary contains approximately 6.500 single graphs and 50,000 words, phrascs, and othcr multisyllabic charactcr corn- binations.

E'or those whose first romanization is not Wade-Giles, the front and back endpapers of the Ricci Institute dictionary offer comparative charts of Pinyin and National Phonetic Symbols. An E.F.E.O. chart may be found among the nunierous appendices. Other thoughtful and clearly presented material provided for the uscr's ease of refer- ence arc extensive chronological tables that rcach back to thc

paleolithic period; the heavenly branches and earthly s ~ c ~ i i s toget hcr with corresponding symbolic. astronomical. directional. ;itid horological associations: the sexagesimi~l cycle together with the ricw year's date for the period 1864-2043; the twenty-four soli~r periods with a helpful explanation: weights and mcasures (rnetrical, traditional, and Taiwanese): i nforrnation on the Rook of Clllrllgc,~ ( I - t h i t l g ) and its hcxagrarns; u table of the different pronunciations of 858 '-phonetic" elements usecl in the composition of Chinesc characters (based on Wiegcr. pp.397-566); four-corner index: stroke indcx: radical indcx (provides one word definitions for each charac- ter); difficult characters (by nu~nbcr of total strokes): charts of sinipliticd arid complex forms. This description of the Ricci lnstit~~te dictionary. whilc by no means exhausting its manifold virtues. should give an idea of the typc of thorough treattilent Sino-English Icxicog- raphers should strive to emulate and, if possible. surpass by ulilizing a single-sort alphabetical order.

The alphabctical principal of arrangement can be utilized even for such a tonally complex language as Cantonese or A111oy (Hoklo). In Oakman's Ccrr~~orlese-Englislz Dictiorlar??, all single ch:~r;ictcrs having thc salnc spelling arc gsoupccl together in one place, sub- divided by toncs (e.g. upper level. upper rising, upper falling, upper entering. ~iliddle entering. lower level. lowcr rising, lower falling, lower entering). Unclcrneath the single hcud characters are arranged polysyllabic expressions beginning with or including them. The cn- tries in Douglas' excellent Alnoy (Hoklo) dictionary arc arranged alphabetically by key syllables which usually occur in the initial or final positions of polysyllabic expressions. Some few also stand alone as rnonosyllabic words. It should be noted that no characters occur in the entire dictionary.

There are already models for the type of Mandarin dicationary I am advocating in this article. In 1958, the People's Republic of China Cotl~mitte for the Reform of the Written Language (Wen-tzu kai-ke wci-yiian-hui) published a list of 20,100 ancl sonic words of Mandarin. This was revised and expantled to 59.100 odd wortis in 1963 and has been reissued on several occi~sions thereafter. While this so-called 12'11-llru' gives only the pronunciation of words atid

Sitzo-Plc~tonic /'upel-s, 1 (February, 1986)

expressions in alphabetical order and lacks definitions, i t shows very clearly the feasibility and usefulness of such an arrangement. I have long expressed thc wish that the 1963 word list be converted into an actual dictionary. On July 4, 1983, 1 met with ofticials of the

, Committee for the Reform of the Written Language in Peking. They informed me that they werc working on another revision of their word list and that they would consider making an alphabetized dic- . * tionary bused on i t . Their eyes li t up when I told them 1 would gladly pay a small fortune for such a reference tool. An alphabetically ordered dictionary would certainly be worth such a sum because of the hugc amount of timc it would save in my research. Naturally, 1 hope that the Chinese will be able to produce this type of dictionary at a cost that will make it widely availablc. They are already publish- ing a respectable encyclopedia with entries given in strict alphabetical order. This is the Lui-ge Chirzesa Encyc*lopedia (Chung-kuo tn pai-k'c? ch'iian-sku) which, unfortunately, is being issued in the cumbersome format of topical volumes. The adoption of this alphabetical arrangc- ment for the encyclopedia was achieved only after major battles waged between monosyllabic-minded traditionalists and polysyllab- ically oriented reformers. We are indebted to thc latter for their vision. persistence. and courage.

I have also recently discovered that a consortium of research organizations in Shanghai, Kiangsu, Chekiang , Fukien , Anhwei , and Shantung is compiling an Unabridged Chirtese Dictionary (Harz- yii ta tz'u-tien) to compete with the Sino-Japanese Dai Kan-Wu jiten (csti~iiated 500.000 entries) of Morohashi Tetsuji and its Taiwan reworking, the Chung-wen ta tz'u-tien. The general editor is Luo Zhufeng, Vice-Chairman of the Federation of Social Sciences and Chairman of the Shanghai Institute of Language. He is assisted by six assistant editors. 'The ncw nlainland dictionary will have more

#

than 300,000 entries and will be published by the Cishu chubanshe of Shanghai. At times. there have been as many as 500 people

I working on the project: prescntly several dozen are employed. The project was initiated in 1975 and writing commenced during 1979. The initial volume. appparently to contain the first few radicals. was scheduled to be issued in 1985 and subsequent volun~es arc to follow

Victor kt. Mair, "Alphabetically Arrrtngcd Dictionary of Mandarin"

at yearly in(erv;ils. The goal for completion is 1080. According to nly illf~rtllillli~ (XU Wcixiitn, Guan Dedong. Yin Binyong). this dic- tionary will tiot hc ortlcred in the mannel- I hnvc :~dvocatcd and it secms to be too late to hope for any change of format. But since this will be a specialist's dictionary intended primarily for classicists, thc need for an easy linding system is not so pressing. After corn- spondence and conversations with individuals involved in this pro- ject, I hold some real hope that various auxiliary devices will be provided to rnakc this important new clictionary as convenient as possible for users. While the editors responsible for the dictionary sccm determined that a new system of 201 radicals will bc used. they did entertain thc possibility of including an index based on the traditional 214 radicals which most Western Sinologists partially rnernorize. 'There will also bc a four-corner indcx and. most rcassur- ing of all. u Pinyin index of all pronounceable chiiracters is promisccl. Citations to specific editions of texts will be provided for all eritrics and pronunciation will be indicated "where neccssary". I have rc- quested that full pronunciations bc given for all cntrics but space litnitations rnay prcvent such an undertaking. For the sarne reason, i t may also be itnpossiblc to provide a single-sort alphabetical intlex of all entries, though 1 have lobbied hard for the incliision of such a precious tool. The new Ui~(zbridged CIZ~IIOSC D i c t i o i ~ ~ ~ will have a companion U~lcrbt-idged Dic.tioilc~ry oj' S i t l ~ l c Clttrmcters (HL~Iz-yii to tzu-tio~l). Thc latter will include nearly 60,000 graphs. It is being prepared under the general editorship of Zhao Zhenduo of the Chinese Department at Szechwan University and is scheduled to appear in 1989, the sane year that the HC~II-yii tcc tz'rt-tie11 is airning for completion.

Actually, the 1958 alphabetized listing of Mandarin words and expressions mentioned above was preceded by B. lsaenko's cxperi- mental attempt in 1957 to create an alphabetized dictionary. And Kuraishi Takcshir6 published his excellent alphitbctizccl Mandarin- Japanese dictionary in 1963. Is this just one niorc example of Russian prescience and superior Japanese efficiency'?

As n matter of fact, all of thcse attempts wcrc predated by Sirrlon's A Rcgilltler-'s Chitlcse-E~rglish Dictiorzn~-), qf the Ncrtiorurl Lcrrlgu~lgc..

Sirlo- Plutonic- Papers, 1 (February, 1986)

For its size ( 14-15.000 entries co~nposed of about 5.740 separate graphs). this is probably the finest dictionary of Chinese ever pub- lished. All cntries are arrangcd in strictly alphabetical order by G(woyeu) R(omatzyh). If one knows thc sound of a Chinese word

I( or expression, hc can look it up us rapidly as in an English dictionary (c.g.. ji/hhec>n "duplicate",filhbitl "restoration of monarchy",fillzhuh "a kind of foreign cloth", fulzcl~ncri~piiil "by-product". fuhehin . 4

"father", jirh c-hiilg "to pay over in full", fitl~clzorr "to takc revenge; vendetta", firhc*hyrtni~ "rehabilitation". jll? cl~yrt "to play the lute", filh dnizn "to bear a burden", and so forth). There is also a delicious assor-tment of tables and indices, of which I list here a selection: "The Radicals with their Mnemonics", "The Most Irnporta~it Classi- fiers", "Weights and Measures", "The Ten Stems and Twclve Branchcs". "The Scxagenaty Cycle", "The Twenty-Four Solar Terms". "A Concordance: Gwoyeu Romatzyh - Wade-Transcrip- tion", "A Concordance: Wade-Transcription - Gwoyeu Romatzyh", "The Chincsc Pholietic Alphabet (Juhiil Tzy/~rnuu)". "Thc Chinese Nunlerals Written in Various Styles". "The Four Styles of the Chinese Script", "l'he Wang Yunwuu Four Comer System", "Chronological Tables", "Geographical Names", "Radical Chart". "Radical Index", "List of Characters Difficult to Find in the Radical Index". An evcn smaller dictionary possessing a similar alphabetical arrangement is Fred Fangyu Wang's M~rrlhrirz Chii~ese Diclioilrrn~. Its 6,000 entries niakc it suitable only for the restricted purpose of the elenientary student. This setup has also occasionally been tricd in specialized dictionaries such as Joseph D. Lowe's Militnrj9 Tet-i?~~. The problern with Si~non's and Wang's dictionaries is that they are simply not large enough. The advanced reader of Chinese is quickly discouraged from using thcse otherwise excellent tools because, more often than not, what hc is looking for is just not there.

* The Frcnch have not bccn slow to perceivc the advantages of a

singlc-sort alphabetical arrange~iient. A team of editors and Chinese t irlfornlants frorn the Centre de Kecherches Linguistiques sur 1'Asie

Orientale. ~ c o l e des Hautes ~ t u d c s en Sciences Sociales (54, Boulevard Raspail. 75006 Paris) has completed one-fifth of a 60,000 cntry general Chinese-French dictionary arranged according to Pin-

Victor H . M;rir. "Alphabetically Arr;zngetl 1)ictionary of Mandarin"

yin transcription. Having examined two Fiscicles of the tiraft. 1 find them to be of high quality and extraordinary usefulncss. In niy estimation, when this project is completed in its entircty, i t will yield the best medium-sized dictionary of rriodern Chinese available to date in any language. My only regrct is that the dictionary will not be in English. Nonethclcss, I still support this dictionary strongly because it is so beautifully conceived and designed. Even though the explanations will be in Frcnch, the dictionary will still be essential for me becausc of its brilliant arrangcrnent. It would be a shame if funds for this project werc cut off bcfose it is finished. I would make only one suggestion at this juncture and that is that the editors consider inclusion of a finding list of all 9,000 characters arranged by the traditional radicals. With such a finding list. those single characters in the morphological sections whose pronunciation is not known will still be locatable.

The CETA (Chinese-English Translation Assistance) Group. with substantial United States government assistance and material sup- port, is compiling a large Chinese-English general dictioilary of over* 100,000 terms (including technical tcrrns, thc ~ursent filcs run to ncarly half-a-rriillion entries). Since the entire dictionary is stored in computers, it should be relatively easy for CETA to run off an alphabetically ordered version. This is a desideratum of the greatest urgency and presents our profession with n tremendous golden oppor- tunity. I have myself taken steps that may eventually lead to the developnlent of an alphabetically ordered dictionary based on (but not limited by) the CETA files. Any support fro111 my colleagues would be most warmly welcomed.

There arc two other major dictionaries of modern Chinese under preparation. Onc is being cornpileti by the Tz'u-tien shih (Dictionary Scction) of the Yii-ycn yen-chiu-so (Research Institute for Lan- guages) in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and will have a projected 120,000 entries. The other (Chinese-English) was launched on July 1. 1984 by the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at thc University of Massachusetts (Amherst). It is being undertaken in cooperation with a full-timc stawof 20 at the Peking Institi~tc of Foreign Languages and will include approximately 100.000 entries.

Sitlo-Plarouic Pnper.~, 1 (February, 1986)

Since both of these projects will likely be consuming large amounts of PRC and US government funding, it is in the interests of all concerned to see that these dictionaries havc some means of al- phabetized access.

In light of the recent appearance of the massive Bol'shoi Kir~risko- Klrsskii Slol~crl-' , compiled under the chief editorship of I. M. Osha- nin. I would seriously recomn~end that efforts toward the creation of a large ncw Chinese-English dictionary be coordinated. It would be niuch preferable if funding agencies were to make all of thcir grants to a joint comtnission for the preparation of a quality, thorough product ruther than frittering away several hundred thousand dollars through sponsoring two or three medium-sized, mediocre dic- tionaries. We already have more than enough of these costly artifacts of incompetence clogging the shelves of our libraries. Whether from government agencies or private institutions, funds for the compilation of a new dictionary should be firmly withheld until thc organizers of the project can demonstrate that their work will exceed in scope and excellence all existing Chinese-English lexicons. It would be a shame, indeed a pathetic travesty, if all that $200,000 could buy would be two additional dictionaries like Mathews', The Pirryirl Dirtion~ry Lin Yiltang 's, or Liang Shih-ch'iu's. Even one Inore such dictionary - considering the fact that we are already blessed with such a plethora - would be a worthless excrescence. Two more would be sirnply too I I I U C ~ , like bringing owls to Athens. There are numerous desiderata for a good dictionary of Chinese. Since Elling Eide (1975; sce also David Jordan. 1981) has already stated them so eloquently and forcefully, there is no need for me to repeat them here. I will mention only that a good many of them havc been met in the impressive Russian dictionary mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph.

The Bol'shoi Kitaisko-Rzrsskii Slol?nrP might almost serve as a model of completeness for a dictionary of modern Chinese. In the first place, it is huge, containing around 250.000 words and expres- sions listed under 15,681 characters. The entire first volume, out of four, is dedicated to making the life of the user as easy as possible (traditional Chinese lexicographers seem to have delighted in putting

Victor H . Mair, "Alpliahcric;~lly Arranged Ilictionar-y of Mandarin"

stumbling blocks between those who consulted their works and the items they were in search of). I shall note here only a few of the ;ivailablc aids: a lorig list of place names. fill1 chronological tables and a fincling list of reign periods. calcndrical charts. weights and rncasures, and four corner, radical. and Pinyin indices of 15.505 single charactcrs. The entries incluclc usage notes, sample sentences, and parts of speech. So far, my only complaint is that this superb reference work is organized by the type of stroke(s) in the bottorn right corncr of each character. Admittedly, this system. designctl by V. Vasil'cv, 0. Roscnburg, A. Hionin, and V. S. Kolokolov, is about the best one can expect for directly looking up single characters by their shape. But, for the sake of speed and efficiency, I would have I I I U C ~ preferred a single-sort alphabetical listing or at least an al- phabetical listing under each of the head characters (many of them have hundreds of entries). The arrangement by shape of characters is a significant drawback for frequent users of the dictionary for whom time is of the essence. Until someone can improve upon this magnificient new Sinological research tool, however, all that we can do for the present is gape in woncicr and awe. In other words, unlcss Sino-English lexicographers can come up with something to rnatch it (and right now we appear to be far removed from that Icvel). this new dictionary is another good reason for specialists in Chinese studies to learn Russian.

One of the questions people freyilcntly ask tne when confronted with the idea of an alphabetized dictionary of Mandarin is "How will I be able to look up a word in it if I don't know the pronunciation'?" My answer is that, after just four years of studying Mandarin, one usually knows thc pronunciation of approximately 93% of the tetra- graphs (my translation of the tern1 jizn,q-k'rrcri-tzir) one encounters in a typical text and can guess at most of the rest. A syllabary such as Goodrich's can be used to solve any remaining problems. What one does not know are the exact meanings of various character combinations. For example, every first-year student of Mandarin knows that rmr tneans "tree" and erh means "ear", but how many know that t~u-el-h designates a type of edible fungus (Ai~ric~rlnt.icr tr~r~.ic*irla jrtdac)? Every second-year student is probably aware that

Sirlo-Pltrio~lic P(cpers, 1 (February, 1986)

jilz rneans "sun" and S / I C rneans "shoot". but how many could imagine thatjill-SIIC is the equivalent of "insolation"? Every third-year student surely knows that cliirig niearis "scripture" (as wcll as a lot of other things) and that trrcrn means "break" but how many of them could guess that t.lii~lg-r~tcrtl is a technical term in Chinese medicine for

A

"~~~enopause"? This list could bc multiplied Illany thousand-fold. The problern is analogous to that with other languages when the

# fledgling complains, "I know how to pronounce this word but don't know what i t means." Admittcclly, learning how to pronouce aloud Chinese written texts is a vastly more difficult exercise than is reading out any alphabetic script. But, then again. there are other aspects of Chinese graphs that are even more demanding, such as recalling how to write them. So long as the Chinese people continue to use the tetragraphs, we arc obliged to bccome familiar with their pronun- ciation. And so long as we expend enormous amounts of energy to bccome reasonably proficient in reading them off. it seems silly not to capitalize on that effort through minirnizing the amount of tirne spent in looking up new words composcd of graphs that one is already able to pronounce.

For someone who has been actively involved in Chincse studies over a period of ten or fifteen years, thc process of looking up a word (let us say ~'ing-trtuiz) in Iiis battery of Chincse dictionaries goes something like this. As he stares fixedly at the graph t'ing, hc cannot be totally sure whether the radical is "ear", "ten". "eye" on its side or maybe "net", "one", "heart", or "jade". He knows that thc graph basically means "hcar" so by all rights it should be listed under "ear". But he has been burned too rl-iany tilnes before. as with c/zilrrlg ("general" - under "inch". not "couch" or even more logi- cally "claw"), jnei ("beautiful" - under "goat", not "large"), arid so on. Although his insecurity is excusable, he feels a littlc bit guilty

.I itboitt not looking undcr "car" and has an impulse to do so but his eycs bcgin to glaze over as he conten~plates all of the residual strokes

.I he would have to count. Suppbsing he were to miss one? He loses more time its hc clccides what to do next. He normally avoids Mcrtlze~rs' because of the vagaries of its spellings arid bec:tusc it is so hopelessly out of date. But this lcacls hiin to an cvcn deeper

Victor H. Mair. "Alph;tbcrically Auangcd Dictioni~ry o f Mandat*in"

qualidary. He suspects that t ' i t l ~ - r ~ ~ l i r is n prc-modern juridical tern1 and M(lthc~~,s ' (104.000 cntrics under 7,785 head characters ordered by sound) generally has dcccnt coverage of this sort of language. Still he decides, for the moment, to stay away frorn M a t h e ~ x ' bccause he does not trust its definitions. Should he try the mainland Pinyin dictionary'? That is an u s y way out because i t is the closest thing available to an i~lphabeticnlly ordcrcd medium-sized Mandarin-Eng- lish dictionary. At least the words are filed alphabetically under the individual tetragraphs and the latter arc themselves arranged by sound. As he turns it pages, a sense of futility begins to sct in; he is convinced thc tcrrri will not bc rticrc. Somewhere he has heard the term before. perhaps in u Ch'ing documents class or in a historical nov vie. He is almost certain that both graphs should be pronounced in the fourth tone. Imagine his chagrin when he discovers that the Pinyin dictionary does not cvcn have t'irrg in the Sc~urth tone! But he really should have expected that too because he long ago became aware of the extensive language engineering that went into this dictionary. Well, perhaps the editors have cunningly hidden t ' i i lg- t~,rcit~ under the first ronc? No. it is not thcrc either. Although thcy have indeed entcrcd rnany words beginning with t'iilg in the fourth tone as having initial first tones. t'ing-trran is not among therrl. Still at ground zero. Now our beleaguered Sinologist begins to fidget. Mcrtlrews"? He simply docs not trust it. His fingers bcgin to twitch toward the cncyclopedic clictionaries that fi l l two of his book shelves. Hc decides that is the last resort because the volumes are so hcavy and he would have to bend his aching back far to the left to fetch thern. Furthern~orc. he would like an authoritative English translation if possible and in any case hc would have to count thc blasted strokes or contend with index volumes to find the term in thcrn. Authoritative! Ah. yes. A wavc of temporary exhilaration washes over him. He recently purchased a A Dictioncri-y c?f'Chinese Law crud G o v c ~ r t z r ~ ~ r w t compiled by Philip R. Bilancia. What is niorc, this specialized dictionary has wisely been alphabetically arranged in a single-sort sequence. Sincc he knows how to pl.onounce t'iilg-tzrai?, he ought to be able lo find it in u trice. Withill seconds, he tlips adroitly to the spot wherc it should bc. Alas! i t is not there. Crestfallen, he

assulncs the term is no longer current in Chinese jurisprudence. What next? He does not expect that there is much hope at all of r'irlg-i,~otl's occu~-rencc in IluckerS splcndid new dictionary of offi- cial titles but the fact that it is arranged in the same fashion as Rilancia's causes his fingers to twist wistfully in its direction. The thircl volume of the massive (212,000 entries) Modert~ Chinese-Erlg- lisll 'Ii~c~ll~licwl atzd Getlrml L)ic*iionc~y is arranged according to Pinyin romanization in strict alphabetical sequence but he decides not to look into it either because it emphasizes scientific and technical terminology so heavily (80%). He considers walking across the study to get onc of his older Chinese-Chinese legal dictionaries. He aban- cions thc thought, however, on recallil~g that they are arranged by total stroke count and under that probably by radicals. They also tend to bc too technical for his present purposes. Still hoping to find an aclcquate English rendering, he reluctantly reaches lor Mtrthcj~~s' . Without too rnuch trouble he locates the expression: "to accept a legal decisinn." At first he heaves a half-hearted sigh of relief but then falls prey to his old doubts. The definition does not sound right and it most assuredly does not fit the context in which he originally encountered it. As our suffering Sinologist rolls his head back in exasperation, the Gwuyei/ tsy~leun catches his eyes. Ahh! Why didn't he think of it before'? The Gw7oyeu tsyrdenn orders the tetragraphs accorrling to the Chinese syllabary (po p'o nlo$), etc.), is consistently reliable, and includes many outtnoded and dialectical words. He swiftly turns the pages of volume one. There it is: tinqduan~z. The definition provicied helps him understand vaguely what the term means but i t also immerses him in u vortex of circularity. E'rorn t'ing-sling et-/I irran-dliieh chih, he feverishly races to t'ing-sirrtg where he finds s11er1-li S L I ~ Z ~ - L I I Z and tr/cltl-c-l~iieh where he finds noth- ing. He draws another blank at sllerr-li and for sur1g-arl he discovers

4 + szc-silng cin-c./ticn. Su-sung finally yields a noncircular and moder- ately enlightening explanation but at)-chiuil sends him off on another merry goose chase (part of it leads right back to su-atrzg). ,

By this time, the beleaguered scholar's desk is strewn with dic- tionaries as numerous as dead soldiers on a battletield. He reiilizcs that t'it~g-trrarl has something to do with a court's decision conccmirlg

Vicror H . Muis. "Alph:~hetically Arranged Ilictionasy ol' Mandarin"

litigation brought before it. His instincts and training drive him to pursue u precise English runs slat ion. This in turn leads him to think of Lin Yi~t:ln,o who, when 1 . 1 ~ is not being cute or obtusc, sometin~cs provides uncannily apt equivalents. What is more, Lin drew heavily on the G\cy(gr~lr ts?~~r-lecirr in co~npiling his own dictionary (about 80,000 entries untler approximately 8,000 c11ar;lc tcrs) , so there is a fairly good chance that t'i~lg-tlrctrl might be in i t . Our harried Sinologist would rather turn to the romanizcd index of single graphs than resort to Lin's so-called "Instant Index Systcm". After thurnbing pages and keeping numbers in his addled brain fur longer than he would like, the poor soul stumbles upon Lin's definition which is "(of judge) decides at court". Lin dicl not utterly fail him this time for the definition given finally points out that t'ing-tlrciil is something done by :I judge.

His reserves of starnina alrnost exhausted, the distraught Sinologist at last gets down thc dictionary he would have begun with had it not been ordcrcd by radical. viz. Liarlg Shih-ch'iu's (80.000 entries under 7,331 head characters). He turns to the Wade 1-ornanization index at the back. nulnbly runs his fingers down thc rows of liny graphs until he finds the right one, cntcrs its number in his temporary memory, turns the pages in a dazc, forgets the number for t'irrg. goes back to the index to retrieve i t , finds the graph again, locates the term t'iilg-trl~r~l, and dissolves in tears when hc reads "to pass a judgement or verdict aftcr hearing the case." Although the English is not wholly idiomatic. i t is at least clear-cut.' If only there wcrc a lexicographer of Liang Shih-ch'iu's ability who also had thc perspicuity to arrange his dictionary by sound rather than radicitl!

Thc small dranla recounted in the preceding paragraphs is re- enactccl dozens of times each day in the lives of most conscientious studcnts of Chinese civilization. No wonder most of us arc so sour anti gray by the time we reach fifty! The amount of tirrlc consumed and the spirit cxpcnded in this sort of ~ncaningless, not to mention destructive, type of activity is beyond calculation. My pcrsonal expcricrlcc and experiments with my students and collcagucs have demonslrated that words can nornl:~lly be found two to ten times faster in u single-sort alphabetically itrranged list than in other types

Sirlo-Plutonic P(rper.v, 1 (February, 1986)

of :trr;ingcrncnts.' Given these circumstances. it is ludicrous to pro- duce another dictionary of Mandarin that is geared to a tinding syslcm dcvised for the "r~~onosyllabic"('?) classical 1angu;rge. Modern Chinese do not think or speak in n~onosyllables. There is no compel- ling rcason to create another dictionary of nnodern Chinese that prctcnds they do.

The type of dictionary I propose here would not ordy be usefi~l in the day-to-day reading of texts. It would also have a salutary efrcct in the search for machine translation and machine-assisted translation capability. With such an alphabetically ordercd dictionary in its memory, the cotllputer could hunt for words and expressions at a fraction of the time and cost of any other finding system. As a matter of fact, prototype studies have already becrl undet-taken using this method. As examples. I refer to the research of Paul Thotnpson on early philosophical texts and statistical analyses of modern navels undertaken recently in China (Feng Shu-hua. et ctl.). The current trend in computer input is decidely in favor of rornanization. The reasons why this is so have been lucidly explained in two articles by Joseph D. Becker. Basically, roimanization is the orlly means of Chinese co~nputer inputting that is easy to learn. fast. and touch-typ- able by nun-professionals. Conversely, sheer numerical magnitude makes c r t l j dircct entry of Chinese characters cumbersome and dif- ficult (and consequently, in most cases, slow anti expensive). Pro- gramming details for retrieving karzji via r-orncrji keyboarding have already been solved by Japanese computer scientists several times over. Many researchers are now in thc process of completing pro- gramming for the rotrianized inputting of Mandarin Chinesc, among them Duke University. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center). ICL (International Computerized Linguistics), Asiagraphics. Wen- tzu kai-ke wei-yiian-hui (The Coinmittce for the Refor111 of the Writ- ten Chinese Language), the Univcrsity of London, Hua KO Electric Company Limited. Toshiba, and the University of Pennsylvania. to nalne only a few. Xerox has already perfected its fabulous STAR word-processor which can handle Chinese. Japanese, Korean. Arabic, Hindi, etc. with a standard keyboard.

Evcn the archaic and exceedingly clumsy Chinese typewriter has

Victor H. Mair, "Alphabetically Arranged 1)iction:iry of Mandarin"

been rearranged according to the principle of alphabetization. This has been carried out indepcndentl y at least twice - once by workers at the Harbin School of Medicine ancl anothcr time by Robert S. Rauer. The compelling logic that drove Raucr to rearrange the thousands of bits of lead in his typewriter is cxplainctl by him thus (p. 138): "Thinking there must be a faster. easicr way to find charac- ters than looking for them by their radicals and, recognizing that I knew how to pronounce most of the characters in the tray, 1 hit upon the logical rzltcrnativc of rcal-sunging them by thcir pronunciation." This is the same logic that is inexorably causing the shift in Chinese information processing of all sorts (hospital registration, 1 ibrary catalogucs, telephone books. airline rcscrvations, various types of brokerage, and so on) fro111 radical, stroke, corner, and code classifi- cation to alphabetization. Rut compatibility with these and other conlputer applications only represents the beginning of the useful- ness of a single-sort alphabetically ordered dictionary. It would also be helpful in Chinese language pedagogy ancl in reading rornanizctl rnatcrials such as Xi11 TaizglNew Ckirzu and the various p'itz-)ti17 pcio (romanized newspapers) on the rr~ainland that are increasingly cvi- dent. An added benefit would be that even interested non-specialists would have fir greater access to Chincsc languages than they do now.

Several tiines I have begun compiling a single-sort alphabetized dictionary of Mandarin but have been repeatedly discouraged by the realization that - if the job is to be done well - such a gargantuan task is beyond my private resources. One of the purposes of the present article is to call the attention of rny colleagues to the critical necessity for a dictionary of this nature and to enlist their help in making it a reality. The other is to suggest that all new Sinological reference tools - even those for classical studies - should at least be equipped with alphabetically ortlcred indices and finding lists. Someo~ie who already knows the pronunciation of a given expression but not its meaning should tzot be cruelly burdened by having to fuss with radicals. comers. strokes. anti what not. Let him go directly to the object of his search instead of having to make endless. insuf- ferable detours in an impenetrable forest of graphs. It makes little sense to append a radical index of all entries when thc main body

Sirla-Platonic Pcipcrs, 1 (February, 1986)

of a dictionary is itself already ordered by radicals. Yet this is prescisely what Tai Yiian-ch'ang and Miu T'ien-hua have done in their dictionaries of 'l'aoisrn ;md sct phrases. I t is equally wasteful to organize the main body of a dictionary by total strokc count of hcacl characters and then provide a finding list that duplicates the sarne organization. Li Shu-huan's dictionary of'l'rtoist religious terms and Hu P'u-an's collection of colloquialisms follow this all too com- mon pattern. My much-consulted dictionary of Chinese Buddhist t ams by Soothill and Hodous is maddening because of its arrange- ment by total stroke count. Sorne editions come with a total stroke count index as well which is full of errors. Often when I arn pressured for time, I cnd up having to guess what thc Sanskrit or Pali original for the Chinese might be and then consulting the dictionary via the ronlanizcd Sanskrit and Pali index at the end. Even rnore extravagant is Lu Tan-an who arranges his dictionary of dramatic expressions by total stroke count and then proceecis to offer two finding lists (onc for head characters. the other for full entries) that are also ordered by the number of total strokes! Inconvenient as these methods are. they cannot begin to compete with P'an Li-wen's Dic'tioriciry of

Cllirlese arld kur-c>igi~ Colloyuiulisms. This is a rich collection of proverbs and maxirns, sotne fronn very obscure sourccs. It is virtually useless. however, unless one is willing to rcad through the entire book each time he is in search of an expression. Entries can be found only through the broad catcgorics ("Nature", "Neighbors". "Education". etc.) under which they arc grouped. To put the matter bluntly, it is impossible to search efficiently for a specific entry.

Not all the dictionaries being produced in 'hiwan, Hong Kong. ant1 China arc cause for despair and regret. A new and heartening trend. particularly in the PKC, is the inclusion in tmny reference works of alphabetical indices. Examples are Wang Li's compendium of etymologies and the biographical dictionaries of literary person- ages compiled by xio Tien-chung and Pei-ching yii-yen hsiieh-yiian. Although the main listing of these indices is by the sounds of thc head characters alone, one can find entries in thern in a small fraction of the timc it would take were one using a radical, corner, 01- stroke index. The time coultl be reduced even further i f a single-sort al-

Victor H. Mair. "'Alphabetically Arr:~ngcd Dictionary of Mandarin"

phabetical sequence were employed. One iritcrcsting and useful for- mat 1 have noticed is that of Feng Ch'eng-chiin's dictionary of place natlies in the "Western Regions". Here the main body of thc text is disposed according to the romanized form of the original Sanskrit. Greek, Turkish. Arabic, and so forth. A supplementary total stroke count finding list is also provided. Thc most recent edition of what has become the standard general dictionary of Mandarin in Chinese. Tz'rr-llni [Ocecrrz qJ' PIII'LI,TC,F] (1979; 106,578 entries under 14,872 characters). includes an alphabetical finding list for a1 1 foreign names and an index of all single characters arranged by Pinyin. And even the sorilewhat r1ior.u classiciilly oriented Tz'u-~~iitrti [Sollrce qf' PI~nses ] (1979-1983: 84.134 compounds under 12.890 single charac- ters), though its main listing is still according to radicals. now providcs an alphabetical index. These are hcnrtcning developtnents which bode well for the future of lexicography in China.

The latest lexicographical trcatises that have been written in China show a partial appreciation anti understanding of the alphabetical arrangement for dictionaries. For example, in his Txr-tiurz Ize tz'u-tier? [Sirl,qle CFzanlctel- Dic-tioi~~ln"~ and Word Die.-tiorzcrr-ips], Hsii Ch'ing has this to say (p. 72):

The method of ordering by sound is a comparatively scientific way for arranging and looking up [single charactcrs]. This is a direction to which new dictionaries should adhere. However. it is sorncwhat difficult to adopt this mcthod for large dictionaries which include both ancient and modern expressions as wcll as for general character dictionaries of ancient Chinesc. Thc reason is that our Chinesc charac- ters do no1 inclicatc thcir sound. The nurnber of charactcrs which the average person can correctly pronounce are actually quite few. As a result, they would have no way of looking up by alphabetical ordering those difficult charactcrs. old forms. obscure charactcrs, variant fonns, and so Sorth that occur in many old books. All we can do is tocontinue as before to avail ourselves ol'some system of radicals.

This is a sensible enough statement. so far as it goes. What is regrettable. however. is that Hsij and other Chinese lexicographers seem to bc completely unaware of the concept of a singlc-sort al- phabetical order for r~iodcrri Chinese languages. So deeply en-

trcnched is the monosyllabic myth that they can only vouch for the efticucy of looking up individual graphs by thcir sounds. For all except thc largcst classical language clictionaries and solme special- ized sinological reference tools. whose use is restricted to a very sni:~ll segment of the population, a single-sort alphabetical sequence is the most efficient and convenient means for listing entries.

In conclusion. this review article stands as a plea to all riiakers of Chinese clictionaries and other reference books. The teii~po and quality of Sinology is sure to be raised if the contents of new research tools is made more readily accessible through the principle of al- phabetical ordering. This is a principle that has been triecl arid tested repeatedly - both in the East and in the West. It remains now only to be put into practice through widespread application in Chinese sti~clics. There is little to lose from adopting such n strategy and much to gain. including an enhanced understanding of diverse aspects of Chinese civilization.

'irctor 14 . Mair, "Alphabetically Arranged Dictionary of Mandarin"

Endnotes

' A liel- some fumbling around, our hrzrricd Sinologisr also succcctlctl in finding t'iilg-rrrtrrl i r i his new Russian dictionary. 'fhe straightfbrward definition it gives is "to hcar and tlccidc a I:rw case." The Iiicci Institute dictionary gives the sarrie definition.

' A test was designed to compare the amount of time spent in looking up various expressions in different kinds of dictionaries. I administered the test to speakers of East Asian languages that still use characters to one degree or another (Chinese, Japmiese. arid ISouthl Korean). Copies of the test instrument are available from the author. In some instances, i t took up to tifty times longer for an individual to find n given expression in a radical dictionary than for thc same person or one of equal ability in the language to locate it in a singlc-sort alphabetical list. Many times users of radical dictionaries never did tind the characters lijr which they were searching.

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Abbreviations: JCLIJortrtrtrl (J' Ckincsc Litigzrisric.s ./(.'1,7il/./orrr1itrl of tlzr Cliirlesr Ltrtigrrci,qe 'li.trdlc,rs Associcitio~l

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Baucr, Robert S . "The Chinese Typewriter and a Phonetic Rearrangement o f the Typc Tray." JCI,TA, 19.2 (May, 1984), 129- 133.

Beckcr, Joseph D. "Multilingual Word Procc.ssing." Scictrt~/ic A~ttericcrn, 25 1.1 ( J ~ l y . 1984). 96-107.

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RiI nncia, Philip R , Dictionclr~~ tJ'Clzi~resc~ L ~ M , cltld Go~~rrtrmetzl: C/li1icsc-E11glish. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981.

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Victor 14. Mair. "Alphabetically Arranged Ilictionary of Mandarin"

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