Dictionary of characters of Kangxi

The dictionary of Kāngxī (Chinese: 康熙字典, Pinyin: Kāngxī zìdiǎn , Lagging-Gilles: K' ang-hsi tzu-tien ) was the Chinese dictionary of natures (Sinogrammes) standard during 18th and the 19th century. The emperor Kāngxī of the Dynastie Qing had ordered his compilation in 1710 and it was published in 1716. It was named thus in the honor of the emperor Kāngxī.

The writers of the dictionary, including Zhang Yushu (張玉書) and Chen Tingjing (陳廷敬) partly based themselves on two dictionaries of the Dynastie Ming: the Zihui (字彙/字汇, “Collection of characters”, 1615) of Méi Yíngzuò (梅膺祚) and the Zhengzitong (正字通, “Correct Character Mastery”, 1627) of Zhang Zilie (張自烈). As the imperial decree required the compilation of the dictionary in 5 years, the presence of errors was inevitable. the emperor Daoguang (1782-1850) had required of it a revision, the Zidian Kaozheng (字典考證, “Corrections of the Dictionary”, 1831), which corrected 2,588 errors, the majority being at the levels of the quotations and the annotations.

The dictionary of Kāngxī includes/understands 47,035 characters, like 1,995 alternatives, thus carrying the total of the different characters with 49,030. They are classified under 214 key or radical then per many features. The list of the keys shows that of the Zihui . One found before a classification more complex of 540 radicals in the Shuōwén jiězì (說文解字/说文解字) of Xú Shěn, the true introducer of the key in the Chinese lexicography. This list of the 214 keys was thus ratified by the dictionary of Kāngxī and is still used nowadays by the modern dictionaries, with sometimes some modifications (all the more if the dictionary counts the simplified characters). The fame of this dictionary makes that one often allots ─ to him wrongly ─ the invention of the list of the 214 radicals, which is improperly named “radical of Kāngxī”. The classification of the keys themselves in the list is not made according to the number of features but by analogical and poetic regroupings.

Each entry of a character in the dictionary gives the alternatives (if it there of a), the pronunciation in fǎnqiē traditional, the reading and the modern pronunciation, the various directions like various annotations coming from Chinese books or lexicons. One finds there also a dictionary rhymes, in which the characters are classified by type of rhyme, your and initial phoneme of the syllable.

The big number of characters is explained by the exhaustive will of the compilers, which listed, in addition to the characters really used, of the hapax, the very rare characters and the alternatives. Current dictionaries exceed Kāngxī now of many characters (more than 85.000 for the 中華字海, Zhōnghuá zì hǎi ). Currently, it is, in Occident, the Dictionnaire Ricci of Chinese natures which seems to be the largest European language dictionary (135 000).

One can find the dictionary of Kāngxī in various forms, old editions of the Dynastie Qing, reprintings in traditional Chinese bindings, modern editions revised or in an electronic version.

The dictionary of Kāngxī was one of the Chinese dictionaries used by Ideographic Rapporteur Group (rapporteur Group ideographic) for the standard Unicode.

Structure of the Kāngxī dictionary

Foreword by the Kāngxī emperor: pp. 1-6 (御製序)
Notes on the use of the dictionary: pp. 7-12 (凡例)
Indication on the pronunciation of the characters: pp. 13-40 (等韻)
understanding Contents by radicals: pp. 41-49 (總目)
Facilitated consulting content: pp. 50-71 (检字)

Dictionary in him even: pp. 75-1631

principal Text: pp. 75-1538
content Addenda: pp. 1539-1544 (補遺)
Addendum text: content pp. 1545-1576
Appendix (No-source-characters): pp. 1577-1583 (備考)
Appendix text: pp. 1585-1631

Postscript: pp. 1633-1635 (后记)
textual Research: pp. 1637-1683 (考证)

Sinogramme ;
Dictionaries of sinogrammes;

Zh-classical: 康熙字典 Zh-yue: 康熙字典

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Dictionary of characters of Kangxi

Structure of the Kāngxī dictionary

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