Dictionary of sinogrammes

A dictionary of sinogrammes is a Dictionnaire in a language written using Sinogramme S like different the Dialecte S from the Chinese or the Japanese.

Their characteristic is thus due to the absence of alphabet composing the sinogrammes with the absence of alphabetical order. The order of classification in a dictionary of sinogrammes uses:

a primary education classification according to the “key ” which enter the composition of the sinogrammes and are of number sufficiently limited - there exists a hundred current keys - to see itself fixing an arbitrary order of classification;
a secondary classification per number of features composing the sinogramme.

Many characters

One of the most famous Chinese dictionaries - the 康熙字典 Kāngxī zìdiǎn , Dictionary of characters of Kāngxī , appeared in 1717 and published by Kāngxī, second emperor of the dynasty 清 Qīng (1644-1911) - counts some 47.000. More recent dictionaries, as the 中華字海 Zhōnghuá zì hǎi go beyond, with more 85 000 characters. In fact, these dictionaries enter Hapax, errors, alternatives or scarcities.

In the everyday usage, to know some between 2.000 and 4.000 is enough to read the press and the current literature. The well-read men and the calligraphers can control some more than 8.000. The largest Western dictionary, the Dictionnaire Chinese-French Ricci (see bibliography) enters 13 of it; 500. The considerable research task that this dictionary represents makes it possible to think that represents the number of natures really used and attested since Chinese Antiquity until our days: indeed, the too rare “monsters”, hapax and alternatives were ignored.

Viviane Alleton, in her work announced in bibliography, quotes the following figures:

80 000 different characters is the full number but phantasm of characters in Chinese. Never no time knew such an amount of of it; the current dictionaries which count this type of number index in fact of the characters that nobody any more uses or of very rare employment;
9000 characters are enough to read about any text (it will be however always possible to find, very seldom, a character which one does not know);
2000 characters are supposed to be enough for the workmen; it is the average rate of elimination of illiteracy. The recourse to a dictionary will be however still necessary;
1500 for the peasants (these figures are those fixed by the standards of elimination of illiteracy);
1000 characters make it possible to read 90% of the characters used in the current publications.

The characters, indeed (it further will be seen) frequently combine to form the lemmas (“words” of a language).

To seek a character in a dictionary

By the C-W communication

The majority of the dictionaries make use of the keys to index and find the sinogrammes, but generally, the modern dictionaries also use other methods. The most current method is that of Mei Yingzuo, by " keys and number of traits" : the characters are initially sorted by keys, and for each key, per growing number of features necessary to trace the remainder.

To find a character in a dictionary, for this method of classification, it is necessary:

Identifier what most probably constitutes the key;
To find in the dictionary the section corresponding to this key;
Compter the number of elementary features in what remains character;
To find the page where the characters are arranged which have this number of additional features;
To find in this zone the character concerned.

In practice, it is rare to find first blow, and research continues with other assumptions on the number of additional features or the key to be retained.

For example, let us see what it is for the character 信, whose simple elements are " homme" (人 on the left, in its shape of key) and " mot" (言 on the right). This character means confidence, sincerity, the association of idea being: word of a man in whom one can entrust. Here, the key is that of the man (人), and it refers there seven additional in the layout of what remains (言) because the square of bottom is traced in three blows of brush. To find this character, one will seek in the index of the keys in which page the key of the man is, then starting from this page, which is that where the sinogrammes are arranged comprising seven features additional. If the key is the good one (what is not ensured for the complex characters) and if the calculation of the additional features is correct (what is often a problem for the characters badly known), the required sinogramme will be some share in the list.

A made up character can be formed of several keys. Empirically, the regarded character as key is more frequently that of left, or at the top, or which surrounds, but it is very far from being a general rule. For example, 信 will be more naturally arranged under the key of left 人 than under that of right-hand side 言, and 套 is indexed by its 大 upper part and not her 長 lower part. Moreover, each dictionary has its characteristics, and one cannot be certain that a given character will be classified same manner in two different dictionaries.

To facilitate this type of research, the dictionaries supplement sometimes the list of the keys by adding to the canonical forms the simlpifiées forms which appear in the compositions. Thus, the character 心 can appear with the characters with four features, and in addition its simplified form 忄, which is useful in the compositions, will appear with the characters with three features. With this system, a user needs even more to know only the characters 心 and 忄 is the same ones étymologiquement.

To still facilitate research, the dictionaries make sometimes a double classification, and a character appears at the same time under its canonical key and the complementary element. Thus, of many dictionaries classify the character 義 at the same time under the key 羊 (left the top) and under 戈 (left bottom).

By the pronunciation

In addition to the tables of number of features and keys located at the beginning of dictionary, in the pages of definitions, all the characters are classified alphabetically according to their Translittération in Pinyin in the dictionaries resulting from the Popular republic of China. each phoneme is then classified according to the tone, in the order of classification of the 5 tons (4 + absence of tone).

If a word is composed of several characters, it will be classified after the definition of the first character which composes it.

Sinogrammes on the computer

Would the Chinese keyboards have ten thousand keys? In fact, it is very easy and rapid to write in Chinese on a computer, for little which one knows on the end of the fingers one of the systems of phonetic transcription (Pinyin, Bopomofo…) who play the part of interface. For each phoneme or succession of phonemes entered, a list of characters is proposed (homonyms being numerous), which one chooses then. A little drive makes it possible to write appreciably more quickly than in French, for example, where the number of letters to be typed is larger.

With electronic dictionaries, it is even possible to seek characters by cross reference. With this new method which the computerization makes possible (and of which you can carry out the test on Jim Breen' S WWWJDIC Server), the user can select all the simple components of a character on a table, and the computer will present to him the sinogrammes made up of these elements. With the preceding example, if one seeks the characters containing at the same time 羊 and 戈, one will not directly find five characters (羢, 義, 儀, 羬 and 羲) and it does not have there any more but to select the good. Thus, it is not necessary any more to guess which is the key, or to count the number of features, and research is much faster.

Article (S) related (S)

Sinogramme

Dictionary on line

Wiktionary
French Chinese Dictionary 35.000 entries, seeks by Chinese character, pinyin or French.
Dictionary Chinese Multilingual Chinese, French, English, German, Spanish, etc (>= 300.000 entries).
Chinese Chinese Dictionary.
Dictionary French-Chinese online search
direct Research of the characters made up on Jim Breen' S WWWJDIC Server
etymological Zhongwen.com dictionary allowing research by clié, number of feature, pronunciation or according to the translation in English. He is in traditional Chinese in order to include/understand the etymology, but the simplified characters are also given in reference.

Free electronic dictionary

Stardict is a multilingual free dictionary including/understanding many Chinese simplified and traditional dictionaries, general practitioners or specialized. It comprises moreover of the dictionaries chinois<=>français and chinois<=>anglais. It functions as well under the systems UNIX (GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, PDA under GNU/Linux…) that on Ms-Windows. There exists also a Darwin port for MacOS X.

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