CHINESE DICTIONARY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 June 1941, Page 3

CHINESE DICTIONARY

FIRST OF FORTY VOLUMES. Volume I. of what is to be the biggest dictionary ever compiled in history has just been completed. It consists of 478 pages of closely-printed Chinese, and it deals exclusively with the singlestroke character “yi” and some 11,000 words and phrases in which it is found. Altogether the dictionary is expected in final form to include 40 volumes, containing 60,000 separate characters and 600,000 Chinese terms and idioms. The work will take at least a decade. There will be in the 40 volumes some 34,000 pages plus a four-volume index required by the peculiar nature of the Chinese language. Members of the Sun Yat Sen Institute are working on the great task, and the printing is by the Commercial Press, tlic largest Chinese printing enterprise. The subject of the first volume, the character "yi.” can mean "or,” "one,” "nothing, and some 55 other things. This character like virtually all others, has changed frequently in the course of the evolution of the ancient Chinese written language, and it has been written at least 10 different ways during the last 2,500 years. The new dictionary deals with Chinese characters since the beginning of Chinese history.