Chapter 23 Section 4 "Mandarin Dictionary" - the forerunner of symbolic notation and phonetic arrangement
In Chinese modern dictionaries, "Ciyuan" and "Cihai" all use the pronunciation of the old calligraphy books, and search characters and words according to their radicals.It was not until the "Mandarin Dictionary" that the phonetic symbols were used to mark the phonetic readings, and the characters and words were sorted according to the phonetic sequence of the phonetic symbols, thus creating a method for sorting and checking modern Chinese dictionaries and dictionaries with symbolic phonetic symbols and phonetic sequences.
The innovation of phonetic notation and sorting methods in dictionaries and the modern Chinese character reform movement are closely related to the reform movement of Chinese characters and the national language unification movement since the end of the 19th century.
Before and after the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of 1894, the crisis of China being partitioned by foreign powers was imminent. Chinese traditional culture was facing unprecedented serious challenges from capitalist civilization and science and technology. Chinese patriotic intellectuals and people of insight began to deeply study Chinese traditional culture. Reflect and reevaluate.They believe that China's backwardness and beatings are due to the underdevelopment of science, the underdevelopment of science is due to the lack of popularization of education, and the root cause of the lack of popularization of education is the difficulty of Chinese characters.It was against this social and historical background that at the end of the 19th century, some people, inspired by Western Christian missionaries spelling Chinese local dialects in Roman characters to translate and disseminate the Bible, began to create Chinese alphabets.The first founder was Lu Zhang (AD 1854-1928). In 1892, he published the book "Elementary Steps at a Glance", and introduced 55 variant Latin alphabet symbols, making a set of phonetic symbols called "Qieyin Xinzi".The so-called "Qieyin" is pinyin.By 1911, 27 schemes of Qieyin characters had been published successively. Among them, Wang Zhao's "Mandarin Harmony Alphabet" and Lao Naixuan's "Hesheng Simplified Character" were widely promoted and had a greater influence in the society. "Mandarin chorus letters" adopt Chinese stroke-style letters, with Beijing accents as the standard pronunciation.The "Hesheng Jianzi" is based on the "Mandarin Hesheng Alphabet", supplementing the unique phonemes of the Southern dialect, and spelling the Southern dialect.After their plan was published, it was appreciated and supported by individual officials of the Qing Dynasty.For example, Wu Rulun, who is the chief professor of the Beijing Normal University. In 1902, he inspected Japanese education and politics, and saw with his own eyes that the promotion of the national language (Tokyo dialect) in Japan was very effective. After returning to China, he wrote to the Minister of Education, advocating that schools teach "Mandarin alphabets" and promote the use of "Beijing dialect" (Beijing dialect). standard national language.In the process of implementing the plan, Wang Zhao was sponsored by Yuan Shikai, and Lao Naixuan was supported by Duan Fang, then governor of Jiangsu.In order to fight for the promulgation of "Hesheng Simplified Characters" by the Qing court, Lao Naixuan wrote to Cixi in 1908, but there was no result. In 1910, because of offending Zaifeng, the regent of the Qing Dynasty, the "Mandarin alphabet" was banned.Afterwards, the Advisory Council of the Qing government successively received some proposals requesting the implementation of "Hesheng Simplified Characters", so they held a meeting and passed the reports of Yan Fu and others.The report proposes to review and revise the Qieyinzi plan as a tool for "Fanzheng Hanwen pronunciation" and "combining Mandarin".After the report was submitted to the Faculty, it was sent to the "Central Education Conference" held in the summer of 1911 for resolution, and finally passed the "Unification of the National Language Act".This resolution proposes to examine and approve the standard of "Guoyu" and compile Guoyu textbooks, Guoyu dictionaries and dialect comparison tables, etc.In October of the same year, the Revolution of 1911 broke out, and this resolution was not implemented.
After the establishment of the Republic of China, in July 1912, the "Central Temporary Education Conference" was held, and the "Adoption of Phonetic Alphabets" was passed, and it was decided to start with the unification of the pronunciation of Chinese characters and implement national language education. In February 1913, the Ministry of Education held a "pronunciation unification meeting", and many advocates of Qieyin attended the meeting.The meeting approved the "national pronunciation" of more than 6,500 Chinese characters, and approved the phonemes and letters.The letters are the "phonetic alphabet" used by the conference for phonetic review. After revision, a set of formal "phonetic alphabet" plans have been formed, and seven implementation methods have also been drawn up.There are 38 letters in this set, all of which are Chinese-style letters with few strokes. In November 1918, when the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Government officially announced, one letter was added to make it 39, and it was increased to 40 in 1920. In 1923, the "National Language Unification Preparatory Meeting" of the Ministry of Education held a meeting, and the pinyin standard of "phonetic alphabet" was changed to Beijing phonetics (that is, "new national pronunciation" or "Jingyin"). Guoyin" (that is, "old Guoyin"). In 1930, the "National Education Conference" changed "phonetic alphabet" to "phonetic symbol".
In 1917, before the official announcement of the "Phonetic Alphabet" plan, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and others put forward the slogan of "Literary Revolution".Under the influence of this slogan, Qian Xuantong proposed to abolish Chinese characters and Chinese in 1918 (New Youth, Volume 4, Issue 2). "("New Youth" four volumes two issues), Hu Shi agreed with Chen Duxiu's views. "New Youth", "New Wave", "Guoyu Monthly" and other publications successively published articles on the text reform, and Fu Sinian, Cai Yuanpei, Li Jinxi, Zhao Yuanren, etc. also wrote articles to participate in the discussion.By 1923, the discussion had reached its climax, and the social influence was great.That year, the "Mandarin Unification Preparatory Committee" established the "Mandarin Roman Character Research Committee", with 11 members including Qian Xuantong, Li Jinxi, Zhao Yuanren, Zhou Bianming, and Liu Fu as members to carry out various researches on Roman characters. In September 1926, the "Mandarin Roman Characters Pinyin Research Committee" officially approved the "Mandarin Roman Characters Pinyin French Form" drawn up by Qian Xuantong, Li Jinxi, Zhao Yuanren, etc.As the "Second Form of the National Alphabet", it was announced by the National Government Graduate School (Ministry of Education) in September 1928. "Guoyu Romaji" is the first relatively mature phonetic writing scheme drawn up by our country. It completely uses the ready-made Latin alphabet, uses Beijing phonetics as the standard, and has a relatively complete orthography.
By the early 1930s, the "Latinized new script" produced in the literacy campaign of overseas Chinese in Soviet Russia was introduced to China, just at the time when the domestic debate on "classical Chinese, vernacular, and popular language" reached its climax. In December 1935, 688 people including Cai Yuanpei, Sun Ke, Liu Yazi, Lu Xun, and Guo Moruo published "Our Opinions on Promoting New Characters", advocating "new characters".Later, with the upsurge of the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement and the unfolding of the National Liberation War, the "Latinized New Character" played its due role in mobilizing the masses, propagating the Anti-Japanese War, and popularizing education because it was easy to understand and learn.
The Chinese Pinyin Movement is the longest and largest Chinese character reform movement in the history of Chinese linguistics.It has roughly experienced several development processes such as Qieyin characters, phonetic alphabets, Mandarin Roman characters, and Latinized new characters.It is an attempt by Chinese progressive intellectuals to reform Chinese characters based on the desire to popularize education, develop science, and revitalize the nation.Although only the two phonetic schemes of "Zhuyin Alphabet" and "Mandarin Roman Characters" were officially announced by the government at that time, they either directly or indirectly had an impact on the development of philological theories since modern times, and actively promoted the "Baihuawen Movement". , "Mandarin unification movement" development.
In order to promote the "national language", in April of the second year after the announcement of the "phonetic alphabet", the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang government established a special organization - the "preparatory committee for the unification of the national language" (the association was changed to the "preparatory committee for the unification of the national language" in 1928). In 1920, the Ministry of Education ordered all national primary schools to change the "National Arts" to "National Language", and the primary school Chinese to Chinese style, stipulated the teaching of phonetic alphabets, and unified the pronunciation of the national language.Since then, most of the first and second grades of primary schools across the country have begun to teach "vernacular Chinese", "national pronunciation" and phonetic alphabets. In 1932, the Ministry of Education published the "Vocabulary of Commonly Used Chinese Pronunciation", which included 9,920 orthographic characters, 1,179 variant characters, and 1,120 variant pronunciation characters, for a total of 12,219 characters.The book only determines the "national pronunciation" of a single character, establishes the Beijing pronunciation as the standard pronunciation, and arranges the main text according to the phonetic sequence of the phonetic symbols, thus establishing a preliminary standard in terms of word size, font shape, character pronunciation, and word order.Phonetic notation is also adopted as a tool for phonetic notation in Chinese dictionaries and dictionaries. "National Vocabulary" and "Guoyu Dictionary" published in 1937 both use Mandarin Chinese characters and phonetic symbols to compare phonetics.In addition, the Roman characters of the national language are rarely used for phonetic notation in other reference books, and they have never entered primary schools. Therefore, the Roman characters of the national language are not widely promoted and have little influence in society.The "Phonetic Alphabet", as a tool to correct the pronunciation of Chinese characters, spread the national language, help literacy, and replace Chinese characters, was implemented in the mainland for 40 years from 1918 to 1958.Taiwan is still in use today.
In order to promote the national language, the "Preparatory Committee for the Unification of the National Language" and the "Preparatory Committee for the Unification of the National Language" successively carried out large-scale compilation and publication of the national pronunciation vocabulary, dictionaries, and national language dictionaries. From 1937 to 1945, the "Chinese Dictionary Compilation Department" of the "Mandarin Unification Preparatory Committee" compiled and published its first dictionary, "Guoyu Dictionary".The words collected in the dictionary, including single characters (i.e. single words), compound words and idioms, are all marked in two ways: phonetic alphabet and national language Roman characters, and are marked one by one according to the standard pronunciation; Pinyin order.This has completely changed the way of phonetic notation and arrangement and checking of ancient Chinese characters, and has become the forerunner of modern dictionaries and dictionaries using symbols for phonetic notation and phonetic arrangement and checking.
From the above, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion that the innovations in modern dictionaries and dictionary compiling styles are the products of the Chinese character reform movement and the national language unification movement since the late Qing Dynasty.
The compilation of "Guoyu Dictionary" "Guoyu Dictionary" was compiled by the Chinese Dictionary Compilation Department, and Li Jinxi and Qian Xuantong were the chief editors.
Li Jinxi (AD 1890-1987), a Chinese linguist.Shaoxi, born in Xiangtan County, Hunan Province.Graduated from the Ministry of History and Geography of Hunan Excellent Normal School. After graduation, he worked in education. He edited textbooks for primary and secondary schools, worked as a newspaper editor, and worked as a special editor of textbooks for the Ministry of Education. Since 1920, he has taught successively at Beijing Higher Normal School, Beijing Women's Normal University, Peking University, and Yenching University. In 1949, together with Wu Yuzhang and Ma Xulun, he organized the Chinese Language Reform Association. In 1955, he became a member of the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.Author of more than 30 books, including "New Chinese Grammar", "Comparative Grammar", "Six Lectures on the Outline of Mandarin Grammar", "Eighteen Lessons of Chinese Grammar", "Chinese Grammar Textbook", and more than 300 papers.
Qian Xuantong (AD 1887-1939), formerly known as Xia, styled Zhongji, nicknamed Deqian, was later changed to Duo [duo] Xian, also known as Yigu.Chang imitates the ancient method and puts the number in front of the name, which is called doubtful ancient Xuantong.A native of Wuxing County, Zhejiang Province.A famous modern phonologist. He entered Shanghai Nanyang Middle School in 1905, Waseda University in Japan in 1906, and Tongmenghui in 1907.After the Revolution of 1911, he served as an inspector of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education. Since 1913, he has been a professor of Beijing Higher Normal School and Peking University.During the May 4th Movement, he resolutely opposed feudal culture and advocated a literary revolution.He also actively participated in the Mandarin Movement and advocated the reform of Chinese characters.He is the author of "Philology and Phonetics", "Six Lectures on the History of National Pronunciation", "Shuowen Radicals Today's Reading", etc.
As early as before the May 4th Movement, Li Jinxi was aware of the defects of traditional Chinese calligraphy, realized the importance of compiling a Chinese language dictionary, and advocated compiling a new type of Chinese dictionary, so in 1917 he proposed to the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Government to compile " Mandarin Dictionary" for the use and reference of Chinese language teaching in schools, Chinese language learning for the general public, and Chinese research for specialized scholars. In 1923, the "Mandarin Dictionary Compilation Office" was established.Because he "plans to make a fundamental reform of Chinese characters", he envisages compiling a "Chinese Dictionary", which will "give a detailed account of the four thousand years of language and characters and all the cultural and academic aspects it expresses." Therefore, "the scale should be large, the materials should be large, the time should not be too long, the ideal should be as high as possible, and it should be completely academic."Therefore, in 1928, the "Mandarin Dictionary Compilation Department" was changed to the "Chinese Dictionary Compilation Department", and Li Jinxi served as the general director of the compilation department.The planned "Chinese Dictionary" is divided into 30 volumes, 10 volumes are combined into one volume, a total of three volumes, arranged in phonetic alphabetical order, and is expected to be completed in 1948.Li Jinxi and Qian Xuantong are the chief editors.Qian's is in charge of the shape and phonology of characters, and Li's is in charge of meaning and compound words. He once printed the "Sample Draft of Chinese Dictionary".By 1930, the compilation department had basically completed the collection and arrangement of materials.However, due to the large scale and large number of volumes of the "Chinese Dictionary", and the continuous war at that time, it was impossible to write a book for a while, so the compilation office decided to use the collected materials, merge the repeated ones, and select the words "commonly used" and "occasionally used". , and "rarely used" words that need to be checked, phonetic notation word by word, as the standard of correct pronunciation, and concise and necessary annotations, "Most of the terms in all subjects below senior high school are adopted, so as to be simple and not leaky, shallow but not ugly ", for "education inspection purposes" and social urgent needs, called "Guoyu Dictionary".The Commercial Press published the first volume in 1937, and all of them were published in 1945. It was divided into eight volumes, and the last volume was a dictionary and appendix. Reprinted in 1947, four volumes, with "Supplement to the Mandarin Dictionary" attached at the end of the book.
Features of "Guoyu Dictionary" "Guoyu Dictionary" has the following characteristics in word collection, phonetic notation, definition and sorting:
(1) The collection of words contains more than 100,000 words.Collection of commonly used vocabulary in ancient and modern Chinese, with particular emphasis on the collection of classics and popular vocabulary in modern Chinese and spoken language.For example, the vernacular in the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, all that can be found in quotations, sayings, and dictionaries should be searched and included as much as possible.It also collects idioms, idioms, ancient and modern Chinese and foreign names, place names, and commonly used terminology in encyclopedias.
(2) Phonetic notation "Guoyu Dictionary" pays special attention to the phonetic notation of words.All the single characters, complex words, idioms, and terminology it contains are in accordance with the standard national pronunciation (that is, the Beijing language family) announced in 1939, and the pronunciation is marked in two ways: phonetic alphabet and Mandarin Roman characters.A straight sound is added under a single character, or it is spelled and cut with Chinese characters.The tone, soft tone, sonification, and consecutive writing of words are marked one by one.For all the rare characters in the classics and history books, refer to the rhyme books since Tang and Song Dynasties, follow the ancient and modern phonetic change regulations, and determine the pronunciation at discretion.For living languages, the phonetic notation is based on the Peking spoken language at that time.If there are abnormal sounds, list them separately. "Guoyu Dictionary" became the forerunner of the phonetic reform of modern dictionaries.
(3) Interpretation The terms of interpretation are concise and to the point, and most of them are simple and clear, trying to get rid of the disadvantages of ambiguity in the explanations of old books.Do not list documentary evidence one by one, but indicate the source or quote example sentences as appropriate.
(4) Sorting Single characters and compound words are arranged in alphabetical order of phonetic notation, which breaks the arrangement of traditional Chinese characters and becomes my country's first dictionary of phonetic order in a strict sense.Because it is sorted by phonetic alphabet and arranges all the received homophones together, it can also be regarded as a Chinese homophone dictionary.
The value of "Guoyu Dictionary" is just as the editor-in-chief Li Jinxi said in "Guoyu Dictionary Preface", the compilation of "Guoyu Dictionary" is mainly for learning and researching Chinese and correcting pronunciation:
(1) Correct pronunciation Anyone who learns the standard Mandarin, or who wants to read old and new books according to the national pronunciation, can search it at any time, not only can correct the pronunciation of a single word, but also know the importance of the syllables before and after compound words, and which one should be " "Erhua" to make it consistent with the living language.
(2) Determining words. Anyone who is learning the Roman characters of the national language, or who wants to write or type Chinese characters or phonetic symbols according to "parts of speech" can get a little idea that a certain word should be connected and a certain word should be written separately. So as not to hesitate when writing.
(3) Interpretation of the common meaning of a single word and the special meaning of a compound word, which can also be searched for an overview.
In addition, Li Jinxi believes that it has three special uses:
(1) It can be used to look up Chinese characters in children's compositions.
(2) It can be used for people who are familiar with phonetic alphabets to look up Chinese characters.
(3) It can be used by foreigners who know Chinese to study Chinese.In short, "Mandarin Dictionary" mainly focuses on correct pronunciation, and contains a large number of spoken words, which can help people master the pronunciation of words, and is conducive to learning and promoting Putonghua.
The shortcomings of "Guoyu Dictionary" are: the collection of words is lacking and excessive, and many non-stereotyped words are included; "Mandarin Dictionary" was abridged and renamed "Chinese Dictionary", which was published by the Commercial Press in 1957.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that during the period of the Republic of China, in addition to the order of phonetic symbols, the sorting and checking of characters and words in dictionaries and dictionaries also used methods such as four-corner numbers, five-stroke search methods, and head and tail numbers.Wherein, the four-corner number method was once adopted by some dictionaries and dictionaries, and some still use it so far as an auxiliary method for character retrieval.And methods such as Wubi checking character, head and tail numbers have not been promoted, and what the dictionaries and dictionaries published in the period of the Republic of China generally use is still radical row checking method.
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