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A Dictionary of the Chinese Language
A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, in Three Parts or Morrison's Chinese dictionary (1815-1823), compiled by the Anglo-Scottish missionary Robert Morrison was the first Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary. Part I is Chinese-English arranged by the 214 Kangxi radicals, Part II is Chinese-English arranged alphabetically, and Part III is English-Chinese also arranged alphabetically. This groundbreaking reference work is enormous, comprising 4,595 pages in 6 quarto volumes and including 47,035 head characters taken from the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary. However, Morrison's encyclopedic dictionary had flaws, notably failing to distinguish aspirated consonants: the pronunciation taou is given for both aspirated táo (桃, "peach") and unaspirated dào (道, "way; the Tao").
Robert Morrison (1782-1834) is credited with several historical firsts in addition to the first bidirectional Chinese and English dictionary. He was the first Protestant missionary in China, started the first Chinese-language periodical in 1815, collaborated with William Milne to write the first translation of the Bible into Chinese in 1823, helped to found the English-language The Canton Register in 1827, and compiled the first Western-language dictionary of a regional variety of Chinese.
Morrison joined the London Missionary Society in 1804 and was chosen to lead a mission to China. They sent him to study at Gosport and introduced him to a young Cantonese man studying English in London: Robert Morrison transcribes his name as "Yong Sam Tak", Eliza Morrison as "Yung-san-tih" in "Mandarin" transcription, and whose actual name was probably Rong Sande (容三德). In 1807, the LMS instructed Morrison to sail to Guangzhou (then known as "Canton") and continue studying until he had "accomplished [his] great object of acquiring the language", whereupon he would "turn this attainment into a direction which may be of extensive use to the world: perhaps you may have the honour of forming a Chinese Dictionary, more comprehensive and correct than any preceding one", as well as translating the Bible into Chinese.
Upon his arrival in the Qing Empire, Morrison learned that the Chinese were prohibited from teaching their language to foreigners, forcing him to study Chinese secretly and hide his books from sight. Morrison eventually found two tutors, the scholar "Ko Seen-sang" and Abel Yun, who had learned Latin from Catholic missionaries. Together, they began to translate the scriptures and compile the dictionary. In 1809, the East India Company employed Morrison as their translator, which legitimized his presence in Guangzhou's Thirteen Factories and provided sufficient income to continue working on the dictionary project and Bible translation. He translated and printed the Acts of the Apostles in 1810 and completed his Chinese Grammar in 1811. The situation worsened in 1812 when the Jiaqing Emperor issued an edict adding Christianity to the list of banned witchcrafts and superstitions, making the printing of Chinese-language books on the subject a capital crime. The LMS sent the missionary William Milne to assist Morrison in translating and printing the scriptures. In 1814, the East India Company sent the printing engineer Peter Perring Thoms. Together with Morrison's Chinese assistants such as Cai Gao and Liang Fa, he created the Chinese character font for the dictionary. Morrison worked on producing A Dictionary of the Chinese Language for more than 15 years with "extraordinary perseverance, industry, and ingenuity".
Morrison described the bilingual Chinese dictionaries that he used as sources for his own lexicographical work: "several MS. Dictionaries of the old Missionaries, in English and French, and, latterly, the printed copy of Father Basil's Dictionary". This refers to the 9,000-entry 1698 Dictionarium Sino-Latinum manuscript of the Italian Franciscan Basilio Brollo or de Glemona (1648-1704), which the French orientalist Joseph de Guignes (1759-1845) translated as the 1813 Dictionnaire Chinois, Français et Latin without any attribution to the original author. Brollo's innovation was to provide a Chinese character dictionary alphabetically collated by transliteration, with a user-friendly index arranged by radicals and strokes, successfully combining Chinese and European lexicographic traditions. This lexicographical macrostructure was adopted in Morrison's dictionary, and most bilingual Chinese dictionaries up to the present day.
The first volume of Morrison's Chinese dictionary was published in 1815 and the last in 1823. All 6 volumes were printed by P. P. Thoms in Macao and published and sold by Black, Parbury, & Allen, the booksellers to the East India Company. The dictionary was printed in a run of 750 copies at a total cost of £10,440; or £12,000 they sold for the "princely sum" of 20 guineas. The LMS was unable to subsidize the entire project, but the directors of the East India Company agreed to pay because they recognized the dictionary's incalculable benefit, not only to missionaries but also to their own employees. The later volumes were published simultaneously in London by Kingsbury, Parbury, & Allen or by Black, Parbury, & Allen.
The Dictionary of the Chinese Language marked a new era in the compilation and publication of bilingual Chinese works. Before the 19th century, Catholic missionaries such as Basilio Brollo had compiled many bilingual manuscript dictionaries, but their circulation was inevitably restricted by the difficulties of copying a dictionary by hand. The initial edition of 750 copies and subsequent reprints enabled Morrison's dictionary to reach a wider readership and have a far more profound impact.
Morrison's dictionary is composed of three parts or six quarto (306 mm × 242 mm or 12.0 in × 9.5 in) volumes published in different years. Part I has 3 volumes with Volume I published in 1815 containing 18 pages in the preface, 930 pages in the dictionary proper, and 2 additional pages consisting of advertisements. Volume II, published in 1822, is composed of 884 pages, and Volume III, published in 1823, is composed of 908 pages. Part II has two volumes: Volume I published in 1819 contains 20 pages in the preface and 1,090 pages in the dictionary proper, and Volume II published in 1820 contains 6 pages in the preface, 178 pages in the first section, and 305 pages in the second section of the dictionary proper. Part III was published in 1822 with only one volume containing 5 pages in the preface and 480 pages in the dictionary proper.
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A Dictionary of the Chinese Language
A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, in Three Parts or Morrison's Chinese dictionary (1815-1823), compiled by the Anglo-Scottish missionary Robert Morrison was the first Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary. Part I is Chinese-English arranged by the 214 Kangxi radicals, Part II is Chinese-English arranged alphabetically, and Part III is English-Chinese also arranged alphabetically. This groundbreaking reference work is enormous, comprising 4,595 pages in 6 quarto volumes and including 47,035 head characters taken from the 1716 Kangxi Dictionary. However, Morrison's encyclopedic dictionary had flaws, notably failing to distinguish aspirated consonants: the pronunciation taou is given for both aspirated táo (桃, "peach") and unaspirated dào (道, "way; the Tao").
Robert Morrison (1782-1834) is credited with several historical firsts in addition to the first bidirectional Chinese and English dictionary. He was the first Protestant missionary in China, started the first Chinese-language periodical in 1815, collaborated with William Milne to write the first translation of the Bible into Chinese in 1823, helped to found the English-language The Canton Register in 1827, and compiled the first Western-language dictionary of a regional variety of Chinese.
Morrison joined the London Missionary Society in 1804 and was chosen to lead a mission to China. They sent him to study at Gosport and introduced him to a young Cantonese man studying English in London: Robert Morrison transcribes his name as "Yong Sam Tak", Eliza Morrison as "Yung-san-tih" in "Mandarin" transcription, and whose actual name was probably Rong Sande (容三德). In 1807, the LMS instructed Morrison to sail to Guangzhou (then known as "Canton") and continue studying until he had "accomplished [his] great object of acquiring the language", whereupon he would "turn this attainment into a direction which may be of extensive use to the world: perhaps you may have the honour of forming a Chinese Dictionary, more comprehensive and correct than any preceding one", as well as translating the Bible into Chinese.
Upon his arrival in the Qing Empire, Morrison learned that the Chinese were prohibited from teaching their language to foreigners, forcing him to study Chinese secretly and hide his books from sight. Morrison eventually found two tutors, the scholar "Ko Seen-sang" and Abel Yun, who had learned Latin from Catholic missionaries. Together, they began to translate the scriptures and compile the dictionary. In 1809, the East India Company employed Morrison as their translator, which legitimized his presence in Guangzhou's Thirteen Factories and provided sufficient income to continue working on the dictionary project and Bible translation. He translated and printed the Acts of the Apostles in 1810 and completed his Chinese Grammar in 1811. The situation worsened in 1812 when the Jiaqing Emperor issued an edict adding Christianity to the list of banned witchcrafts and superstitions, making the printing of Chinese-language books on the subject a capital crime. The LMS sent the missionary William Milne to assist Morrison in translating and printing the scriptures. In 1814, the East India Company sent the printing engineer Peter Perring Thoms. Together with Morrison's Chinese assistants such as Cai Gao and Liang Fa, he created the Chinese character font for the dictionary. Morrison worked on producing A Dictionary of the Chinese Language for more than 15 years with "extraordinary perseverance, industry, and ingenuity".
Morrison described the bilingual Chinese dictionaries that he used as sources for his own lexicographical work: "several MS. Dictionaries of the old Missionaries, in English and French, and, latterly, the printed copy of Father Basil's Dictionary". This refers to the 9,000-entry 1698 Dictionarium Sino-Latinum manuscript of the Italian Franciscan Basilio Brollo or de Glemona (1648-1704), which the French orientalist Joseph de Guignes (1759-1845) translated as the 1813 Dictionnaire Chinois, Français et Latin without any attribution to the original author. Brollo's innovation was to provide a Chinese character dictionary alphabetically collated by transliteration, with a user-friendly index arranged by radicals and strokes, successfully combining Chinese and European lexicographic traditions. This lexicographical macrostructure was adopted in Morrison's dictionary, and most bilingual Chinese dictionaries up to the present day.
The first volume of Morrison's Chinese dictionary was published in 1815 and the last in 1823. All 6 volumes were printed by P. P. Thoms in Macao and published and sold by Black, Parbury, & Allen, the booksellers to the East India Company. The dictionary was printed in a run of 750 copies at a total cost of £10,440; or £12,000 they sold for the "princely sum" of 20 guineas. The LMS was unable to subsidize the entire project, but the directors of the East India Company agreed to pay because they recognized the dictionary's incalculable benefit, not only to missionaries but also to their own employees. The later volumes were published simultaneously in London by Kingsbury, Parbury, & Allen or by Black, Parbury, & Allen.
The Dictionary of the Chinese Language marked a new era in the compilation and publication of bilingual Chinese works. Before the 19th century, Catholic missionaries such as Basilio Brollo had compiled many bilingual manuscript dictionaries, but their circulation was inevitably restricted by the difficulties of copying a dictionary by hand. The initial edition of 750 copies and subsequent reprints enabled Morrison's dictionary to reach a wider readership and have a far more profound impact.
Morrison's dictionary is composed of three parts or six quarto (306 mm × 242 mm or 12.0 in × 9.5 in) volumes published in different years. Part I has 3 volumes with Volume I published in 1815 containing 18 pages in the preface, 930 pages in the dictionary proper, and 2 additional pages consisting of advertisements. Volume II, published in 1822, is composed of 884 pages, and Volume III, published in 1823, is composed of 908 pages. Part II has two volumes: Volume I published in 1819 contains 20 pages in the preface and 1,090 pages in the dictionary proper, and Volume II published in 1820 contains 6 pages in the preface, 178 pages in the first section, and 305 pages in the second section of the dictionary proper. Part III was published in 1822 with only one volume containing 5 pages in the preface and 480 pages in the dictionary proper.