Ciyuan

The Ciyuan or Tz'u-yüan was the first major Chinese dictionary linguistically structured around words (ci 辭) instead of individual characters (zi 字) used to write them.

In Chinese terminology, the Ciyuan is a cidian (辭典 "word/phrase dictionary") for spoken or written expressions, as opposed to a zidian (字典, lit.

[2] The lexicographer Reinhard Hartmann predicts that the revised Ciyuan "should remain a basic research tool for all students of China's pre-modern literature and history for many years to come".

In 1915, Commercial Press, a major Chinese publishing house, issued the original Ciyuan in two volumes totaling 3,087 pages, available in large, medium, and small sizes.

However, as Têng Ssu-yü and Knight Biggerstaff say, the first edition Ciyuan "is far from exhaustive, and most of its illustrative quotations were taken from secondary sources without being checked".

[4] In 1931 Commercial Press published the Ciyuan xubian (辭源續編 "Source of words continuation/sequel"), compiled by Fang Yi (方毅, 1916–1997) and others, in two volumes totaling 1,702 pages.

Fang Yi's preface explained the reason for publishing an extended edition of the Ciyuan in 1931: "Within more than a decade and following progressive developments in the world and changes within the political scene, it is natural that in science many new words have emerged".

Hartmann says, "It was decided to maintain Ciyuan's emphasis on literary, historical and classical terms and to revise and augment it as a reference work for researchers and students of pre-modern Chinese".

Content of the new Ciyuan focuses on classical terms and encyclopedic items relating to Chinese literature and history up to 1840, the time of the First Opium War.

[12] The editors deleted technical terms from natural and social sciences, and international words that had been appended into the original edition Ciyuan during 60 years of revisions and updates.