"Early" here will refer to lexicography during the Heian, Kamakura, and Muromachi periods (794–1573); and "modern" to Japanese dictionaries from the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate era (1603–1867) through the present.
The first three homophonous jiten compounds of ten (典 "reference work; dictionary; classic; canon; model") are Chinese loanwords.
The first, and oldest, Chinese system of collation by semantic field (for instance, "birds" or "fish") dates back to the c. 3rd century BCE Erya (爾雅).
The second system of dictionary collation by radicals (Chinese bushou, Japanese bushu, 部首 "section headers") originated with the 121 CE Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字) .
Japanese jikeibiki collation by radical and stroke ordering is standard for character dictionaries, and does not require a user to know the meaning or pronunciation beforehand.
The 601 CE Qieyun (切韻) is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary collated by pronunciation, and was expanded in the Guangyun (廣韻) and Jiyun (集韻) .
Compare the former pangram poem (i-ro-ha-ni-ho-he-to, chi-ri-nu-ru-wo, ... "Although flowers glow with color, They are quickly fallen, ...) with the latter "fifty sounds" 10 consonants by 5 vowels grid (a-i-u-e-o, ka-ki-ku-ke-ko, ...).
During the Kamakura and Muromachi eras, despite advances in woodblock printing technology, there was a decline in lexicography that Bailey (1960:22) describes as "a tendency toward simplification and popularization".
Jikeibiki graphic collation began with the oldest extant Japanese dictionary: the c. 835 CE Tenrei Banshō Meigi (篆隷万象名義), edited by the Heian monk and scholar Kūkai.
The first dictionary containing Japanese readings of kanji was the c. 900 Shinsen Jikyō (新撰字鏡), which the editor Shōjū (昌住) compiled from the Yupian and Qieyun.
Internal organization innovatively combines jikeibiki and bunruitai methods; a simplified system of 160 radicals is ordered semantically (e.g., 5-7 are Rain, Air, and Wind).
This Heian reference work gives both Sino-Japanese and Japanese readings for kanji, usually with Kanbun annotations in citations from Chinese classic texts.
The c. 1245 Jikyōshū (字鏡集) collates Chinese characters primarily by the 542 Yupian radicals and secondarily by semantic headings adapted from the Iroha Jiruishō.
Japanese bunruitai semantic collation of dictionaries began with the 938 CE Wamyō Ruijushō (倭名類聚鈔), compiled by Minamoto no Shitagō (源順).
The c. 1444 Kagakushū (下学集) was an anonymous Muromachi era Japanese language dictionary or encyclopedia that defined some 3000 words into 18 semantic categories.
Nonetheless, modern Japanese lexicography adapted to an unparalleled second foreign wave from Western language dictionaries and romanization.
During the Nanban trade Period (1543–1650 CE) when Japan was opened to Europeans, the Jesuit Mission Press published two groundbreaking dictionaries.
The 1598 monolingual Rakuyōshū (落葉集, "Collection of Fallen Leaves") gave Sino-Japanese and native Japanese readings of characters, and introduced the small raised circle (handakuten 半濁点) to indicate the p sound (compare ha は and pa ぱ).
The 1603–1604 bilingual Japanese-Portuguese Nippo Jisho or Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam dictionary is still cited as an authority for early Japanese pronunciation.
The Dainihon Kokugo Jiten (大日本國語辭典, Fuzambō, 1915–1919), edited by Matsui Kanji (松井簡治), contains 220,000 headwords, with detailed interpretations and almost complete source material.
The original 26-volume edition, which is still available in condensed versions, entered over 700,000 headwords, listed by pronunciation, and covered a wide variety of Japanese vocabulary.
Some Japanese publishers sell both a larger dictionary with more archaisms and classical citations as well as a smaller condensation with more modern examples, for instance, Shogakukan's Daijisen and Gendai Kokugo Reikai Jiten.
It was condensed into the 4-volume Kō Kan-Wa Jiten (広漢和辞典 "Broad Kanji–Japanese Dictionary", Taishukan, 1982), edited by Morohashi, Kamata Tadashi (鎌田正), and Yoneyama Toratarō (米山寅太郎), which enters 20,000 characters and 120,000 compounds.
An early example of, if not the prototype for, this type of dictionary is Arthur Rose-Innes' 1900 publication 3000 Chinese-Japanese Characters in Their Printed and Written Forms, issued in Yokohama.
[4] Far from being a hastily-compiled wartime production, Rose-Innes' Beginners' Dictionary was an established work when reprinted during World War II―new editions having appeared in 1927, 1936, and 1942.
The history of English–Japanese dictionaries began with the arrival of HMS Phaeton, in order to better facilitate sakoku policy in the future due to the Nagasaki Harbour Incident.
The Rangaku interpreter, Motoki Shōzaemon (本木庄左衛門), compiled the first Japanese English dictionary, purported to contain 6000 words in 1814 with the help of Dutch scholars in Japan titled "Angeria Gorintaisei" (諳厄利亞語林大成).
Pre-modern or Classical Japanese can vary considerably from the modern language, and kogo dictionaries are essential for anyone reading historical texts.
Different manufacturers and models offer various user features, input methods, and licensed content ranging from modern Japanese, classical Japanese, kanji, kotowaza, English (monolingual and bilingual), medical terminology, business terminology, and other specialized dictionaries; student models also have textbooks, exam prep content, and other study materials and multimedia integrated in-device.
From these high-tech online reference works, the path of Japanese lexicography extends back to early Chinese character dictionaries compiled by Heian Buddhist priests.