Words and words outline China
—— Revised the 12th edition of "Xinhua Dictionary"
[The editor says]
Editor's note
"Xinhua Dictionary" is the most influential modern Chinese dictionary in New China.
"Xinhua Dictionary" began its compilation and publication in 1950, and it has been published to its twelfth edition after 70 years.
As a small language reference book, it provides the most useful information about the shape, sound and meaning of words in a small space. It is deeply loved by readers and has become a good teacher and helpful friend for hundreds of millions of people to read and learn.
During the National Day, "Bright Reading" special plan-"Xinhua Dictionary" revision and new Chinese cultural development special edition, through the "Xinhua Dictionary" revisers and users personal narration, a small dictionary to show the new achievements of socialist construction and The civilization and progress of the country.
"Xinhua Dictionary" is not only the most familiar and favorite language tool for generations of people in New China, but it is also one of the most iconic cultural and educational products in the early days of New China.
The start of the compilation of "Xinhua Dictionary" marks the arrival of a new era of unprecedented grand educational development and cultural popularization in my country's five thousand years of history.
The publication of the 12th edition is a full demonstration of the original intention of "Xinhua Dictionary" to inherit tradition, advance with the times, and serve the people in the new era.
Iconic cultural products of New China
The word "Xinhua" in "Xinhua Dictionary" truly reflects its close connection with the new China that was born 71 years ago.
At the beginning of the People’s Republic of China, a hundred wastes waiting to be developed, the national economy must be restored, national education must be popularized, and cadre culture must be improved. An easy-to-use, applicable and authoritative dictionary that can meet the basic needs of Chinese people in learning culture and reading and writing characters has become The urgent and long-term needs of the country and society.
A well-known writer, educator, and then Deputy Director of the Publishing Administration of the Central People’s Government and Director of the Editors’ Review Bureau, Mr. Ye Shengtao, anxious for the country’s urgency and thinking about what the people think, promptly initiated the establishment of the Xinhua Lexicographical Agency in August 1950. In 1991, the compilation of the "Xinhua Dictionary" was started, and the famous linguist Mr. Wei Jiangong was commissioned to preside over the compilation, and Mr. Ye personally served as the dictionary reviewer.
After the concerted efforts of the editor-in-chief and the editors, by December 1953, the "Xinhua Dictionary" was officially published.
As soon as "Xinhua Dictionary" came out, it was loved by school teachers and students and hundreds of millions of people with its high-quality, convenient, and easy-to-use qualities. It has become a good teacher, helpful friend and life-long companion for the masses to read, literate, and learn culture, and soon became the heart of all walks of life. The most authoritative small language dictionaries in China have also been treated as precious gifts by state leaders many times. They are presented to foreign leaders, overseas cultural and educational institutions during overseas visits, or to rural student families during domestic visits.
In 2019, the "Xinhua Dictionary" counter was set up in the "Large Achievement Exhibition Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China", filled with various editions of "Xinhua Dictionary" published over the years, confirming its status as an iconic cultural product of New China.
In 1956, the state merged the Xinhua Dictionary Society as a whole into the Institute of Languages of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (now the Academy of Social Sciences). As a result, the compilation and revision of the "Xinhua Dictionary" historically fell on the shoulders of the Institute of Languages. The publishing task was also transferred to the Commercial Press, and the language institute and the Commercial Press have been working together for more than 60 years in the compilation and publication of dictionaries. Both parties work together to maintain and continuously improve the academic quality and society of "Xinhua Dictionary". influences.
Lean and Lean, Revising with the Times
The life of dictionaries is being revised with the times.
The periodic revision of the dictionary is, on the one hand, in response to the development and changes of the language itself brought about by the development and progress of the times, on the other hand, it relies on the new results of academic research to continuously improve the quality of compilation, and is oriented to scientific, normative and practical. Make the small dictionary keep improving, follow the times, and never stop, so that teachers, students and people from all walks of life have an updated dictionary in their hands and at the desk, and a better dictionary.
"Xinhua Dictionary" has undergone revisions and ushered in today's 12th edition.
The revision of "Xinhua Dictionary" has always been a major event of the Language Institute.
For each revision, the institute mobilizes elite soldiers to ensure the quality of the revision. In history, many academic masters personally presided over the revision, forming the tradition of masters revising small dictionaries.
The release of each edition is also the beginning of revision of the next edition.
After the release of the 11th edition in 2011, we started to organize the 12th edition after two or three years, and made preparations for all aspects, and officially launched the revision in 2015.
This revision is the first revision since entering a new era, and we have attached great importance to it.
In 2017, the original dictionary editing room was expanded into the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Dictionary Compilation Research Center under the strong support of the leadership of the Academy. An editing room for "Xinhua Dictionary" was set up below to strengthen the editing work of "Xinhua Dictionary".
The revision team through extensive discussions, multiple investigations, special research, key research, individual division of labor, teamwork, listening to opinions, repeated polishing, reviewing manuscripts by experts inside and outside the hospital, and overcoming difficulties in the special moment of the epidemic, and with colleagues at the Commercial Press After completing the final sprint of editing and proofreading together, the 12 editions were finally released on the 70th anniversary of the compilation of "Xinhua Dictionary".
Newer dictionary, better dictionary
This revision puts forward higher requirements in terms of ideology.
Comprehensive inspection and strict review of manuscripts further enhance the positive energy of the dictionary.
In addition, this revision of the dictionary content and style improvements mainly include the following aspects.
(1) Collecting words to further implement national standards to meet teaching needs
One of the key points of this revision in the collection of characters is to further implement the national writing standards.
In addition to the comprehensive collection of 8105 standardized Chinese characters in the "General Standard Chinese Characters Table" published in 2013, several new standardized characters approved after 2013-"[图一](鉨)nǐ" "[见Figure 2] (鈇)fū" "[图三](鉝)lì", "[图四]tián", "[图五]ào" and other new element words, and in the text bar and appendix It is also reflected in the "Periodic Table of Elements" for easy inspection.
At the same time, starting from the needs of teaching, the latest Chinese textbooks for primary schools compiled by the Ministry of Education are not included in the "General Standard Chinese Characters Table", such as "[Figure 6]qū" "籰yuè" "[Figure 7] (緌)ruí" and other words.
So as to achieve the full coverage of the "General Standard Chinese Character Table" and the Chinese textbooks for primary schools compiled by the Ministry of Education.
From the 1953 version of "Xinhua Dictionary" with 6840 single characters (including variants), to the 12th version with 13000 characters, the number of characters received has nearly doubled, including 9460 standardized prefixes.
(2) Guidelines for pronunciation and wording
Guide pronunciation norms by adding contemporary pronunciation of prefixes.
For example, the word "deficiency" in "deficiency" supplements the first reading of "gui" in the famous TCM masterpiece "The Synopsis of the Golden Chamber" by Zhang Zhongjing in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In addition, it adds "kui" in the common place name "Quayzé Quarry" in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The initial pronunciation of "鲗".
We conducted a special study on this character, and finally determined that the Cantonese character "鲗zé" is a more appropriate pronunciation.
Guide the standard of using characters by improving the interpretation language.
For example, Shenyang's "Shen" is regarded as a sunken "chén" in ancient books. Before, "Shen" has a pronunciation of "chén". "Shen chén is the same as "shen", which gives people a misunderstanding. It can also be used as a sunken "sink". We added a word when we wrote "old with'shen'". After the whole batch of processing, it will be more clearly standardized, that is, this word can be used as a sunken "sink" before Today, we should not write the "shen" of the sunken "shen", which not only takes care of the needs of inspection, but also highlights the norms.
(3) Add new words and new meanings to reflect contemporary language life
Within the capacity of small dictionaries, follow up with the times, analyze real corpus, and add appropriate new words and meanings that have stabilized in recent years.
According to the sequence, for example, add "Boom Watch, Boom, Eyeball, Crowdfunding, Initial Mind, Check-in, Purchasing, Driving, Endorsement, Collect, Like, Top Design, QR Code, Anti-corruption, Fans, Intangible cultural heritage, craftsmanship, official website, returnees, scalpers, screenshots, drunk driving, garbage classification, support, traffic, naked marriage, seckill, pay, sell cute, counterattack, cheat, artemisinin, swipe card, swipe face, New words such as “screening, database, online shopping, passing on from the fire, early warning, think tank, rear-end collision, self-media”.
Some are in the form of polysyllabic words with square brackets under the single word and give a brief explanation, such as the new addition under "Chu": [Church] Original wish, belief: ~ Do not change | Do not forget ~; some are in the form of single-character examples Appears, such as the addition of the meaning of "prefix" of "non": intangible cultural heritage, and the addition of the meaning of "buy" of "purchase": online shopping.
Increase the breath of our current life.
Added some new meanings and usages of words and words that are close to contemporary social life, such as the relevant new meanings added under the words "Ba, Bei, Chao, Chao, Dang, Gua, Scrap, Meng, Pai, Pin, Astringent, and Toxin".
Specifically, the meaning of "Meng" is added: immature and lovable: selling ~ (pretending to be cute to be likable); this is a modern common word.
[Charge] Increase metaphorical meaning: Yu supplements knowledge, improves skills, etc.: Only by constant ~ can we keep up with the times.
According to the language facts and actual usage, some interpretations have been appropriately improved and perfected, such as: [Media] refers to tools for disseminating information, such as newspapers, radio, television, Internet, etc.: Internet~.
It turns out that the 11th edition does not have an example of the Internet or network media.
Combining academic research with field surveys, the entries involving place names have been comprehensively revised.
Some words have added the name item, such as: "mouth": commonly used as "zui" (mostly used for place names): Tsim Sha ~ (in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region).
"凼dàng": Same as "凼" (mostly used in place names), because Macau uses this word: ~仔 (zǎi) Island (in the Macao Special Administrative Region).
Some have modified the interpretation according to the changes of administrative divisions, such as "堼hèng": used for place names: Da ~ Shang (in Jizhou, Tianjin) (in the 11th edition as "Jixian"), now the 12th edition is written in Tianjin Jizhou State.
Other improvements include: the illustrations focus on comprehensiveness and systematization; the improvement and perfection of the "radical checklist" to make it more convenient for readers to check characters; starting from the actual needs of contemporary times, the "new and old glyph comparison table" was re-edited and based on the "punctuation mark" Usage” (GB/T 15834—2011) updated the “Summary of Usage of Common Punctuation Marks”, and updated the “List of Areas, Populations, Capitals (or Capitals) of Countries and Regions in the World”, “Summary of Geological Chronology”, and “Elements” based on new data. Periodic Table, etc.
In addition, thanks to the efforts of the Commercial Press, the twelfth edition has achieved simultaneous and integrated publishing for the first time. The market version has a QR code on each page of the main text. You can directly enter the interface of "Xinhua Dictionary APP" by scanning the code on your mobile phone to enjoy multimedia Knowledge service.
As the editing unit of "Xinhua Dictionary", we know that this small dictionary carries the original aspirations of the predecessors, the contemporary mission, and the hope for the future.
We will, as always, with a high sense of responsibility to the country and the people, do a good job in every revision, keep pace with the times and dedicate the highest quality dictionaries, live up to the word "Xinhua" in the "Xinhua Dictionary", and let it last forever , Renowned in China!
(Author: Liu Danqing, the Department of Chinese Language Academy of Social Sciences, former president, 12th Edition "Xinhua Dictionary" revision Director)