The Zhonghua Zihai consists of two parts; the first section consists of characters covered in earlier dictionaries, such as the Shuowen Jiezi, Yupian, Guangyun, Jiyun, Kangxi Dictionary and Zhonghua Da Zidian, which covers just under 50,000 individual characters.[5] The second portion of the Zhonghua Zihai contains characters missed by previous dictionaries, as a result of manual error or due to lack of knowledge of such characters. Among these are included complex characters hidden in old Buddhist texts, rare characters found within the
Dunhuang manuscripts, characters used during the
Song,
Yuan,
Ming and
Qing Dynasties that fell from use, dialectal characters, newly created characters as a result of advancement in science and technology (such as the Chinese character for the element
Darmstadtium, 鐽, which is not present in prior dictionaries[6]), as well as rare characters used today in personal and location names.[5] Additionally, regional characters and variant characters from
Taiwan,
Hong Kong,
Macau and
Singapore, as well as non-native characters from Japanese
Kanji and Korean
Hanja, are also listed in the Zhonghua Zihai. All characters listed are in the
Kaishu script.
One of the authors, Hu Mingyang, wrote in the preface of the Zhonghua Zihai stating that the problem regarding Chinese characters is that there is an exceedingly large number of them,[1] which makes compilation very difficult, and a complete dictionary practically impossible due to the large number of variant characters and those that are unknown.
Development
The foundation in which the compilation of characters was undertaken are as follows:[7]
The copying of characters found in dictionaries from past dynasties, for the collection of those characters already listed in some published volume.
The analysis of documents and literature from past dynasties for previously unlisted characters.
The analysis of
Oracle bone script and
Bronze script texts, as well as historic silk writings, for comparative purposes in the decision process for accepting characters.
The comparison of
Variant Chinese characters from past dynasties found in stone engravings (where characters with minimal variation are generally not accepted in the final listing).
The analysis of local documents and that of
regional dialects, such as dialectal dictionaries.
The inclusion of newly created characters associated with modern concepts, such as those arising from new scientific and technological developments.
The analysis of characters used in
proper nouns, such as the names of locations and characters used in
personal names.
The analysis of modern publications which may include unofficial or informal character simplifications, in which they may not be present in the PRC government "Complete List of Simplified Characters" (a similar example of this would be
Ryakuji).
The inclusion of characters from the failed simplified character reform in 1977 to introduce the
Second-round simplified Chinese characters, taken from the draft of the proposed bill.
The inclusion of rare variants and popular regional characters from areas such as
Hong Kong,
Macau and
Taiwan, plus the unique characters in use in
Japan and
Korea but not within China.
Other dictionaries
The previous character dictionary published in China was the Hanyu Da Zidian, introduced in 1989, which contained 54,678 characters. In
Japan, the 2003 edition of the Dai Kan-Wa jiten has some 51,109 characters, while the Han-Han Dae Sajeon completed in
South Korea in 2008 contains 53,667 Chinese characters (the project having lasted 30 years, at a cost of 31,000,000,000
KRW or US$25 million[4][8][9]).
^
ab《中华字海》-甲骨文---泽泽百科Archived February 22, 2012, at the
Wayback Machine "'Zhonghua Zihai' consists of two parts: part of land from the existing Chinese dictionaries, such as the "Shuo Wen Jie Zi", "Part-yu", "Guangyun", "Chinese Melodies", "Kangxi", "Chinese dictionary "All the book characters, etc.; the other part is the calendar tool failure who should be included in the word, including Tibetan Buddhist difficult difficult word word Road, Dunhuang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, dialect words, science and technology, new characters, as well as the names of today's still and names with the word."
^Note: The
Traditional Chinese character used in
Taiwan is "
鐽", while the
Simplified Chinese character used in
Mainland China is 𫟼 (, a simplified 金 radical (钅) next to a 达 (According to
Xinhua Zidian, 10th Edition)). Both characters are pronounced "dá". Darmstadtium was first synthesized on November 9, 1994.