The Stonecarver's Dictionary
A Comprehensive Chinese-English Dictionary of Ancient and Calligraphic Characters

There are two main purposes to this dictionary. One is to provide a dictionary of ancient and calligraphic characters for the Western world; the other is to provide as concise and complete definitions as possible for single characters. One of the main problems that I find in Chinese-English dictionaries is that many characters that are frequently used in character combinations are often not given definitions by themselves. This is unfortunate. Just as every Western name must have a meaning and derivation, each Chinese character must also have a meaning--but all too often, in both cases, their meanings are lost. In addition, Engish-Chinese dictionaries always give combinations of two or more characters to define english words. This poses a problem. How does one know, if they do not speak Chinese, which character in “老虎” means “tiger?” For specific purposes, such as writing Chinese poetry and prose in classical Chinese, one must be able to find as concise a translation of their thought to be able to fit deep and profound thought into a five or seven character line. This dictionary is not designed to grant a beginning student fluency; rather, it is intended to provide for all students of the language--from first semester of study to native speaker--an in-depth look at each individual character included.

I shall now explicate the anatomy of a Stonecarver's Dictionary entry. Each entry is headed by the modern unsimplified character, followed by the simplified version (provided there is one). This is followed by the pronunciation of the character, which is represented in the Pinyin system of romanization. Following this is the definition(s) of the character, meticulously researched and (hopefully) all-inclusive, from the most common meaning to the most obscure. Before a definition there may be the character <書>, indicating that the definition is a literary one, not used in colloquial speech.

At the end of the definition there may be an asterisk (*) or a superscript cross (^†). The asterisk means that the character is a new enough character that ancient representations of the character may not exist. I have therefore reconstructed what the Qin dynasty form of the character would have looked like in those cases. The cross means that the modern unsimplified version of the character can be written in alternate ways to the header of the entry. A table of these alternate forms can be found at the back of the dictionary.

Following the definitions there is a four-digit serial number in superscript to the extreme left of the entry. This number is the serial number of the character (for use within the Stonecarver's Dictionary only), and is used for cross-referencing, the character stroke index, and the English-Chinese gloss at the back of the dictionary. Immediately after this, in brackets, is the radical of the character. I have often found that Western students of the Chinese languages have trouble discerning the radical of a character, and indeed there are obscure characters that even the most advanced scholar may have trouble with. Many students also do not know the different forms of certain radicals depending on their placement within the character itself. Thus it is important that each time one looks up a character, one is familiar with the radical.

Also in brackets, to the right of the radical, is the Cantonese pronunciation of the character. This has been included for two reasons. Cantonese is an older language than and an ancestor of Mandarin. In fact, there are poems from the Tang dynasty that do not rhyme in Mandarin but do rhyme in Cantonese. Therefore the inclusion of the Cantonese pronunciation helps to give clues to ancient pronunciations--appropriate, I feel, for a dictionary that is so concerned with the etymological development of the written form. I had originally thought to include Bernard Karlgren's Tang and Sui dynasty phonetic reconstructions, but these are fairly obscure to the modern student and the Cantonese pronunciation tends to be similar to the Middle Chinese pronunciations in many cases. The dictionary is not anywhere close to being done, though, so the pronunciations may be added after all. The second reason for the inclusion of the Cantonese pronunciation is that Cantonese is now close to being as important to learn for Westerners as Mandarin is, relative to the other Chinese languages.

The second part of each entry includes six ancient and calligraphic representations of the character, arranged in mostly chronological order. The first style is 金文 (jin wen), or bronze script. It is so called because it is most often found in inscriptions on Zhou dynasty (1066-221 B.C.E.) bronze work. Because of the age of the script, many characters were invented after the script was no longer in use, so there are many entries that do not have this style. The absence of 金文 is indicated in block script by the characters 金文無. The next style, 小篆 (xiao zhuan), or small seal script, was created in the Qin dynasty (221-207 B.C.E.) by Qin Shi Huang Di's prime minister, Li Si. It was developed in order to regularize the Chinese script so as to end the confusion caused by a written language that was developing in different directions simultaneously in different parts of China. This was intended to increase the unity of the people under the rule of the first unifier of China. Loved for its smoothness and grace, 小篆 is the script most widely used in chops and other engravings. The third style, 隸書 (li shu) marks the transition between seal characters and brush characters. The clerical script, as it is called, was originally developed in the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-230 C.E.) when Cheng Miao invented a fibrous wooden pencil with a soft tip, allowing the strokes of the characters to vary in thickness. It was not until the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.) that the written character underwent another major change. 楷書 (kai shu), or regular script, was created with the use of a soft hair writing brush invented by Meng Tian, and became the standard form of writing to the present day. The two cursive styles, 行書 (xing shu), or running script, and 艸書 (cao shu), or grass script, are not necessarily immediate descendents of 楷書. Cursive forms were being employed as early as the Han dynasty, and some scholars even suggest that there were cursive forms of 小篆. These styles are employed in personal correspondences and in calligraphies, and are admired for their subtlety, strength, and vitality.

At the rear of the dictionary there is an English-Chinese gloss that lists serial numbers for ease of locating the various Chinese translations of English words. There are also a number of appendices that the eager Chinese scholar may find interesting and useful, including lists of rivers, mountains, and surnames, to name a few.