Classical dictionaries Rüdenberg/Stange and Couvreur

[Zeppa]

I have read here that Couvreur has a good ZH>FR dictionary of classical Chinese.

Does anyone know how the 1904 and 1911 editions compare? I know the first has 1080 pages and the second (actually the 3rd edition) has 1144 pages. Is there a big difference in quality?

And does anyone know how Couvreur compares with the German dictionary by Rüdenberg and Stange?

TIA

[OneEye]

I can't speak to the German dictionary, but as far as the two editions of Couvreur, I think either way, you're about 100 years (give or take) out of date. Though as Rouzer says in his preface, a leaky boat is better than no boat at all. My understanding is that Couvreur is better for classical Chinese than say, Mathews, but of course in French the Grand Dictionnaire Ricci de la Langue Chinois is much better regarded (although much more expensive I'm sure). In my book, however, your time and money are better spent getting your modern Chinese to a useful level so that you can make use of Chinese reference works, but different strokes, I guess.

[Zeppa]

I'm talking about doing classical Chinese - we're in the classical Chinese section here - so I don't know that the 100 years makes much difference, does it? Rouzer refers to Mathews (which I've had for a few decades now) with the leaky boat, not to Couvreur. Thanks about Ricci - I had got the impression Couvreur had a better reputation. Of course the Chinese-Chinese dictionaries are going to be best in the long term, but I haven't got that far yet.

[OneEye]

I gave no indication that I was talking about anything other than classical Chinese. The idea that an old dictionary is just as good as a new one because the language is old is fallacious. Our understanding of the language has changed tremendously in the past 100 years, which of course ought to be better reflected in a newer dictionary.

I'm well aware that Rouzer was referring to Mathews. The quote still applies. As does my point that your time and money will be better spent getting your Chinese to a level that you can at least use something simple like 古漢語常用字字典. Until then, use whichever leaky boat appeals most to you. I'd personally go with whichever is cheaper/more convenient to get my hands on, since it's a temporary solution after all.

Anyway, it's unlikely that your ability in Classical Chinese is so far beyond your ability in modern Chinese that you really have a need for a dictionary outside whichever textbook you may be using, but can't use a Chinese one (the one I mentioned above is quite workable if you have Pleco or the like at your side). But I guess it is possible. Just my two cents.

[OneEye]

Out of curiosity, and to refresh my memory, I went to look up what Wilkinson has to say about the subject in his excellent new Chinese History: A New Manual (which updates his previous Chinese History: A Manual and comes in at triple the length). Here is what he says about Couvreur:

Dictionnaire chinois-français, Séraphin Couvreur, SJ (1835-1919), ed. 1890; 2nd rev. edition (under the title Dictionnaire classique de la langue chinoise). Ho Kien Fou [Hejian Fu 河間府]: Imprimerie de la mission catholique, 1904; 3rd ed. 1911. The emphasis is stated in the title. The author was guided by the Zihui 字彙, Zhengzi tong 正字通, and the Peiwen yunfu 佩文韻府. Pronunciation is given in a compromise between Nanjing and Beijing guanhua, mainly drawn from the Kangxi zidian. Many of the citations are from Couvreur's own translations of the Classics, with the original reference noted. Definitions follow the orthodox commentaries of Zhu Xi and his school. There are about 24,000 entries. Arrangement is either alphabetic (1st and 3rd eds.) or by Kangxi classifier (2nd ed.). Couvreur has long since been superseded, notably by Dictionnaire Ricci de caractères chinois.

Indeed, I had forgotten about the Ricci character dictionary. That may be a good middle ground between the outdated Couvreur (if nothing else, that bit about pronunciation should give you pause, not to mention the romanization system won't be any of the usual suspects) and the overly comprehensive (at this stage) Grand Ricci. At 3 volumes and covering 13,000+ characters, it ought to be plenty for your purposes for a very long time to come, and I'm sure it's a good deal more affordable than the Grand Ricci to boot. If you can access it at your local university, all the better.

Interestingly, Wilkinson doesn't mention the Rüdenberg and Stange anywhere.

[Zeppa]

Yes, thanks for the further information and sorry, I replied before switching my brain on.

I am trying to do mainly contemporary Chinese but dabble in classical too. You did say different strokes. I do have plenty to do without spending hours with a dictionary, but when I originally learnt Chinese in the 1970s I did a course, two semesters of classical, and it was common to do it without being totally fluent in contemporary. At that time I used dictionaries all the time, whereas now I use Pleco, and I think occasionally looking at some of the basic characters in a paper dictionary would be a useful exercise. The Rouzer book seems massively better and more interesting than the dreadful German version of Conversational Chinese 301 we use in our weekly evening class (a drop in the ocean or perhaps a leaky boat).

I understand the romanization system is different - the Rüdenberg Stange has an idiosyncratic one too. I can't see a big problem with that. I don't have time to go to the local university (Erlangen) as I'm not retired, but perhaps I should contact whoever teaches classical there for a dictionary comparison.

The reason I wondered about the German one is that I get the impression the reviews I see do not consider German because the reviewers don't speak German. Another member of my class has gradually been working his way through Rüdenberg Stange (plus German key), which I gather has 9000 characters and it might be better than Mathews. Then the library where he was consulting it was rebuilt and they apparently threw the dictionary away when he was half-way through. This is someone who is fixated on characters, especially traditional characters, and wakes up every morning crying because the simplification of characters messed up the Kangxi radical system. It was when I was googling for second-hand copies for him that I began to wonder if I needed such a thing myself and whether Mathews was any good and what the competition was.

I don't envisage getting very far with classical Chinese. But I am getting the impression that some knowledge of literary Chinese will be helpful. For instance, we had a text with a literary character in it (maybe this preposition 於) and the teacher said we can't possibly understand it and it is written Chinese, and also that it would be very very hard for us to read newspapers (might that be because of the literary style?) - I can understand that the teacher, who comes from Beijing, secretly doubts we have a hope of getting anywhere, but this isn't any use to me. So I started looking at the book and it's interesting. That's all.

Thanks very much for the information on Couvreur and the smaller Ricci. It's more than I found anywhere else.

[Kobo-Daishi]

They've got some sample pages of Chinesisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch over at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.../dp/3110000202/

[mikelove]

Zeppa: Since you mention Pleco - we're getting the full Grand Ricci shortly, FWIW (and we're trying very hard to keep the price reasonable) - we were trying to keep it secret, but now that they announced it in their latest newsletter the cat is more-or-less out of the bag. (an "early access" version of it may be out any day now, in fact)

[Zeppa]

Kobo-Daishi: Yes, thanks, I've seen it, but I wondered what people with more experience and the ability to compare thought of it. I suspect it's better than Mathews (my Mathews is in England but I'll be there next week), and then I came round to realizing that there are probably other better dictionaries than Mathews in other languages. The German dictionary can be bought second-hand, but I gather that you need an extra volume with the German index to make best use of it, and if you have to buy that new it ups the price somewhat (it wouldn't stop me but it would stop my classmate).

mikelove: Curses! that is great - but I've just ordered the non-Grand Ricci for nearly 300 euros! still, looking forward to seeing it on Tuesday. But actually I could return an online purchase. The Chinese-Chinese dictionaries are too difficult for me. I can't see myself passing up the Grand Ricci on Pleco. I have lusted after the Hanyu Da Cidian for decades but it would be silly to buy it when I can't use it.

Thanks for the Ricci link - I see you are une société new yorkaise - I never thought my French would be any practical use to me. Keep up the good work on Pleco.

[Zeppa]

The 'smaller' Ricci has now arrived and what a wonderful book. The electronic version will be great but won't replace it. Now I need a second standing desk to open it on. Thanks to OneEye (in the country of the blind?) for the recommendation.

[navaburo]

Zeppa:

Feel free to join our study group if you are working through Rouzer. It would be great to have another participant.

Mikelove:

You rock! I'm indescribably pumped for the electronic classical dict!

[Zeppa]

Thanks, Navaburo. I have that in mind, but I am about 7 weeks behind you all. I did look at the messages on the first chapter, but I didn't have any problems with it. I don't know if I will catch up because one chapter a week seems about right, although I expect it will get harder. This book is a lot better for self-study than our dreadful contemporary grammar book, though!

[Kobo-Daishi]

Zeppa wrote:

Kobo-Daishi: Yes, thanks, I've seen it, but I wondered what people with more experience and the ability to compare thought of it. I suspect it's better than Mathews (my Mathews is in England but I'll be there next week), and then I came round to realizing that there are probably other better dictionaries than Mathews in other languages. The German dictionary can be bought second-hand, but I gather that you need an extra volume with the German index to make best use of it, and if you have to buy that new it ups the price somewhat (it wouldn't stop me but it would stop my classmate).

I don't know French or German so wouldn't be able to compare those dictionaries to the English Matthews.

I don't have a copy of Matthews either.

Since you have a copy of Matthews, could you do me a favor and scan the entry for horse, ma and the words that follow that have ma as the head character?

This is something I would very much appreciate for use on my blog.

[Kobo-Daishi]

Zeppa wrote:

The 'smaller' Ricci has now arrived and what a wonderful book. The electronic version will be great but won't replace it. Now I need a second standing desk to open it on. Thanks to OneEye (in the country of the blind?) for the recommendation.

Would you also scan some representative pages from the Ricci so that we might see how the entries are formatted?

[Zeppa]

I don't know that I can do this fast. At the moment I have only a ScanSnap. I would have to take it to a copy shop. It would be easier for someone with access to a university library. Is there anyone who can do that?

But if no one else does, I will put it on my list.

I noticed that the 'small' Ricci has fewer combinations than the German. I assume the Grand Ricci has more. The combinations (words) it does have, however, are given their Wade-Giles, which is great.

[Kobo-Daishi]

I don't know german, but, looking through the few sample pages of Chinesisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch over at Amazon (linked to above), I wonder if they necessarily give the best definitions.

For instance, here they've got 阿奴 as being "younger brother". Mind I don't have any German, and am simply guessing that their definition is "younger brother".

And here are the entries from several dictionaries I downloaded off the Internet.

Gu Hanyu Da Cidian

Gudai Hanyu Cidian

Ci Hai

Guoyu Cidian

They all have it as a nickname or term of affection that a superior uses for a subordinate. Most cases, an elder brother towards a younger brother, a grandparent or ancestor toward a descendent, an emperor to an empress.

Jindai Hanyu Da Cidian

They got a self-reference, but, in a humble manner. Also, girls refer to themselves. Both these definitions cite transformation texts found in Dunhuang.

Guoyu Cidian

Similar thing from The Water Margin.

Hanyu Da Cidian

All the above but also married couple refer to each other.

So, "younger brother"...yes and no.

Sorry for the write up. Would have cleaned it up more, but, didn’t realize so difficult to cut and paste and to upload to tinypic and their stupid video captcha and then re-up to forums here.

Was going to tackle Arabia and gelt as well, but, fed up with the whole cutting and pasting crap. Will do it if feel up to again.

Chinese is so damn draining.

[Zeppa]

Thanks for the details. Younger brother is the meaning of the German, of course. I can't find the combination either in Mathews or in the Ricci character dictionary.

This just goes to show that the Chinese-Chinese dictionaries are better, but I'd assumed this anyway. I just wonder whether the German dictionary is worse than the other English/French etc. equivalents.

[Zeppa]

I can't drag these books to a copy shop, sorry. I have photographed the pages but not even on your blog do I find an email address. If you let me have an email address, I can send you the photos. Whether these are of blog quality I can't say (although my blog is coming up to its tenth anniversary).

[Kobo-Daishi]

Zeppa wrote:

I can't drag these books to a copy shop, sorry. I have photographed the pages but not even on your blog do I find an email address. If you let me have an email address, I can send you the photos. Whether these are of blog quality I can't say (although my blog is coming up to its tenth anniversary).

Since the photos are in digital form you could just post them to the forum.

Or else post them to an image sharing site like tinypic.com.

Kobo.

[Kobo-Daishi]

OneEye wrote:

I went to look up what Wilkinson has to say about the subject in his excellent new Chinese History: A New Manual (which updates his previous Chinese History: A Manual and comes in at triple the length)

That's great!

I hadn't known that Wilkinson had come out with a new volume.

His is one of the two or three books that I've ever been blown away by.

When I was younger I used to be on the mailing list of every press, university or otherwise, that sold books on Chinese/Asian studies or Chinese/Asian history.

I would save up my money and buy tons of books. More often than not I'd be disappointed.

What with the 3 line sentence blurb paragraph's brief description you weren't quite sure what you were going to get.

I know I was disappointed when I first received Wilkinson's The History of Imperial China: A Research Guide.

It even came with several pages blank from a printing error.

For the longest time it just sat on my bookshelf.

It wasn't until much later that I found out what a tremendous resource it was.

I remember when I first found out about Chinese History: A Manual.

Because my copy of Imperial China had several pages missing and I had never bothered writing to Harvard University Press about it, one day I thought maybe Google Print might have the missing pages among the pages they have on view. It was then that I saw Chinese History: A Manual.

I was like a kid in a candy store. I just had to have a copy, so, I put it on my X-mas wish list and got it a few months later.

A few days later it was relegated to the bookshelf to gather dust.

It seems that a few days later I found a pdf copy online. I was thoroughly disappointed. I paid for my copy and here was a copy for anyone to just download for free.

That's the last time I'll ever buy a print copy of a book ever again.

There are at least two previous editions of Wilkinson freely available online. So, this time I'm going to wait until someone posts the new Chinese History: A Manual online.

I read somewhere that Mair is offering a free copy to anyone willing to write a review for his journal, but, I'm not qualified to write a review.

Kobo.