Chinese etymology in SmartHanzi

[SmartHanzi]

SmartHanzi is a free application available on Google Play, App Store, Mac App Store and for Windows 7/8/10 here

 

It includes dictionaries (CEDICT, CFDict, HanDeDict), etymology, a text reader and HSK training.

 

All editions are not yet at the same level but they are reaching a point where it is easier - or less difficult - to put them in line, improve UI and add new features consistently.

 

SmartHanzi includes two sources for etymology:

1) Some editions include references to "Chinese characters - Their origin, etymology, history, classification and signification" by Dr. L. Wieger, S.J.

2) All editions include data from the former Kanji Networks website by Lawrence Howell and Hikaru Morimoto: etymology of 6000+ characters.

 

Both sources do not have the same approach. Wieger's book was first published in 1899 (French) and 1915 (English). It is based on the "Shuowen jiezi" (说文解字/說文解字) published around 120 CE, a classical reference in China. It does not include the 20th and 21st century discoveries and therefore is technically wrong in many respects. However, based on the Shuowen Jiezi, it reflects the Chinese tradition and culture. It is what many Chinese know about their writing.

 

There is definitely a need for research about the real origin and development of Chinese characters. Howell and others like Axel Schuessler contribute to this research. I am not qualified to elaborate further.

 

For most students, whether the etymology is real or just traditional does not matter. The point is to have mnemonics and memorize characters: Se non è vero, è ben trovato (Italian saying). Consciously or not, Chinese children learn a lot of etymology at school and at home.

SmartHanzi news: please follow Twitter @SmartHanzi

Amazon links

Wieger:                         Chinese characters - Their origin, etymology, history, classification and signification

Axel Schuessler's       ABC Etymological dictionary of old Chinese

Wang Hongyuan        Aux sources de l’écriture chinoise   -   The origins of Chinese characters

 

[Luxi]

It's really nice, thanks! The Windows version installed without problems in the latest Windows 10 and works very smoothly. Looks like a very safe program (no advertising or trojans) and it's nice to have a PC option.

There's a lot to explore in the Windows version,  at first glance I very much like the link to Kanji networks, which I don't think is available on the web any more. I'm also thrilled with the cursive fonts, just what I need to force myself to learn reading cursive. 

 

BTW, I still revere Wieger, it was my go to place in the olden days before the internet. 

[Tomsima]

14 hours ago, Luxi said:

 I'm also thrilled with the cursive fonts,

 

I just downloaded the pc version to check out the cursive fonts, but cant seem to find them anywhere, no buttons, settings, not in the font list, am I missing something?

[SmartHanzi]

I am not sure of what is meant by "cursive fonts":
- There is a choice to display simplified or traditional variants (toolbar and menu).
- Menu only: Options > Chinese font = choose the preferred Chinese font, e.g. KaiTi among those installed on the PC.

[Luxi]

10 hours ago, Tomsima said:

pc version to check out the cursive fonts

 

How about STXingkai (in fonts list from Options)

 

Perhaps they're not 'cursive' enough for you, but for someone at my level of ignorance... Actually, this font doesn't seem to work well with full form. 

 

ETA: The name in the Windows fonts folder is STXINGKA.TTF...it could be a font that came with other software, or one I downloaded from somewhere. The font metadata says it's by Changzhou SinoType Technology Co (1991-1998)

...but then you have the method: find your fav cursive font, install and go

 

https://chinesefontdesign.com/tag/semi-cursive-script-chinese-font

 

[Tomsima]

oh, got you. I was thinking it had a searchable 草書 database built in, which would be so, so good. Cursive fonts are still good though, thanks for sharing the link

[Luxi]

19 hours ago, Tomsima said:

I was thinking it had a searchable 草書 database built in, which would be so, so good.

 

You already have it, if you install cursive fonts in your device   . Even Notepad can 

 

 

 

@SmartHanzi   the reason I was thrilled by being able to use hand-written like fonts in your reader is it enables me to read a text in a font approaching 草书 and use the dictionary to pick up the characters I don´t understand (most of them in some fonts) - a good way of training. I can change fonts in many Windows programs but have to go back and forth to find the meaning of specific characters.

 

I like your reader very much, thanks for it!

[SmartHanzi]

@LuxiThank you so much for your comments

[LawrenceHowell]

Back in the late '80s, shortly after taking an interest in the characters, I was browsing in a bookstore and came across a copy of Wieger's work. Novice that I was with respect not only to the characters but also to contemporary scholarship, I had no way of judging the merits or even potential utility of the material my brain was slowly processing. Judging solely from the date of the original French and initial English versions, I had reason to believe the scholarship was badly dated, but I set aside my qualms and walked out of the store with my library expanded by one Dover trade paperback title. (And no, I didn't filch it!)

 

Back at home, after spending several hours and a few cups of coffee with Wieger's book, I had learned three important things. First, many of the explanations made for interesting reading, with some offering effective mnemonics. Second, in tiny increments, I could sense I was gaining the first faint insights into how Chinese culture is seen from the inside. In contrast, the third discovery was that, valuable though points 1) and 2) were, the contents were not going to suit my purpose. I kept the book for several years, but ended up donating it to a public library.

 

What was my purpose? To understand the logic behind the process or processes according to which any specific character was assigned the meanings it bears, or once bore.

 

Of course, dealing with such an old language, I knew from the outset that the process(es) might have already been lost in the sands of history, but I wanted to determine that for myself.

 

I could see that what Wieger offered with respect to what he called the “primitives” was not going to yield the answers I sought. For example, his explanation about 王 sheds little light upon the respective meanings borne by characters in which 王 is the phonetic element, such as 匡 汪 旺 or 枉.

 

That isn't to fault Wieger, whose primary intent (I believe) was to make knowledge of the Chinese tradition concerning the characters available to a wider audience. It's just that I was looking for something different. In any event, what is important in this context is that, for the reasons he states, Jean Soulat performs a valuable service by presenting “Chinese characters - Their origin, etymology, history, classification and signification" in various of his editions of SmartHanzi.

 

As for Jean's incorporation of my own etymological material, I will note as follows. Several years ago, I decided to shut down the online dictionary site I had been running. For the first ten years the dicitionary was up I focused on use of the characters in Japanese. Toward the end, however, I established a parallel set of data accounting for the meanings the characters bear in Mandarin (Standard Chinese). If memory serves, Jean and I came into contact during that period.

 

When I closed the site, Jean asked permission to adapt my data for use in SmartHanzi, and I readily assented.

 

And so it happens that a Jesuit missionary finds his work sharing space on a virtual bookshelf with a heretical autodidact in Han/Chinese lexicography. Strange bedfellows indeed.

 

Keep up the good work, Jean!

[SmartHanzi]

SmartHanzi Lite translates Chinese words in web pages on the fly.

 

SmartHanzi Lite is a Safari extension. By comparison with the more powerful usual SmartHanzi, the lite version is restricted to HTML documents and just shows the pronunciation and basic meanings. But it has the major benefit of not needing "copy and paste". This is especially convenient for users working with numerous HTML documents, e.g. webmail.

 

Translations show directly in a popup over the web page. All words recognized at the mouse position are listed.

 

Supported dictionaries:

- CEDICT (English).

- CFDict (français).

- HanDeDict (deutsche).

- DDB (Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, short definitions only).

 

Settings can be changed directly from Safari:

- Choose preferred dictionary.

- Temporarily disable/enable extension.

[SmartHanzi]

Oupsss!

 

SmartHanzi Lite is for Safari Mac. Free on Mac App Store.

 

[SmartHanzi]

Wieger series (phonetics, etymology)  and more are now in the SmartHanzi apps.

Windows:  www.smarthanzi.net

Mac:           Mac App Store

 

To be added soon to the iPhone and Android apps.

[Luxi]

@SmartHanzi, I like your latest update to the Windows 10 app (version 2021.02.01). So far, I've only tried it to help me read short stories saved as rtf, it's really helpful. I'm not into HSKs (being from a pre-HSK generation), but I can see how this might be useful. I would like an option to export selected words from the word list into a tab delimited file (to import into Tofu Learn), something like Zhongwen has, would that be somewhere in your plans? 

What I certainly like is the integration with Charles Muller's dictionaries (buddhism-dict.net), it's so good to have everything in one App. 

 

Last time I tried, the iOS version was a bit buggy, it'll be great when it is as good as the Windows version.  

[SmartHanzi]

Sorry @Luxi, I don't remember having seen this post.

 

It is possible to export selected words from any list with a right click.

[SmartHanzi]

And btw, the iOS version got some improvements recently. I might remind some guidelines published last September:

 

A work is in progress for SmartHanzi and DDB Access to align as much as possible the features in desktop and smartphone versions (the first step was to add a long time missing search by pinyin: done).

 

The main target remains to help reading texts on a PC or Mac, with smartphones as an additional and consistent facility. Due to the overwhelming usage of smartphones and the dramatic improvement of AI based translation tools, this may seem to miss the point. Actually it would obviously be true from a commercial, short term perspective. The current developments in China show that there were some illusions about making easy money on a huge, fully open Chinese market.

 

However, with the growing importance of China, a better command of Chinese language in western countries might become more critical than ever. SmartHanzi looks at things with this point of view.

 

For those with an interest in Charles Muller's dictionaries, please note that DDB Access has the full lookup details of DDB (Buddhist) and CJKV-E (Confucian / Daoist / Intellectual Historical terms) with 20 guest searches/day (instead of 10 previously).

[Luxi]

Nice to see you back here @SmartHanzi !

 

On 3/27/2022 at 4:56 PM, SmartHanzi said:

the iOS version got some improvements recently.

 

Indeed it has! You've been busy, and the results are very good. The iOS app is now quite close to the Windows version - which BTW I updated from the Windows Store without any Windows warnings. Both the SmartHanzi and the DDB are running smoothly on iOS and there's little difference with the desktop apps. I like the UI in the iOS app, the split screen makes good use of the larger iPad screens, and is nice to be able to read the text with the full glossary alongside. I am also especially grateful for the dynamic text size - it's so irritating to have to struggle with faint microscopic text on an empty screen!

 

I hadn't noticed that you'd added Charles Muller's full classical DB, that's great, thanks! And to encourage strugglers, you added a sample from one of the few passages in the Mencius that I still remember well. 

 

I noticed the DDB still insists on a limit of 10 searches on the Windows app (having signed as Guest) - but since I need about 100 per page, 20 wouldn't make much difference, I'm happy with the full characters and words lists on the side. Thanks again!

 

 

 

[SmartHanzi]

Thank you so much @Luxi.

 

I do not know if it is clear, there are two Windows versions of SmartHanzi: one at www.smarthanzi.net, and a Windows Store version. For frequent users I strongly recommend the version at www.smarthanzi.net/windows. See the home page at www.smarthanzi.net for details.

 

The SmartHanzi version at www.smarthanzi.net/windows is the model for all other editions. With few exceptions if any, any new feature is delivered first with this version. Due to Microsoft choices, the Windows Store version is technically very different. Porting new features takes some time. At the moment, the version at smarthanzi.net has the stroke order for 9500+ characters (from 2022.02 on) and a finer tuning of field sizes in lists (2022.04, just published).

 

For Mac, there are also a Mac App Store version and another one at smarthanzi.net: like for Windows, the store is better to get new users. But for Mac both versions are identical, it is just two distribution channels. As is explained at www.smarthanzi.net/mac, the "SL" version at www.smarthanzi.net/mac is strongly recommended for frequent users, for a totally different reason. There is an annual fee to distribute apps through the App Store. If something happens to me, the App Store versions will disappear shortly, while the SL versions at smarthanzi.net will remain available (users just have to keep a backup copy of the installer).

 

I shall try to better follow this forum. Feel free to contact me at info[at]smarthanzi.net

 

[yaokong]

Hi SmartHanzi, any chance you'll make linux versions or webapps of these programs?

[SmartHanzi]

Hello Yaokong,

 

A website would have severe drawbacks and limitations: server cost, response time, etc. A sophisticated web app similar to the current app would require far too much bandwidth.

 

For Linux, it could be done - actually *it is* done since Android *is* Linux based. But addressing the various distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, etc.) with different GUI and package management systems would make sense only with a large user base.

 

So sorry, but probably not. There are already more versions than reasonable!

[SmartHanzi]

Correction: in the medium term, a future version of SmartHanzi (Windows) might be compatible with Wine.