The ''Yupian'' (; "Jade Chapters") is a c. 543

Chinese dictionary Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Han dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for the Chinese language, and this article discusses some of ...

edited by Gu Yewang ( 顧野王; Ku Yeh-wang; 519–581) during the Liang dynasty. It arranges 12,158 character entries under 542

radicals Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...

, which differ somewhat from the original 540 in the '' Shuowen Jiezi''. Each character entry gives a

fanqie ''Fanqie'' ( zh, t= 反切, p=fǎnqiè) is a method in traditional Chinese lexicography to indicate the pronunciation of a monosyllabic character by using two other characters, one with the same initial consonant as the desired syllable and one ...

pronunciation gloss and a definition, with occasional annotation. The ''Yupian'' is a significant work in the history of

Written Chinese Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally r ...

. It is the first major extant dictionary in the four centuries since the completion of ''Shuowen'' and records thousands of new characters that had been introduced into the language in the interim. It is also important for documenting nonstandard ''súzì'' ( 俗字, "popular written forms of characters"), many of which were adopted in the 20th century as official

simplified Chinese characters Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the '' Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are o ...

. For instance, the ''Yupian'' records that ''wàn'' (

traditional A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

萬, "ten thousand, myriad") had a popular form of (simplified 万), which is much easier to write with three strokes versus thirteen. Baxter describes the textual history:

The original ''Yùpiān'' was a large and unwieldy work of thirty ''juàn'' volumes; fascicles" and during Táng and Sòng various abridgements and revisions of it were made, which often altered the original '' fănqiè'' spellings; of the original version only fragments remain (some two thousand entries out of a reported original total of 16,917), and the currently-available version of the ''Yùpiān'' is not a reliable guide to Early Middle Chinese phonology.

In 760, during the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

, Sun Jiang (孫強; Sun Chiang) compiled a ''Yupian'' edition, which he noted had a total of 51,129 words, less than a third of the original 158,641. In 1013,

Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...

scholar Chen Pengnian (陳彭年; Ch'en P'eng-nien) published a revised ''Daguang yihui Yupian'' (大廣益會玉篇; "Expanded and enlarged Jade Chapters"). The Japanese monk Kūkai brought an original version ''Yupian'' back from China in 806, and modified it into his c. 830 '' Tenrei Banshō Meigi'', which is the oldest extant

Japanese dictionary have a history that began over 1300 years ago when Japanese Buddhist priests, who wanted to understand Chinese sutras, adapted Chinese character dictionaries. Present-day Japanese lexicographers are exploring computerized editing and electronic ...

References

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External links

*Digitized original editions of the ''Yupian'', National Diet Library Digital Collections: Chapter 18�� Chapter 22�� Chapter 27�� Chapter 27br>Searchable digitized versions of the ''Yupian''
Chinese Text Project {{Dictionaries of Chinese 6th-century Chinese books Chinese dictionaries Middle Chinese