tlug: Re: chinese character site

[Jon Babcock <jon@example.com>]

Except possibly for 200 hundred or so $B9q;z(B <kokuji>, the etymological
information for Japanese kanji will be the same as that at Rick
Harbaugh's <www.zhongwen.com> site. If you're thinking of that kind of
etymological information plus Japanese On/Kun readings and maybe usage
examples from Japanese $B4AJ8(B <kanbun>, then that's different. (We have
had a program running on our Web site for two years now that gives Kun
and On readings (not complete, just a start) for Unicode kanji as well
as various encodings, etc. See <http://www.kanji.com/cgi-bin/convert>)

As Rick Harbaugh himself notes, he is finding "too many mistakes" as
he revises his etymological info in the light of the $B@example.com;z(B 
<C. shouwenjiezi> (100 AD) dictionary. And, of course, the _Shuowen_ is
really just the most usual starting point for most scholarly
investigation of kanji etymology. 

In addition to the SW itself, I find these Japanese dictionaries very
helpful. (Most of them use the SW as their point of departure.)

1. $B;zDL(B <Jitou> by $BGr@example.com(B $B@example.com(B <Shirakawa Shizuka> ISBN4-582-12804-1

2. $B3Q@example.com(B $BBg;z8;(B <Kadokawa's Daijigen> ISBN4-04-012800-1

3. $BF#F2(B $BL@example.com](B <Toudou Akiyasu> $B4AOBBg;zE5(B <Kanwadaijiten> ISBN4-05-004548-6

Note: There are many versions of the Toudou material. Most of it seems
to derive from his early work, $B4A;z8l8;<-E5(B ISBN4-312-00001-8.

The three above are big and expensive. The easiest lightweight
reference I've found to be

4. $BBg=$4[(B $B4A8lNS(B <Taishuukan's Kangorin> ISBN4-469-03108-9.

And, from the West, any etymological work must take into account
something of Bernhard Karlgren's _Grammata Serica Recensa_ and his
other writings from around the middle of this century.

A recent example of Western scholarship on this subject, is William
H. Baxter's _A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology_ pub. by, Mouton De
Gruyter, NY 1992, the most ridiculously overpriced book that I have
ever actually bought!

These last two concern themselves primarily with the phonological side
of kanji etymology.

I've included romaji for those who can't read the kanji but, coming to
Japanese from Chinese studies, I'm very bad at this. Any corrections
are always welcome.

I am hoping to set up a ML for the specifically for the discussion of
kanji sometime during this lifetime. If I succeed, I'll post a notice
on tlug.

BTW, I've exchanged email with Rick Harbaugh, correcting a few minor
mistakes in the texts on his site, and found him to be friendly and
open and easy to co-operate with.

Jon

>>>>> "rodrigue-joe" == rodrigue-joe  <rodrigue-joe@example.com> writes:
    
    rodrigue-joe> I just met a guy here who is doing this site on the
    rodrigue-joe> etymology of Chinese characters.  He is not a
    rodrigue-joe> linguist, but I like his presentation.  I am
    rodrigue-joe> wondering if there is a similar site out there using
    rodrigue-joe> Japanese instead of Chinese, or if there are tools
    rodrigue-joe> out there (preferably running under Linux) that do
    rodrigue-joe> something similar.  If not, I might like to do
    rodrigue-joe> something like this for Japanese (I am interested in
    rodrigue-joe> dictionaries).  Please take a look at this and let
    rodrigue-joe> me know what you think.

    rodrigue-joe> One thing: his site is optimized for Netscape
    rodrigue-joe> running under Windows.  Of course I'm not going to
    rodrigue-joe> copy _that_.

    rodrigue-joe> www.zhongwen.com


--
Jon Babcock <jon@example.com>






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