Dear Readers,
At Amazon, they're accepting pre-orders for a Cantonese dictionary titled "A Chinese-English dictionary in the Cantonese dialect". It costs $325.00!!
Now, that is very expensive for one dictionary. I wonder if it includes characters and Cantonese dialectal characters.
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
Expensive Cantonese-English dictionary
-
Thomas Chan
Re: Expensive Cantonese-English dictionary
: At Amazon, they're accepting pre-orders for a Cantonese dictionary titled "A Chinese-English dictionary in the Cantonese dialect". It costs $325.00!!
: Now, that is very expensive for one dictionary. I wonder if it includes characters and Cantonese dialectal characters.
That should be "... in the Canton Dialect". Its
S. Wells Williams' book.
Expensive indeed, but I don't think it'd be very
useful for most people, as it was written in
1856--the words included, the characters used to
write them, the meanings, the pronunciations,
etc. are all very outdated. And it's not even
a very large book--maybe the size of a hardcover
novel.
It does include dialect characters, but they
are very different from what is used today in
the post-1970's world that it wouldn't work
very well as a guide to learning to read/write
colloquial Cantonese.
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
: Now, that is very expensive for one dictionary. I wonder if it includes characters and Cantonese dialectal characters.
That should be "... in the Canton Dialect". Its
S. Wells Williams' book.
Expensive indeed, but I don't think it'd be very
useful for most people, as it was written in
1856--the words included, the characters used to
write them, the meanings, the pronunciations,
etc. are all very outdated. And it's not even
a very large book--maybe the size of a hardcover
novel.
It does include dialect characters, but they
are very different from what is used today in
the post-1970's world that it wouldn't work
very well as a guide to learning to read/write
colloquial Cantonese.
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
-
Kobo-Daishi
Re: Expensive Cantonese-English dictionary
Dear Thomas,
Are you sure it's the same book? The one listed at Amazon, is titled "A Chinese-English Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect". It is not yet published, but, should be available in Dec. 2001 in hardcover. The author is someone named Eitel. The publisher is the University of Chicago Press. They put out quite a few good books on Chinese studies. The book's ISBN# is 1862100195.
The only other books by someone named Eitel at Amazon that deal with Chinese subjects are by Ernest John Eitel. They are several books on Feng Shui and a Chinese/Sanscrit dictionary. I guess this must be the same person.
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
Are you sure it's the same book? The one listed at Amazon, is titled "A Chinese-English Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect". It is not yet published, but, should be available in Dec. 2001 in hardcover. The author is someone named Eitel. The publisher is the University of Chicago Press. They put out quite a few good books on Chinese studies. The book's ISBN# is 1862100195.
The only other books by someone named Eitel at Amazon that deal with Chinese subjects are by Ernest John Eitel. They are several books on Feng Shui and a Chinese/Sanscrit dictionary. I guess this must be the same person.
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
-
Thomas Chan
Re: Expensive Cantonese-English dictionary
: Are you sure it's the same book? The one listed at Amazon, is titled "A Chinese-English Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect". It is not yet published, but, should be available in Dec. 2001 in hardcover. The author is someone named Eitel. The publisher is the University of Chicago Press. They put out quite a few good books on Chinese studies. The book's ISBN# is 1862100195.
: The only other books by someone named Eitel at Amazon that deal with Chinese subjects are by Ernest John Eitel. They are several books on Feng Shui and a Chinese/Sanscrit dictionary. I guess this must be the same person.
You're right; I've mixed them up S. Wells Williams'
"A Tonic Dictionary in the Canton Dialect" (1856)
with E.J. Eitel's dictionary--that should be
either 1877 for the 1st edition, or sometime in
the 191X's for the 2nd edition (revised by some
other person). I don't know which edition of
Eitel is being reprinted, but I think it's a
nicer dictionary than Williams', as it
distinguishes bookish language from the
colloquial and such, rather than lumping them
altogether so that you don't know when to use
what; it also gives characters for all the
compounds, while Williams only presents them
in romanization. I've seen the 2nd edition
of Eitel; its two huge (and heavy) volumes.
That makes two expensive reprints of old
dictionaries of Cantonese on Amazon--I wonder
if there is anything else. I had heard that
these and other books were being reprinted
by a company called Ganesha around roughly the
same time period (Nov 2001) for about those
amounts, but it seems that Amazon is saying
that U Chicago Press is reprinting them?
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
: The only other books by someone named Eitel at Amazon that deal with Chinese subjects are by Ernest John Eitel. They are several books on Feng Shui and a Chinese/Sanscrit dictionary. I guess this must be the same person.
You're right; I've mixed them up S. Wells Williams'
"A Tonic Dictionary in the Canton Dialect" (1856)
with E.J. Eitel's dictionary--that should be
either 1877 for the 1st edition, or sometime in
the 191X's for the 2nd edition (revised by some
other person). I don't know which edition of
Eitel is being reprinted, but I think it's a
nicer dictionary than Williams', as it
distinguishes bookish language from the
colloquial and such, rather than lumping them
altogether so that you don't know when to use
what; it also gives characters for all the
compounds, while Williams only presents them
in romanization. I've seen the 2nd edition
of Eitel; its two huge (and heavy) volumes.
That makes two expensive reprints of old
dictionaries of Cantonese on Amazon--I wonder
if there is anything else. I had heard that
these and other books were being reprinted
by a company called Ganesha around roughly the
same time period (Nov 2001) for about those
amounts, but it seems that Amazon is saying
that U Chicago Press is reprinting them?
Thomas Chan
tc31@cornell.edu
-
Kobo-Daishi
Re: Expensive Cantonese-English dictionary
Dear Thomas,
You are right. It is a re-print of the 1910-1911 edition. It will be distributed for Ganesha Publishing by the University of Chicago Press. This is the notice about the book found at the University of Chicago Press web-site:
Eitel, Ernest John (Johann) A Chinese-English Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect. With a New Introduction by Kingsley Bolton. Distributed for the Ganesha Publishing. 1910-1911 Edition. 1436 p., 2 Volumes. 1910-1911, 2001 Series: (G-WLLC) Ganesha-Western Linguists and The Languages of China
Cloth CUSA $325.00tx 1-86210-019-5 Fall 2001
Eitel's Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect (1877, 2nd ed. 1910-1) started out as an authorized revision of Williams' Tonic Dictionary, but later took on a life of its own as Eitel attempted to synthesize the Tonic with the vocabulary of James Legge's translations of the Chinese classics, as well as the imperial Kang Xi dictionary used by native scholars of Mandarin. The work is notable not least for its avowed intention to serve not merely as a glossary of the spoken language, but also as a model of 'the general written language of China'. Eitel's apparent attempt to standardize the 'reading pronunciation' of Cantonese may well have been motivated by his experience as Director of Chinese Studies, a position to which he was appointed two years before the publication of his dictionary. Originally a missionary with the Basel and Lutheran missions, he later became Inspector of Schools and Chinese Secretary in the British colonial administration.
The University of Chicago Press
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.
You are right. It is a re-print of the 1910-1911 edition. It will be distributed for Ganesha Publishing by the University of Chicago Press. This is the notice about the book found at the University of Chicago Press web-site:
Eitel, Ernest John (Johann) A Chinese-English Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect. With a New Introduction by Kingsley Bolton. Distributed for the Ganesha Publishing. 1910-1911 Edition. 1436 p., 2 Volumes. 1910-1911, 2001 Series: (G-WLLC) Ganesha-Western Linguists and The Languages of China
Cloth CUSA $325.00tx 1-86210-019-5 Fall 2001
Eitel's Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect (1877, 2nd ed. 1910-1) started out as an authorized revision of Williams' Tonic Dictionary, but later took on a life of its own as Eitel attempted to synthesize the Tonic with the vocabulary of James Legge's translations of the Chinese classics, as well as the imperial Kang Xi dictionary used by native scholars of Mandarin. The work is notable not least for its avowed intention to serve not merely as a glossary of the spoken language, but also as a model of 'the general written language of China'. Eitel's apparent attempt to standardize the 'reading pronunciation' of Cantonese may well have been motivated by his experience as Director of Chinese Studies, a position to which he was appointed two years before the publication of his dictionary. Originally a missionary with the Basel and Lutheran missions, he later became Inspector of Schools and Chinese Secretary in the British colonial administration.
The University of Chicago Press
Kobo-Daishi, PLLA.