Ciyuan

The Ciyuan or Tz'u-yüan was the first major Chinese dictionary linguistically structured around words ("ci" ) instead of individual characters ("zi" ) used to write them. The Commercial Press published the first edition "Ciyuan" in 1915, and reissued it in various formats, including a 1931 supplement, and a fully revised 1979–1984 edition. The latest (3rd) edition was issued in 2015 to commemorate the centenary anniversary of its first publication.
Contents and significance.
In Chinese terminology, the "Ciyuan" is a "cidian" ( "word/phrase dictionary") for spoken or written expressions, as opposed to a "zidian" (, lit. "character/logograph dictionary") for written Chinese characters. A character dictionary contains only the definition(s) and pronunciation(s) for a character in isolation, whereas a dictionary of words contains both individual characters and characters in words. Whereas a dictionary of discrete characters would have separate entries for "zi" (, "character") and "dian" (, "canon; standard"), it would not enter the compound "zidian" (, "dictionary"); a dictionary of words would include entries for "zi", "dian", and "zidian". The Chinese language, both written and spoken, is primarily made up of words and phrases, not independent characters.
The dictionary title "ciyuan" 辭源 – which combines "ci" 辭 "take leave; decline; diction; phrase; word" and "yuan" 源 "source; cause; origin" – is an old variant for "ciyuan" 詞源 "word origin; etymology", usually written with "ci" 詞 "word; term; speech".
The "Ciyuan" has been popular with Chinese intellectuals. For example, during the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong carried two modern dictionaries, the "Ciyuan" and the "Cihai".
The lexicographer Reinhard Hartmann predicts that the revised "Ciyuan" "should remain a basic research tool for all students of China's pre-modern literature and history for many years to come".
History.
The "Ciyuan", which is the first major Chinese dictionary of the 20th century, has been republished and revised repeatedly.
First edition.
Chinese lexicographers began compiling the first edition "Ciyuan" in 1908, with Lu Erkui (陸爾奎, 1862–1935) as editor-in-chief. They chiefly derived material from the 1710 "Kangxi Dictionary" and 1798 "Jingji cuangu" (經籍簒詁) dictionary of characters used in the Chinese classics. In 1915, Commercial Press, a major Chinese publishing house, issued the original "Ciyuan" in two volumes totaling 3,087 pages, available in large, medium, and small sizes.
It contained approximately 100,000 entries, with dictionary order by individual character head entries arranged by radical and stroke, using the traditional 214 Kangxi radicals. Phrase and compound entries are grouped under their first character, arranged firstly according to their number of characters, and secondly according to their radicals.
The "Ciyuan" included not only Chinese characters and phrases, but also "chengyu" idioms, classical references, and encyclopedic terms, such as Chinese and foreign personal and place names, book titles, and modern scientific terms. 
Its preface explained the lexicographical need for the "Ciyuan".
In recent years new terms and new affairs have flooded into China. People from less-informed backgrounds find it hard to understand what "new learning" is about because of terms that are incomprehensible. Those who had classical knowledge often ended up giving up on new learning. On the other hand, those who went to study abroad did not understand what had already existed in their homeland when they returned. We therefore published this dictionary to indicate the history of and changes in the meanings of words, in the hopes of bridging that gap.
Each entry was followed by its pronunciation (with "fanqie" spelling, a common homophone, and modern Chinese rhyme), meanings, and often with illustrative quotations from the Chinese classics. However, as Têng Ssu-yü and Knight Biggerstaff say, the first edition "Ciyuan" "is far from exhaustive, and most of its illustrative quotations were taken from secondary sources without being checked".
Supplement.
In 1931 Commercial Press published the "Ciyuan xubian" (辭源續編 "Source of words continuation/sequel"), compiled by Fang Yi (方毅, 1916–1997) and others, in two volumes totaling 1,702 pages. This supplementary dictionary comprises terms accidentally omitted from the 1915 edition, and new terms coined after it. Fang Yi's preface explained the reason for publishing an extended edition of the "Ciyuan" in 1931: "Within more than a decade and following progressive developments in the world and changes within the political scene, it is natural that in science many new words have emerged". The "Xubian" also cites sources of quotations in more detail than the core "Ciyuan" dictionary.
The 1939 "Ciyuan Zhengxu heding ben" (辭源正續合訂本) was a new extended edition, combined into one volume. The 1931 "Ciyuan" had 65,555 entries and the 1939 edition has 88,074, nearly a 35% net increase in words.
In 1969, Commercial Press in Taiwan published a one volume edition, with a Four-Corner Method index.
Revised edition.
Plans for a second edition "Ciyuan" began after a 1958 conference about revising the "Ciyuan" and "Cihai" dictionaries. Hartmann says, "It was decided to maintain "Ciyuan" 's emphasis on literary, historical and classical terms and to revise and augment it as a reference work for researchers and students of pre-modern Chinese".
In 1964, a "weidinggao" (未定稿 "draft manuscript") "Ciyuan" was completed, but the anti-intellectualism of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) halted compilation. Work resumed in 1976 as a cooperative effort between the Commercial Press and language scholars in the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, and Henan. The revised Volumes 1 through 4 were published in 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1984, respectively. The revised edition "Ciyuan" contains 12,980 head characters, under which are 84,134 definitions of phrases, totaling 11.3 million characters. Volume 4 has a pinyin index attached.
Content of the new "Ciyuan" focuses on classical terms and encyclopedic items relating to Chinese literature and history up to 1840, the time of the First Opium War. The editors deleted technical terms from natural and social sciences, and international words that had been appended into the original edition "Ciyuan" during 60 years of revisions and updates. They also added a number of important terms; for example, "under the character "wei" ([委] "entrust; committee"), the original edition had 49 compounds, while the revised edition deletes 12 of these but adds 29 more". Since citations in the first edition "Ciyuan" were sometimes unclear as to sources, the editors of the revised edition rechecked every citation, corrected errors, and added references for authors and chapter numbers.
In 1988, Commercial Press published a reduced-size, single volume edition "Ciyuan".
Third edition.
The third edition (辞源(第三版)) was published in 2015 following 8 years of editing.()()
References.
Footnotes