Rhyme Dictionaries – A Special Dictionary Type In Ancient China

Abstract

Abstract IN the field of lexicographical studies in China, rhyme books are likely to be considered book-like in characters, thus overlooking the features they share in common with language dictionaries. As the investigation into the attributes of rhyme books goes further, more and more scholars have come to the consensus that rhyme books, which later develop into rhyme dictionaries, should fall into the ‘dictionary’ category and be classified as one type of special dictionary. The most representative view of this school is expressed in the definition of 韵书 (rhyme dictionaries) in The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (2002): ‘dictionaries of characters with the same rhymes or with the same pronunciations for writing literary composition in rhyme, such as The Dictionary of Rhymes, The Rhyme Dictionary, and The Central Plains Dictionary of Sounds and Rhymes, etc.’ Yong Heming (2003), according to the ‘subject domains’, classifies dictionaries into types – ‘general dictionary’ (普通词典) and ‘special dictionary’ (专门词 典 ). The latter can be further classified into ‘specialized dictionary’ (also ‘special-subject dictionary’) and ‘special-aspect dictionary’.