The Need for an Alphabetically Arranged General Usage Dictionary ...

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Sirlo-Plutonic P(rper.v, 1 (February, 1986)of :trr;ingcrncnts.' Given these circumstances. it is ludicrous to produceanother dictionary of Mandarin that is geared to a tindingsyslcm dcvised for the "r~~onosyllabic"('?) classical 1angu;rge. ModernChinese do not think or speak in n~onosyllables. There is no compellingrcason to create another dictionary of nnodern Chinese thatprctcnds they do.The type of dictionary I propose here would not ordy be usefi~lin the day-to-day reading of texts. It would also have a salutaryefrcct in the search for machine translation and machine-assistedtranslation capability. With such an alphabetically ordercd dictionaryin its memory, the cotllputer could hunt for words and expressionsat a fraction of the time and cost of any other finding system. As amatter of fact, prototype studies have already becrl undet-taken usingthis method. As examples. I refer to the research of Paul Thotnpsonon early philosophical texts and statistical analyses of modern navelsundertaken recently in China (Feng Shu-hua. et ctl.). The currenttrend in computer input is decidely in favor of rornanization. Thereasons why this is so have been lucidly explained in two articlesby Joseph D. Becker. Basically, roimanization is the orlly means ofChinese co~nputer inputting that is easy to learn. fast. and touch-typableby nun-professionals. Conversely, sheer numerical magnitudemakes crtlj dircct entry of Chinese characters cumbersome and difficult(and consequently, in most cases, slow anti expensive). Programmingdetails for retrieving karzji via r-orncrji keyboarding havealready been solved by Japanese computer scientists several timesover. Many researchers are now in thc process of completing programmingfor the rotrianized inputting of Mandarin Chinesc, amongthem Duke University. OCLC (Online Computer Library Center).ICL (International Computerized Linguistics), Asiagraphics. Wentzukai-ke wei-yiian-hui (The Coinmittce for the Refor111 of the WrittenChinese Language), the Univcrsity of London, Hua KO ElectricCompany Limited. Toshiba, and the University of Pennsylvania. tonalne only a few. Xerox has already perfected its fabulous STARword-processor which can handle Chinese. Japanese, Korean.Arabic, Hindi, etc. with a standard keyboard.Evcn the archaic and exceedingly clumsy Chinese typewriter has
Victor H. Mair, "Alphabetically Arranged 1)iction:iry of Mandarin"been rearranged according to the principle of alphabetization. Thishas been carried out indepcndentl y at least twice - once by workersat the Harbin School of Medicine ancl anothcr time by Robert S.Rauer. The compelling logic that drove Raucr to rearrange thethousands of bits of lead in his typewriter is cxplainctl by him thus(p. 138): "Thinking there must be a faster. easicr way to find charactersthan looking for them by their radicals and, recognizing that Iknew how to pronounce most of the characters in the tray, 1 hit uponthe logical rzltcrnativc of rcal-sunging them by thcir pronunciation."This is the same logic that is inexorably causing the shift in Chineseinformation processing of all sorts (hospital registration, 1 ibrarycatalogucs, telephone books. airline rcscrvations, various types ofbrokerage, and so on) fro111 radical, stroke, corner, and code classificationto alphabetization. Rut compatibility with these and otherconlputer applications only represents the beginning of the usefulnessof a single-sort alphabetically ordered dictionary. It would alsobe helpful in Chinese language pedagogy ancl in reading rornanizctlrnatcrials such as Xi11 TaizglNew Ckirzu and the various p'itz-)ti17 pcio(romanized newspapers) on the rr~ainland that are increasingly cvident.An added benefit would be that even interested non-specialistswould have fir greater access to Chincsc languages than they do now.Several tiines I have begun compiling a single-sort alphabetizeddictionary of Mandarin but have been repeatedly discouraged by therealization that - if the job is to be done well - such a gargantuantask is beyond my private resources. One of the purposes of thepresent article is to call the attention of rny colleagues to the criticalnecessity for a dictionary of this nature and to enlist their help inmaking it a reality. The other is to suggest that all new Sinologicalreference tools - even those for classical studies - should at leastbe equipped with alphabetically ortlcred indices and finding lists.Someo~ie who already knows the pronunciation of a given expressionbut not its meaning should tzot be cruelly burdened by having tofuss with radicals. comers. strokes. anti what not. Let him go directlyto the object of his search instead of having to make endless. insufferabledetours in an impenetrable forest of graphs. It makes littlesense to append a radical index of all entries when thc main body
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