From: Andrew C. West (andrewcwest@alumni.princeton.edu)
Date: Sat May 17 2003 - 04:58:39 EDT
On Thu, 15 May 2003 15:36:49 -0700, "Allen Haaheim" wrote:
> In indexes ordered by stroke count, the sub-sort is more often by radical
> than first stroke(s). The only dictionary I have at home that sub-sorts by
> first stroke(s) is _Cihai_.
Well, I can't resist a challenge, and now that I'm home here's the results of a
survey of some of the dictionaries on my shelves.
Stroke Count Index with no explicit subordering (but implicitly subsorted by
Radical) :
_Jiaguwen Jianming Cidian_
_Shuowen Jiezi_ (subsorted by Shuowen radicals)
Stroke Count Index with no explicit subordering (but implicitly subsorted by
pinyin) :
_Jianming Gudai Zhiguan Cidian_
Stroke Count Index with no explicit subordering (but implicitly subsorted by
stroke category) :
_Ci Yuan_ [stroke category order = d, h, v, s]
_Xiehouyu Cidian_ [stroke category order = h, v, s, d, b]
Stroke Count Index explicitly subordered by the stroke category of first stroke
only :
_Hanyu Chengyu Xiao Cidian_ [stroke category order = d, h, hb, v, vb, sb]
_Hongloumeng Cidian_ [stroke category order = d, h, v, s, b]
_Jin Ping Mei Jianshang Cidian_ [stroke category order = h, v, s, d, b]
_Song-Yuan Yuyan Cidian_ [stroke category order = h, v, s, d, b]
_Zhongguo Lishi Da Cidian_ [stroke category order = h, v, s, d, b]
_Zhongguo Xingshi Huibian_ [stroke category order = h, v, s, d, b]
Stroke Count Index explicitly subordered by the stroke categories of first two
strokes :
_Ci Hai_ [stroke category order = h, v, s, d, b]
_Hanyu Da Cidian_ [stroke category order = h, v, s, d, b]
<key>
Stroke Categories :
h = һ [U+4E00] (heng M) "horizontal"
v = ح [U+4E28] (shu w or zhi ֱ) "vertical"
s = د [U+4E3F] (pie Ʋ) "slanting"
d = ؼ [U+4E36] (dian c) "dot"
b = ^ [U+4E5B] (zhe ) "bending"
(my apologies if my mail client mangles the Chinese)
</key>
For all but three of these works, characters with the same stroke count are
subsorted by the stroke category of the first stroke as indicated in square
brackets. This is true of even those dictionaries such as _Ci Yuan_ which do not
explicitly suborder characters with the same stroke count. The majority of
dictionaries, however, do explicitly suborder within stroke count, by grouping
those characters with the same initial stroke under a common subheading under
the stroke count heading. For dictionaries with many characters, such as _Hanyu
Da Cidian_ then characters with the same number of strokes are explicitly
subordered by the stroke categories of the first two strokes.
Only two of my dictionaries subsort by radical for characters with the same
stroke count, and one is a dictionary of Oracle Bone characters, and the other
is an edition of the archaic Shuowen dictionary compiled by Xu Shen in about 100
A.D. (and that subsorts by the 540 Shuowen radicals rather than the now standard
214 Kangxi radicals).
As to what indexing method is most prevalent, a survey of 25 Chinese
dictionaries and other reference books published in the PRC shows the following
types of indexing methods (note that many, if not most, dictionaries have two or
more indexing methods) :
Stroke Count Index - 13 cases
Pinyin Index - 10 cases
Radical and Stroke Index - 9 cases
Four Corners Index - 4 cases
The Stroke Count indexing method does come out on top, but only because it is
used as an indexing method in both works that are ordered internally by
Radical/Stroke and also by Pinyin, and so do not need to be indexed by Pinyin or
Radical/Stroke. In particular, all of my general dictionaries of Chinese
characters are either internally ordered by Radical/Stroke and primarily indexed
by pinyin (3 works), or internally ordered by pinyin and primarily indexed by
Radical/Stroke (4 works). Only two out of the 25 are ordered internally by
stroke count (_Song-Yuan Yuyan Cidian_ and _Zhongguo Lishi Da Cidian_), and
these both have to provide a Stroke Count index in order to help find the
entries thus ordered.
Regards,
Andrew
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