July 2003 (slightly revised through July 2005): the new
Comprehensive book is out! Its ISBN number is 0-8248-2766-X and you
can find it at the ABC Chinese Dictionary Series website, and at various
bookstores. We enthusiastically recommend the book! Unlike the software, it
requires no electricity. And, unlike any other printed Chinese dictionary,
it makes it easy to look up any word if you know its pronunciation, even if
you are unsure of the tones and may not know how it is written in Chinese
characters.
In April, 1997, Wenlin Institute, Inc. signed a license agreement with
the University of Hawaii, to combine Wenlin with the ABC (Alphabetically
Based Computerized) Chinese-English Dictionary, edited by John DeFrancis.
One and a half years later, publication of the integrated product Wenlin 2.0
was finally announced. By far the greatest improvement ever to happen to
Wenlin is combining it with this top-rate dictionary containing over 72,000
entries; but that was not the end of the story. John DeFrancis and his team
(now including Tom Bishop of Wenlin Institute) continued working on the
dictionary, increasing the number of entries to over 196,000 and making many
more improvements. The new Comprehensive ABC Dictionary was included
in electronic form with Wenlin 3.0, released in July 2002, and the book was
published by the University of Hawaii Press in July 2003. (Some corrections
were made to the dictionary, after the release of Wenlin 3.0, before the
publication of the Comprehensive book. These corrections will have to be
incorporated in a future version of Wenlin.).
All of Wenlin's vocabulary-related features -- Instant Lookup, vocabulary
lists, pinyin conversion, etc. -- have been extensively revised for complete
integration with ABC. Wenlin really has three dictionaries:
- Cidian -- dictionary of Chinese words and phrases ( cídin)
- Zidian -- dictionary of single Chinese characters ( zìdin)
- Ying-Han -- English-Chinese dictionary ( Yng-Hàn cídin)
The biggest transformation is in the
cidian -- the number of entries
went from about 14,000 in Wenlin 1.0, to over 74,000 in Wenlin 2.0, to over
196,000 in Wenlin 3.0! Nearly all the entries in the old
cidian had
corresponding entries in ABC that were more extensive. Where ABC and the old
cidian both had entries for the same word, the ABC entry is always
used as the main entry in the new
cidian, and the old entry is
appended below it, separated by a horizontal line. Most of the old entries
are superfluous, but a few may have some value.
Wenlin's zidian is separate in origin from ABC, but has also
undergone numerous improvements since Wenlin 1.0, including corrections to
pronunciations for consistency with the ABC cidian, as well as the
addition of many new entries for characters that were too rare even to be
included in ABC.
Wenlin's Ying-Han (English-Chinese) dictionary, which was
ridiculously small (less than 5,000 entries) in version 1.0, was made less
ridiculous (or at least less small) in Wenlin 2.0 by turning the ABC
Chinese-English Dictionary "inside-out", giving a total of over 18,000
entries. For example, the old dictionary didn't have the word zipper.
But ABC has two Chinese entries with the definition zipper, so those
two words became the definition of zipper in the new dictionary. The
old dictionary had only 13 entries starting with Z: z, zeal, zealous,
zebra, zenith, zero, zest, zigzag, zinc, zone, zoo, zoologial, and
zoology. The new dictionary has 20 more: Zaire, zamba, Zambia, zebu,
Zen, zestful, zestfully, Zhengzhou, Zibo, Zimbabwe, zinc-plate, zipper,
zokor, zonal, Zoroastrianism, Zulu, Zunyi, zygote, zymase, and
zymogen! This process has not been repeated, however, using the
Comprehensive ABC; Wenlin 3.0 still has nearly the same English-Chinese
dictionary as Wenlin 2.0.
Fortunately, John DeFrancis and his ABC team are already working on a
bona-fide English-Chinese dictionary. Possibly an electronic version of it
will be published with Wenlin 4.0.
