Fangyan (book)

For the general sense of a regional Chinese dialect, see Varieties of Chinese.
This article is about the dictionary. For the work of philosophy by the same author, see Fayan (book).

Fangyan
Chinese方言
Literal meaningRegional speech
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinFāngyán
Gwoyeu RomatzyhFangyan
Wade–GilesFang1-yen2
IPA[fáŋ.jɛ̌n]
Yue: Cantonese
Yale RomanizationFōng-yìhn
JyutpingFong1-jin4
Southern Min
Tâi-lôHong-giân
Old Chinese
Baxter–Sagart (2014)*paŋ ŋa[r]

The Fangyan[a] is a Chinese dictionary compiled in the early 1st century CE by the poet and philosopher Yang Xiong (53 BCE – 18 CE).[b] It was the first Chinese dictionary to include significant regional vocabulary, and is considered the "most significant lexicographic work" of its era.[5] His dictionary's preface explains how he spent 27 years amassing and collating the dictionary. Yang collected regionalisms from many sources, particularly the 'light carriage' (輶軒 yóuxuān) surveys made during the Zhou and Qin dynasties, where imperial emissaries were sent into the countryside annually to record folk songs and idioms from across China, reaching as far north as Korea.[5]


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Knechtges, David R.; Chang, Taiping, eds. (2014). Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature. A Reference Guide. Vol. 3. Leiden: Brill. p. 1935. ISBN 978-9-004-27185-2.
  2. ^ Yao, Xinzhong, ed. (2015). The Encyclopedia of Confucianism. Routledge. p. 472. ISBN 978-0-700-71199-4.
  3. ^ Needham, Joseph; Ronan, Colin A., eds. (1978). The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China. Cambridge University Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-521-23582-2.
  4. ^ O'Neill, Timothy Michael (2016). Ideography and Chinese Language Theory: A History. Berlin: de Gruyter. p. 206. ISBN 978-3-110-45714-8.
  5. ^ a b Creamer 1992, p. 113.