The Modern Reader's Japanese-English character dictionary [antikvár]

FOREWORDThe need for a new Japanese character dictionary is very evident. The language has undergone phenomenal changes since the close of World War 11. In 1946 the Japanese Government issued a list of 1,850 " Current Characters " {Toyo Kanji) with the recommendation that publishers and writers confine themselves to these characters in an endeavor to simplify the written language. This was an excellent move, but it multiplies the task of the lexicographer: both the old and the new forms of both the characters and their many compounds must be included, as prewar literature will always remain. Furthermore, the simplification of the writing of many of these Toy5 Kanji has resulted in the actual disappearance of their radicals, those important elements by which they have been arranged in character dictionaries. This calls for an improvement on the traditional radical system in order to provide berths for such characters and, at the same time, make it possible to locate all characters quickly whether their traditional radicals have disappeared or not. Another fact pointing up the need for a new character dictionary is the virtual ending of the former custom of indicating the pronunciation of characters and compoimds by the use of the furigana, the small syllabary notation along the side of the text.The present dictionary is both conservative and progressive. It is conservative in preserving the time-honored radicals for arranging the characters. One possible alternative would have been to arrange them by stroke-count; this system has been frequently adopted, particularly since the losing of the radicals, but lacking an accepted order for arranging characters of the same count, it always proves cumbersome and time consuming. The only other alternative would have been to invent an entirely new system; this too has been tried on occasions, with varying degrees of success, but such a system is likely to be even more complicated than that of the traditional radicals, which many students of Japanese have already learned, and to require much additional study, which could be given more profitably to the characters themselves.The dictionary is also progressive in that it arranges the characters under the traditional radicals in such a way as to make a logical place for lost-radical characters and at the same time to make practically automatic the heretofore difficult task of determining the radical of a given character, thus saving hours of time for the modern reader of the language. This helpful feature, explained in detail in the appendices, carries to a logical conclusion a practice which Rose-Innes adopted to a limited extent in his much-used dictionary.Students already familiar with characters and radicals may proceed to use the dictionary immediately, as the revision of the traditional radical system results in only about 12 percent of the characters being listed out of their traditional places. Moreover, in each such case a cross-reference has been inserted in the traditional place. And if the user will keep the following rule in mind when deciding between several possible radicals for a given character, in the great majority of cases he will find himself arriving immediately at the main entry of the character without needing the cross references: Take a left radical in preference to a right; take a top radical in preference to a bottom.A study of Appendices 1 to 3 will acquaint the user with the Radical Priority System on which this dictionary is based and, even in the case of the experienced student, will materially speed up the process of locating a character and its compounds. Beginners are urged to read the following preliminary pages and the first six appendices in order to make most efficient use of the dictionary.The dictionary presents 4,775 characters and 671 variants for a total of 5,446