The Chinese language has two words for dictionary: zidian (character/logograph dictionary) for written forms, that is, Chinese characters, and cidian (word/phrase dictionary), for spoken forms.įor character dictionaries, zidian ( Chinese: 字典 pinyin: zìdiǎn Wade–Giles: tzŭ⁴-tien³ lit. The general term císhū ( 辭書, 'lexicographic books') semantically encompasses 'dictionary lexicon encyclopedia glossary'. 2.3 Phonetically organized dictionaries.2.1 Semantically organized dictionaries.
