Calls for open minds on revision of dictionary

As China embarks on a revision of one of the country's most important dictionaries, linguists are asking the public to keep an open mind about the proposed changes and are calling for the new edition to include popular Web and Western words.

The Great Chinese Dictionary, or Hanyu Da Cidian, one of the most authoritative reference books in China, will be revised over the next few years. Those involved in the project will rework about 30 percent of an edition published in 1986 for the new edition, according to estimates.

The revision is likely to add 100,000 to 120,000 entries to the book, whose 12 volumes define 375,000 words and terms and contain more than 50 million Chinese characters.

The project is to be completed in 2020, and the first volume is to be published by 2015, according to Xinhua News Agency.

The proposed revision is coming under scrutiny, especially because it follows similar changes made to another well-known reference book, the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary. Controversy arose after that edition included English terms such as "NBA".

"We should have an open mind about these new entries," said Xu Jiujiu, a linguist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' institute of linguistics.

In the revision, the guiding principle should be pragmatism, and commonly used words associated with the Internet or foreign languages should not be omitted, Xu said.

"If a large number of people are using certain new words, they start to tell us something about society," Xu said, adding that new words shouldn't be left out of dictionaries simply because authorities think they are informal or will be short-lived.

"The language belongs to the 1.3 billion people in China," he said.

"Some words may rarely appear in newspapers like the People's Daily. But if they are widely accepted by the public, the dictionary should include them."

Xu said he is also not opposed to including foreign words in the new edition.

"Some celebrities oppose adding Western words in Chinese dictionaries, saying they are afraid the Chinese language will fade out," Xu said. "I don't believe that Chinese, with its thousands of years of history, will vanish simply because it has absorbed a few foreign words."

Other experts said some Western terms have been widely accepted by the Chinese and become part of local languages.

"Importing foreign words into the dictionary shows that Chinese language and culture are tolerant," Yu Dianli, general manager of the Commercial Press, said on Tuesday.

He said the Chinese have long used common Western terms into their daily conversations.

The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary is revised every five years.

Its newest edition, which was published in July, was criticized by scholars for giving definitions for various words borrowed from English.

Some said the inclusion of foreign vocabulary will endanger Chinese language and culture.

To express their disapproval, a group of 120 scholars signed a letter of complaint against it in August.