Misquoting the ancients: Editorial practices in the Kangxi zidian

Imre Galambos
Zhejiang University
Abstract

The Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 [Kangxi Dictionary] was without doubt the most influential and widely used dictionary in China during the past three centuries, and its impact on education, scholarship, and intellectual life in general, cannot be overstated. The dictionary’s compilation was a major step in the development of Chinese lexicography, and it has been at the foundation of all large dictionary projects ever since. This paper addresses the editors’ tendency to misquote and misattribute quotations, which has been among the most commonly criticized issues. My aim here is not to identify further mistakes but to document the patterns of misquotations, as these can help understand the process of the dictionary’s compilation. One noteworthy find is that in many cases members of the editorial team quoted their sources indirectly, relying on more recent encyclopedias and miscellanea.

Publication history

Date received: 13 June 2024

Date accepted: 19 September 2024

Published online: 25 October 2024

Table of contents

The Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 [Kangxi Dictionary] was without doubt the most influential and widely used dictionary in China during the past three centuries, and its impact on education, scholarship, and intellectual life in general, cannot be overstated. The dictionary’s compilation was a major step in the development of Chinese lexicography, and it has been at the foundation of all large dictionary projects ever since. To this day, it remains one of the most important dictionaries in East Asia, and its definitions and examples are routinely incorporated into new dictionary projects, whether printed or digital. Among its major advantages was that it supplied quotations to illustrate not only the meaning of individual words but also different shades of their usage. The quotations came from a wide variety of sources and provided textual precedents in support of the glosses.

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