A joint venture to compile a grand Chinese dictionary

The Chinese won't object to including all the characters in the traditional script in the dictionary they would compile together with editors from Taiwan. On the other hand, the Chinese surely will insist that simplified script be used as well. Words commonly used in China and written in the simplified logograms, which often differ semantically from ours, have to be entered in the grand dictionary envisaged. Our editors have no alternative but to comply. Then, all those hate-China politicians will do whatever they can to abort the first and probably the most important cultural exchange project between Taiwan and China. We don't think Chairman Ma would and could brush aside the expected DPP opposition.

But President Ma can get Taiwan to go it alone. All he has to do is to form a presidential committee of editors to start compiling a scaled down version of the New Chinese Dictionary, though it must be a truly new comprehensive dictionary of current Chinese. We know full well the government is facing terrible financial stringencies, but the cost, which would be spread over many years, wouldn't be an excessive burden on the government's annual budget. The total outlay for the compilation will be only a fraction of the budget for any of our many pork barrel construction projects.

It's a profound pity that China, the world's oldest continuing civilization, has no Chinese dictionary as grand and historical as the OED. No attempts have been made on either side of the Taiwan Strait to compile one that can rival the Kangxi Dictionary of yore. The joint venture President Ma has suggested would give us the long-awaited dictionary, but Taiwan probably has to embark on the epoch-making endeavor all alone for political reasons.

President Chiang Kai-shek, who moved his Kuomintang government from Nanjing to Taipei, vowed to preserve and protect Chinese culture in Taiwan against Communist erosion from China. In fact, Taiwan has preserved much more of traditional Chinese culture than anywhere else in China, thanks in part to its seclusion under Japanese colonial rule. The Japanization that the colonists tried to impose on the Hoklo and Hakka peoples on Taiwan only made them value their Chinese cultural legacy more highly. As the rightful preserver of Chinese culture, Taiwan is duty-bound to have a new comprehensive Chinese dictionary published, no matter how long and how much it may take to complete this historical task.

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