ABC Dictionary of Sino-Japanese Readings

Book excerpt: The significance of Japanese-language scholarship on China cannot be overstated. Yet much of it is largely untapped by China scholars in both the West and China, in part because they are unfamiliar with the Japanese pronunciation of Chinese characters. Even those who know Japanese are frequently frustrated when seeking an obscure reading of a personal or place name. The purpose of this volume is to enable Sinologists and others involved in Chinese studies to access entries in Japanese reference works dealing with China without going through the time-consuming process of looking up characters by radical and stroke. For users of this dictionary, it is a simple matter to find a character by looking it up by its alphabetical pinyin pronunciation. Having located it, the user can go directly to the item in Japanese reference works. The Dictionary includes more than 13,072 entries not only in Chinese characters and their Sino-Japanese (ondoku/onyomi) readings, but also the Japanese (kundoku/kunyomi) readings. The romanized Japanese readings will assist in correctly transcribing Japanese names, such as the names of Japanese publishers and authors, and the technical terms employed by Japanese in their writings on China. These features will also give those familiar with pinyin greater access to material on Japanese history and culture. The ABC Dictionary of Sino-Japanese Readings will be a boon to Sinologists and others interested in the study of China.