《华尔街日报》报道，收录超过30万词汇的新版牛津汉英/英汉两用词典将于9月9日发行，这本词典除了是史上最大最全面的中英文词典外，重点关注了“塞翁失马”、“杞人忧天”等西方人难以理解的中国成语，和“山寨”、“愤青”等中国网民的流行词汇。

为了编纂这本新发行的中英文词典，出版社共计60名编辑人员花费了近5年的时间。与原版相比，它用更加现代化、口语化的语言来对词条进行解读，达到深入浅出的效果。这将是史上第一本“达到如此规模的中英文词典”。

牛津大学出版社表示，在词典的汉英部分中，最难把控的莫过于晦涩难懂的中国成语。编辑人员此次在这方面下足了功夫，力求翻译精准到位。比如成语“塞翁失马”，其字面解释是“一名边疆老人丢了他的马”（the old man from Sai who lost his horse），这对外国人来说毫无意义，新版词典中用“看似坏事的好事”(a blessing in disguise)来表示。而成语“杞人忧天”的表面意为“住在杞的人担心天会掉下来”（the man from Qi who feared the sky），外国人若看到这样的解释肯定不知所云，所以词典将其解释为“用以形容那些因想象中的可怕事物而恐惧的人”（someone entertaining imaginary fears.）。

除了成语之外，牛津出版社的编辑们还广泛搜罗了中国网友们经常用到的网络流行语，如“山寨”(knock-off products)、“愤青”（angry youth）等，并对它们加以注释，但是“河蟹”(river crab)没有收入。

Wall Street Journal

August 25, 2010, 7:06 AM HKT

Oxford Readies Giant Chinese-English Dictionary

Five years, 60 editors and translators, 300,000 words, 370,000 translations: It all adds up to the largest single volume English-Chinese, Chinese-English dictionary ever put together, due to be published Sept. 9 by Oxford University Press.

 
Oxford University Press For Julie Kleeman, one of the dictionary’s two chief editors, putting together the dictionary has been a long but ultimately satisfying slog. Having read every entry in the huge tome at least once, she’s confident it’s a departure from other such dictionaries on the market, both within China and elsewhere.

“It presents both English and Chinese in a much more modern, colloquial, conversational way,” she says, in part a result of using native speakers of both languages in the compilation process, the first time this has happened on an English-Chinese dictionary of this size.

The process, Kleeman says, hasn’t been entirely stress-free. It turns out the supposedly staid world of lexicography can be quite fraught. “There were some tense exchanges,” she admits, particularly with one Chinese editorial colleague with whom she has worked closely for several years.

Often, a particularly rich Chinese phrase turns out rather prosaic when rendered into English. “She would say to me: ‘Sorry, it’s just not good enough,’” Kleeman says. “Can’t you make it a bit more beautiful?’”

The trickiest parts of Chinese to translate, she adds, were the language’s chengyu. These are four-character phrases that are often rooted in traditional Chinese stories and which have instant meaning for native speakers, but which can sound meaningless in English. An example, “saiweng shima” (塞翁失马), literally means “the old man from Sai who lost his horse.” But its equivalent meaning in English is really “a blessing in disguise.”

“Qiren Youtian” (杞人忧天), moreover, can be translated directly as “the man from Qi who feared the sky.” But to Chinese speakers, this phrase indicates someone entertaining imaginary fears.

How, though, did Kleeman and her team deal with words that might be sensitive politically within China? “The decision on whether words went into the dictionary was never political,” she says. “It was whether they have stood the test of time.” Words also needed to have come into wide usage across different media in China, over a number of years, although the words for recent phenomena such as the disease swine flu (猪流感) made it to the final work.

The compilers’ guidelines meant some words that are commonly used in Internet chatrooms weren’t included. The Chinese word for “river crab,” for example, is often used in Internet forums when users want to make fun of the government’s avowed pursuit of a “harmonious society,” since the words sound similar in spoken Chinese. But this definition didn’t make it into the dictionary.

The word “fenqing,” by contrast, is included: Translated into English as “angry youth,” this term has made it beyond the web’s boundaries. “Shanzhai,” meanwhile, is the word used to describe the plethora of knock-off products on sale across China’s shops and markets — an irritant to many foreign manufacturers, for sure, but the word itself now has the Oxford seal of approval.

“Boyun” — the word used to describe the Chinese authorities’ habit of shooting silver nitrate bullets into the clouds to make it rain — is another recent innovation that has become enough a part of China’s linguistic furniture to be included.

To break up the dictionary, the compilers have included special features such as “culture boxes”: On the English side these contain items such as an explanation of the British tradition of Guy Fawkes Night on Nov. 5, while on the Chinese side this runs to a brief explanation of the Cultural Revolution. Also handy are its how-to features, such as tips on writing a letter or — in keeping with the dictionary’s modern feel — an email.

Update: A number of readers have asked if Oxford has plans to put the new dictionary online. It is developing products for different platforms, from PCs to iPads, which users will be able to buy online, Kleeman says. There’s no firm timeframe, but she says they will be ready “as soon as possible.”

– Andrew Peaple