A Cycle of Modern English-Chinese Dictionaries From Lobscheid through Inoue Tetsujiro to the Commercial Press

摘要

Wilhelm Lobscheid's English and Chinese Dictionary (1866-69) was the pinnacle of achievement in nineteenth‑century Anglo‑Chinese lexicography. While it was scarcely used in China, many copies were imported into Japan, where it had a major impact on the acquisition of knowledge of the English language and the compilation of English‑Japanese dictionaries in modern Japan. Lobscheid's dictionary went through a number of editions in Japan - both reprints and translated versions - of which the most significant was Inoue Tetsujiro's Teizo Eika jiten (Revised and expanded English‑Chinese Dictionary, 1883-84). Then, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Commercial Press of Shanghai published The Commercial Press English and Chinese Pronouncing Dictionary (1902), based on Inoue's revised and expanded version of Lobscheid. Prior research has mistakenly assumed that the editors directly consulted Lobscheid's original dictionary, but this paper clarifies the relationships among these three works through a detailed examination of changes in the vocabulary used in translation.