Four-corner method: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:55, 21 May 2023

Revision as of 18:16, 9 September 2023

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The ''Wang Yun-wu Da Cidian'' of 1928 was remarkable for its time, and although the pronunciations were very much in line with today's Standard Chinese, the lack of a phonetic index diminished its overall usefulness. The northern [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]] pronunciations were given in [[Gwoyeu Romatzyh]], a romanization system devised by linguist [[Yuen Ren Chao|Zhao Yuanren]], as well as in [[Bopomofo|Mandarin Phonetic System (MPS or Bopomofo)]] characters with a dotted corner for tone. It also delineated parts of speech, and all compounds were listed by the four-corner method as well.

The famed lexicographer and editor of ''[[Ciyuan]]'', Lu Erkui, as well as other lexicographers, became early proponents of the Four-Corner Method. By 1931, it was used extensively by the Commercial Press to index virtually all classical reference works and collections of China, such as the ''Pei Wen Yun Fu'' and ''[[SikuComplete Library of the Four QuanshuTreasuries]]'', as well as many modern ones.

Hospital, personnel and police records were organized just like the biographical indexes and dynastic histories of former times. For a while (Nash, Trindex, 1930), it seemed that use of the 214 [[Kangxi radicals]], introduced during the Qing Dynasty, was being replaced by the Four-Corner Method.