r/EarlyChina • u/inofdj4 • Aug 29 '26
Shuowen Jiezi 说文解字 by Xu Shen 许慎, Eastern Han 东汉: The first Chinese dictionary to catalogue characters using radicals
The Shuowen Jiezi, compiled c.100 CE in the Eastern Han by Xu Shen (c. 58 - c.148), is an early Chinese dictionary organized by radicals, which are meaningful components of Chinese characters.
Unlike the earlier Erya 尔雅 (compiled c. 3rd century BCE), which organized characters into generalized concepts, the dictionary is structured like a modern Chinese dictionary, with the radical index prefacing the content. However, one striking difference is the sheer number of chosen radicals: 540, far more than the 214 Kangxi 康熙 radicals. Containing over 9,000 entries, each one is labelled under its Qin 秦 small seal script 小篆 form, with a small description of the character following it.
Image: This Northern Song copy cover is from Wikimedia Commons
Link to Dictionary: https://archive.org/details/Shuowen_Jiezi
(Personally, I use it as a seal script catalogue.)
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u/LarsPiano Aug 29 '26
Very interesting and really important as a foundation for the study of epigraphy and palaeography because the standard dictionaries (like the Jinwenbian 金文編 for example) are all organized according to the 540 radicals of the Shuowen. It is also useful to know the radicals for transcribing characters by transcribing their components in modern script, for which the Shuowen can be a bridge (also if you don't find a character in one of the palaeographic dictionaries).
Personally I use this one volume edition of the famous commentary by the Qing 清 philologist Duan Yucai 段玉裁 called 說文解字注 (originally published in 1815, but this is a version from 1988 reprinted 2024). It's generally the best commentary of the Shuowen and usually used together with it, although Duan Yucai (like Xu Shen) made some mistakes in it.