On Chinese-English Dictionaries

I.A Historical PerspectiveBilingual dictionaries originate with cultural or language contacts between nations.In China,it was not until the late Qing period that Chinese-English dictionaries began toappear.The Western lexicographers who compiled them,however,were no trainedscholars and their works were often very crude.According to Jerry Norman,“Thedictionaries of Robert Morrison(1815—1823)and Walter Medhurst(1842—3)werecharacterized by serious defects in indicating pronunciation.Morrison,for example。