综述民国期间的汉英词典

我国最早的一批汉英词典均由外国传教士编写,且均为外国人学习汉语所用。虽说国人最早开始编写汉英词典是在晚清末年,但真正能起到辅助国人学习英语目的的词典却集中在民国期间。然而,由于过去资料匮乏,这一段历史鲜为人知。鉴于此,本人以原始词典为基础,重点评介在此期间出版的五部大中型汉英词典,从而展现出国人编写汉英词典的早期历史。

The earliest Chinese-English dictionaries published in China were compiled by foreign missionaries and their sole purpose was to help foreigners learn the Chinese language.In the final years of the Qing Dynasty,the first Chinese-English dictionary compiled by a Chinese was published,but it was during the reign of the Republic of China that such dictionaries began to play an important role in the learning of English by the Chinese people.Due to lack of relevant information on such dictionaries,few people knew anything about them in the past.Thanks to the availability of such dictionaries,either in their original form or in electronic form,this paper attempts to delineate the history of the making of Chinese-English dictionaries through detailed description and analysis of the five major dictionaries published during this period.