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E D I C T
=========
Copyright (C) 1994 James William Breen
Public Domain Japanese/English Dictionary file, coordinated by Jim Breen.
CURRENT VERSION
---------------
The version date and sequence number is included in the dictionary itself
under the entry "EDICT". (Actually it is under the JIS-ASCII code "????".
This keeps it as the first entry when it is sorted.)
The master copy of EDICT is in the pub/nihongo directory of
monu6.cc.monash.edu.au. There are other copies around, but they may not be
as up-to-date. The easy way to check if the version you have is the latest is
from the size/date.
INTRODUCTION
------------
EDICT is the outcome of a voluntary project to produce a public domain
Japanese/English Dictionary in machine-readable form. It was intended
initially for use with MOKE (Mark's Own Kanji Editor) and related software
such as JDIC and JREADER, however it has come to be used in a large number of
packages.
The EDICT file, which has been placed in the Public Domain, is copyright, and
is distributed in accordance with the EDICT Licence Statement included at
Appendix A.
FORMAT
------
EDICT's format is that of the original "EDICT" format used by MOKE. It uses
EUC coding for kana and kanji, however this can be converted to JIS or SJIS
by any of the several conversion programs around. It is a text file with one
entry per line. The format of entries is:
KANJI [KANA] /english_1/english_2/.../
or
KANA /english_1/.../
The English translations are deliberately brief, as the application of the
dictionary is expected to be primarily on-line look-ups, etc.
CONTENTS
--------
EDICT consists of:
(a) the basic EDICT distributed with MOKE 2.0. This was compiled by MOKE's
author, Mark Edwards, with assistance from Spencer Green. Mark has very
kindly released this material to the public domain. A number of corrections
were made to the MOKE original, e.g. spelling mistakes, minor
mistranslations, etc. It also had a lot of duplications, which have been
removed. It contained about 1900 unique entries. Mark Edwards has also
kindly given permission for the vocabulary files developed for KG (Kanji
Guess) to be added to EDICT.
(b) additions by Jim Breen. I laboriously keyed in a ~2000 entry dictionary
used in my first year nihongo course at Swinburne Institute of Technology
years ago (I was given permission by the authors to do this). I then worked
through other vocabulary lists trying to make sure major entries were not
omitted. The English-to-kana entries in the SKK files were added also. This
task is continuing, although it has slowed down, and I suspect I will run out
of energy eventually. Apart from that, I have made a large number of
additions during normal reading of Japanese text and fj.* news using JREADER
and XJDIC.
(c) additions by others. Many people have contributed entries and
corrections to EDICT. I am forever on the lookout for sources of material,
provided it is genuinely available for use in the Public Domain. I am
grateful to Theresa Martin who an early supplier a lot of useful material,
plus very perceptive corrections. Hidekazu Tozaki has also been a great help
with tidying up a lot of awry entries, and helping me identify obscure kanji
compounds. Kurt Stueber has been an assiduous keyer of many useful entries.
A large group of contributions came from Sony, where Rik Smoody had put
together a large online dictionary. Another batch came from the
Japanese-German JDDICT file in similar format that Helmut Goldenstein keyed
(with permission) from the Langenscheidt edited by Hadamitzky. Harold Rowe
was great help with much of the translation. A full list of contributors is
at the back of this file.
At this stage EDICT is of a comparable size to a good commercial dictionary,
which typically has 20,000+ non-name entries with examples, etc. It is
certainly bigger than some of the smaller printed dictionaries, and when used
in conjunction with a search-and-display program like JDIC or XJDIC it
provides a highly effective on-line dictionary service.
COPYRIGHT
---------
Dictionary copyright is a difficult point, because clearly the first
lexicographer who published "inu means dog" could not claim a copyright
violation over all subsequent Japanese dictionaries. While it is usual to
consult other dictionaries for "accurate lexicographic information", as
Nelson put it, wholesale copying is, of course, not permissable. What makes
each dictionary unique (and copyrightable) is the particular selection of
words, the phrasing of the meanings, the presentation of the contents (a very
important point in the case of EDICT), and the means of publication. Of
course, the fact that for the most part the kanji and kana of each entry are
coming from public sources, and the structure and layout of the entries
themselves are quite unlike those in any published dictionary, adds a degree
of protection to EDICT.
The advice I have received from people who know about these things is that
EDICT is just as much a new dictionary as any others on the market. Readers
may see an entry which looks familiar, and say "Aha! That comes from the XYZ
Jiten!". They may be right, and they may be wrong. After all there aren't
too many translations of neko. Let me make one thing quite clear. NONE of
this dictionary came from commercial machine-readable dictionaries. I have a
case of RSI in my right elbow to prove it.
Please do not contribute entries to EDICT which have come directly from
copyrightable sources. It is hard to check these, and you may be
jeopardizing EDICT's PD status.
LEXICOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
-----------------------
EDICT is actually a Japanese->English dictionary, although the words within
it can be selected in either language using appropriate software. (JDIC uses
it to provide both E->J and J->E functionality.)
The early stages of EDICT had size limitations due to its usage (MOKE scans
it sequentially and JDXGEN, which is JDIC's index generator, held it in RAM.)
This meant that examples of usage could not be included, and inclusion of
phrases was very limited. JDIC/JDXGEN can now handle a much larger
dictionary, but the compact format has continued.
No inflections of verbs or adjectives have been included, except in idiomatic
expressions. Similarly particles are handled as separate entries. Adverbs
formed from adjectives (-ku or ni) are generally not included. Verbs are, of
course, are in the plain or "dictionary" form.
In working on EDICT, bearing in mind I want to use it in MOKE and with JDIC,
I have had to come up with a solution to the problem of adjectival nouns
[keiyoudoushi] (e.g. kirei and kantan), nouns which can be used adjectivally
with the particle "no" and verbs formed by adding suru (e.g. benkyousuru).
If I put entries in edict with the "na" and "suru" included, MOKE will not
find a match when they are omitted or, the case of suru, inflected. What I
have decided to do is to put the basic noun into the dictionary and add
"(vs)" where it can be used to form a verb with suru, "(a-no)" for common
"no" usage, and "(an)" if it is an adjectival noun. Entries appear as:
KANJI [benkyou] /study (vs)/
KANJI [kantan] /simple (an)/
Where necessary, verbs are marked with "(vi)" or "(vt)" according to whether
they are intransitive or transitive. (Work on this aspect is continuing.) I
have also used (id) to mark idiomatic expressions, (col) for colloquialisms,
(pol) for teineigo, etc.
The (current) full list of such entry markers is:
an adjectival nouns or quasi-adjectives (keiyodoshi)
a-no nouns which may take the genitive case particle "no"
vs noun or participle which takes the aux. verb suru
vt transitive verb
vi intransitive