漢韓大辭典 "Dictionary of Chinese Characters Korean Use"

[Mark Yong]

Just found out that this month, Dankook University Institute of Oriental Studies in Korea will be officially releasing the world's most comprehensive Chinese character dictionary to date, the 漢韓大辭典 (the official English name is "Dictionary of Chinese Characters Korean Use").

A project 30 years in the making, it reputedly even surpasses the 大漢和辭典 Dai Kan-Wa Jiten and the 漢語大辭典 Hanyu Da Cidian in terms of scope (covers both Classical and Modern usage across all three East Asian nations, i.e. China, Japan and Korea) and comprehensiveness (total head character count of 60,000, i.e. about 10,000 head characters more than its two predecessors).

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200801/200801090022.html

Hopefully, the release of this dictionary will revive the interest and active use of 漢字 Hanja in Korea.

Has anyone had the pleasure of browsing through it yet?

[renzhe]

I'm not sure about Korea. Hanja seem to be all but dead over there. The older Koreans tell me that in their time, they were still very common in newspapers (up to 30% of the text). Nowadays, it's zero. Only used in names, though kids can still choose to learn them in school. It used to be mandatory, but isn't anymore.

Still, it can help with understanding the culture as they still pop up randomly in advertisements, old temples and signs and, most importantly, names.

[ipsi()]

I imagine you'd also need to know them in order to study original sources for history and such, wouldn't you? Similar to needing to know Classical Chinese in order to study history in China (well, not study history, as such, as textbooks wouldn't use it, but researching history, maybe?).

[renzhe]

Sure, but I'm not expecting to see them return in great numbers to newspapers, printed books, etc.