# Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects (现代汉语方言大词典)

**Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects** (现代汉语方言大词典) is a multi-volume Chinese dialect dictionary edited by the dialectologist **Li Rong** (李榮) and published by Jiangsu Education Publishing House (江蘇教育出版社) in Nanjing. It exists in two coordinated forms: a set of separate single-dialect volumes covering 42 localities, issued between 1993 and 2003, and a comprehensive six-volume edition published in December 2002 that merges those materials.<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2020/1009/c430756-31885577.html)</sup>

| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Editor | Li Rong (李榮), main editor<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> |
| Publisher and date | Jiangsu Education Publishing House, Nanjing; comprehensive edition December 2002<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> |
| Physical form | 6 volumes, 27 cm, set price 1128 yuan<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> |
| Basis | Compiled from 42 single-dialect volumes published 1993 to 2003<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> |
| Arrangement | Entries ordered by number of strokes in the head character; volume 1 covers characters of 1 to 4 strokes, volume 6 covers 15 strokes and above<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> |
| Entry content | Each headword records its dialect pronunciation, meanings, and usage examples<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> |
| Standing | Counted with the Language Atlas of China (《中国语言地图集》) and the Modern Chinese Dialect Sound Archive (《现代汉语方言音库》) among the landmark achievements of Chinese dialectology since 1949<sup>[3](https://www.cass.cn/xueshuchengguo/wenzhexuebulishixuebu/202603/t20260320_5977420.shtml)</sup> |

## Structure of the comprehensive edition

The six-volume comprehensive edition arranges headwords by the stroke count of the first character: volume 1 takes characters of 1 to 4 strokes, volume 2 takes 5 to 7 strokes, volume 3 takes 8 to 9 strokes, volume 4 takes 10 to 11 strokes, volume 5 takes 12 to 14 strokes, and volume 6 takes characters of 15 strokes and more.<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> For each headword the dictionary records the dialect pronunciation, the meanings, and usage examples.<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup> The opening of the work carries a section titled "四十二處方言概況" (survey of the 42 dialect localities), which summarizes each of the 42 speech localities covered.<sup>[1](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)</sup>

## The 42 single-dialect volumes

The comprehensive edition rests on a parallel publishing program: 42 volumes, each devoted to one dialect locality. Zhan Bohui (詹伯慧), professor at Jinan University and a leading figure in Chinese dialectology, describes Li Rong's project as a 40-plus-volume place-by-place edition (分地版) together with the comprehensive six-volume edition, and lists it among the several large multi-volume dialect dictionaries completed in the reform era.<sup>[2](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2020/1009/c430756-31885577.html)</sup> A separate survey of dialect-dictionary studies gives the count as a 41-volume set under Li Rong's editorship.<sup>[4](https://core.ac.uk/download/41418685.pdf)</sup>

**Editorial method.** Zhan Bohui, who took part in later large-scale dialect dictionary projects, recalls the staffing of the 42-volume compilation: organizers recruited linguistic professionals spread across the country who had investigated the local dialects, and each compiled the dictionary of the dialect he knew well or even used himself.<sup>[2](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2020/1009/c430756-31885577.html)</sup> This model, native-speaker linguists writing their own local varieties, was a deliberate choice for the single-dialect volumes.

Individual volumes appeared over a decade. For example, the *Jinhua Dialect Dictionary* (金華方言詞典), compiled by Cao Zhiyun (曹志耘) under Li Rong as general editor, was published by Jiangsu Education Publishing House in 1996.<sup>[5](https://metadata.ncl.edu.tw/blstkmc/blst2ndtp?PAGE=authorDetail&authCode=AC000302700)</sup> Place dictionaries in the series include works on Ningbo and Wenzhou dialects published by the same house in 1997 and 1998.<sup>[6](https://www.sssa.org.cn/bzjz/680681.htm)</sup>

## Place in Chinese dialectology

The dictionary belongs to a cluster of large infrastructure projects that transformed Chinese dialect studies in the late twentieth century: the Language Atlas of China edited by Li Rong and Zhang Zhenxing, the Modern Chinese Dialect Sound Archive, and Cao Zhiyun's *Atlas of Chinese Dialects* (《汉语方言地图集》, 2008).<sup>[2](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2020/1009/c430756-31885577.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[3](https://www.cass.cn/xueshuchengguo/wenzhexuebulishixuebu/202603/t20260320_5977420.shtml)</sup> A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences account lists the dictionary with the Atlas and the Sound Archive as the signature outcomes of the field's large-scale fieldwork and language-resource building since the founding of the People's Republic.<sup>[3](https://www.cass.cn/xueshuchengguo/wenzhexuebulishixuebu/202603/t20260320_5977420.shtml)</sup>

The work has also functioned as a research tool beyond lexicography. The National Social Science Fund project on a corpus of natural spoken dialect used the shared vocabulary characters of the 42-volume dictionary as one of three checks when fixing the character list for its field questionnaire, alongside the 6,000-word vocabulary list of the "Modern Chinese Dialect Sound Database" and the Institute of Linguistics vocabulary questionnaire.<sup>[7](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n/2015/0722/c358232-27345137.html)</sup> Scholars comparing dialect vocabulary in local gazetteers also cite the dictionary as a reference for contrastive study of kinship terms across periods.<sup>[8](https://www.difangzhi.cn/qk/qkgl/zgnjyj201901_138210/202309/P020230915370355325005.pdf)</sup>

## Related but distinct dictionaries

The Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects is not the same work as the five-volume *Great Dictionary of Chinese Dialects* (《汉语方言大词典》) edited by Xu Baohua (许宝华) and the Japanese scholar Miyata Ichirō (宫田一郎), published by Zhonghua Book Company in 1999 with nearly 210,000 entries, a compilation that reaches from Qin-Han records to the present.<sup>[9](https://jsnews.jschina.com.cn/zt2017/docs/201703/t20170324_261767.shtml)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[10](https://opac.lib.uibe.edu.cn/opac/book/a2c0394e16cbd98ed44c34c51fdf4842)</sup> A third related project, the *Great Dictionary of Chinese Dialectology* (《汉语方言学大词典》) edited by Zhan Bohui and Zhang Zhenxing and published in 2017, is an encyclopedic dictionary of the discipline rather than of dialect vocabulary; it covers dialect theory, methods, scholars, institutions, and surveys of 54 representative dialect localities.<sup>[2](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2020/1009/c430756-31885577.html)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[11](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2017/1017/c351660-29592485.html)</sup> Later scholarship has also examined the 1999 dictionary's citations and errors in the light of earlier materials, showing that these large dictionaries continue to be revised and studied.<sup>[12](https://www.sinoss.net/upload/resources/file/2024/09/27/37686.pdf)</sup>

## References

1. [現代漢語方言大詞典, NDL Search, National Diet Library](https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R100000002-Ia1000013362)
2. [詹伯慧：谈谈汉语方言大型辞书的编纂, 全国哲学社会科学工作办公室](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2020/1009/c430756-31885577.html)
3. [数字化赋能汉语方言研究：语法特征语料库建设的创新实践, 中国社会科学院](https://www.cass.cn/xueshuchengguo/wenzhexuebulishixuebu/202603/t20260320_5977420.shtml)
4. [CORE repository PDF citing the 41-volume edition](https://core.ac.uk/download/41418685.pdf)
5. [臺灣書目整合查詢系統, author entry for 曹志耘](https://metadata.ncl.edu.tw/blstkmc/blst2ndtp?PAGE=authorDetail&authCode=AC000302700)
6. [第三篇 学术研究 第十二章 语言学, 上海社会科学院](https://www.sssa.org.cn/bzjz/680681.htm)
7. ["汉语方言自然口语有声基础语料库建设"中期检查情况, 全国哲学社会科学工作办公室](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n/2015/0722/c358232-27345137.html)
8. [方志方言词汇整理与研究 20 年：回顾与展望, 中国地方志](https://www.difangzhi.cn/qk/qkgl/zgnjyj201901_138210/202309/P020230915370355325005.pdf)
9. [方言学家许宝华：方言和普通话都是中国最重要的文化载体, 中国江苏网](https://jsnews.jschina.com.cn/zt2017/docs/201703/t20170324_261767.shtml)
10. [汉语方言大词典.第四卷, 对外经济贸易大学图书馆](https://opac.lib.uibe.edu.cn/opac/book/a2c0394e16cbd98ed44c34c51fdf4842)
11. [国家社科基金重大项目阶段性成果《汉语方言学大词典》编成出版, 全国哲学社会科学工作办公室](https://www.nopss.gov.cn/n1/2017/1017/c351660-29592485.html)
12. [方言词典研究综述 (sinoss.net)](https://www.sinoss.net/upload/resources/file/2024/09/27/37686.pdf)

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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Languages and linguistics › Languages and dialects › Dialects and regional varieties › Dialects of Asian languages › Sinitic dialect surveys and atlases*

*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 18, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*

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