edict_doc.txt

                                 E D I C T
                                      
                      JAPANESE/ENGLISH DICTIONARY FILE
                                      
   Copyright (C) 2000 The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development
   Group, Monash University.
   
   INTRODUCTION
   
   The EDICT file results from a long-running project to produce a freely
   available Japanese/English Dictionary in machine-readable form.
   
   The EDICT file is copyright, and is distributed in accordance with the
   Licence Statement included at Appendix A.
   
   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
   ftp.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.
   
   As of V96-001, the EDICT file no longer contains proper names. These
   have been moved to a separate file called "ENAMDICT". From V99-002,
   the EDICT file has been generated from an extended dictionary database
   which includes additional fields and information. See the later
   section on the new JMdict project for details of this.
   
   FORMAT
   
   EDICT's format is that of the original "EDICT" format used by the
   early PC Japanese wordprocessor MOKE (Mark's Own Kanji Editor). It
   uses EUC-JP 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/.../

   (NB: Only the KANJI and KANA are in EUC; all the other characters,
   including spaces, must be ASCII.)
   
   The English translations are deliberately brief, as the application of
   the dictionary is expected to be primarily on-line look-ups, etc.
   
   The EDICT file is not intended to have its entries in any particular
   order. In fact it almost always is in order as a by-product of the
   update method I use, however there is no guarantee of this. (The order
   is almost always JIS + alphabetical, starting with the headword.)
   
   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 EDICT project.
       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
       Project. 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. During 1994, Dr Yo Tomita, then at the University of
       Leeds, conducted a massive proof-reading of the entire file, for
       which I am most grateful. Jeffrey Friedl at Omron in Kyoto has
       also been a most helpful contributor and error-detector. During
       1995, I have been keeping an eye on the "honyaku" mailing list,
       wherein Japanese-English translators discuss thorny issues. From
       this I have derived many new entries, and many updates to existing
       entries. To the many honyakujin, my thanks.
       
   A reasonably full list of contributors is at the back of this file,
   although I am sure to have missed a few.
   
   At this stage EDICT has many more entries than many good commercial
   dictionaries, which typically have 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 ISSUES
   
   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, despite considerable temptation
   (Electronic Books can be easily decoded), 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 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, 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:
   
abbr    abbreviation
adj     adjective
adv     adverb
an      adjectival nouns or quasi-adjectives (keiyodoshi)
a-no    nouns which may take the genitive case particle "no"
arch    archaism
aux     auxiliary
aux v   auxiliary verb
col     colloquialism
fam     familiar language
fem     female term or language
gikun   gikun (meaning) reading
gram    grammatical
hon     honorific or respectful (sonkeigo) language
hum     humble (kenjougo) language
I       Type I (godan) verb (currently only added to verbs where the type is no
t implicit)
IV      Type IV (irregular) verb, such as "gozaru".
id      idiomatic expression
iK      word containing irregular kanji usage
ik      word containing irregular kana usage
io      irregular okurigana usage
MA      martial arts term
male    male term or language
m-sl    manga slang
neg     negative (in a negative sentence, or with negative verb)
neg v   negative verb (when used with)
obs     obsolete term
obsc    obscure term
oK      word containing out-dated kanji
ok      out-dated or obsolete kana usage
pol     polite (teineigo) language
pref    prefix
qv      quod vide (this entry expanded in the EDICTEXT file)
sl      slang
suf     suffix
uK      word usually written using kanji alone
uk      word usually written using kana alone
vi      intransitive verb
vs      noun or participle which takes the aux. verb suru
vt      transitive verb
vulg    vulgar expression or word
X rude or X-rated term (not displayed in educational software)

   I have endeavoured to cater for many possible variants of English
   translation and spelling. Where appropriate different translations are
   included for national variants (e.g. autumn/fall). I use Oxford
   (British) standard spelling (-our, -ize) for the entries I make, but I
   leave other entries in the national spelling of the submitter.
   
   For gairaigo which have not been derived from English words, I have
   attempted to indicate the source language and the word in that
   language. Languages have been coded in the two-letter codes from the
   ISO 639:1988 "Code for the representation of names of languages"
   standard, e.g. "(fr: avec)". See Appendix C for more on this. (Thanks
   to Holger Gruber for suggesting this language coding.)
   
   In addition to the language codes described in Appendix C, a number of
   tags are used to indicate that a word or phrase is associated with a
   particular regional language variant within Japan. The tags are:
   
kyb     Kyoto-ben
osb     Osaka-ben
ksb     Kansai-ben
ktb     Kantou-ben
tsb     Tosa-ben

   In the case of gairaigo which have a meaning which is not apparent
   from the original (English) words, the literal transcription is
   included, with the tag (lit).
   
   NEW JMDICT PROJECT
   
   Early in 1999 work began on the JMdict project, which aims to extend
   the structure and content of the EDICT file to enable it to contain
   additional information and provided an improved service to users.
   
   The project has several broad goals:
    a. to convert the EDICT file to a new dictionary structure which
       overcomes the deficiencies in the current structure. With regard
       to this goal, the particular structural and content aspects to be
       addressed include, but are not limited to:
         i. the handling of orthographical variation (e.g. in kanji
            usage, okurigana usage, readings) within the single entry;
        ii. additional and more appropriately associated tagging of
            grammatical and other information;
        iii. provision for separation of different senses (polysemy) in
            the translations;
        iv. provision for the inclusion of translational equivalents from
            several languages;
         v. provision for inclusion of examples of the usage of words;
        vi. provision for cross-references to related entries.
    b. to publish the dictionary in a standard format which is accessible
       by a wide range of software tools; [It is proposed that this goal
       be addressed by developing the structure so that it can be
       released as an XML document, with an associated XML DTD.
    c. to retain backward compatibility with the original EDICT structure
       in order to enable legacy software systems to use later versions
       of the EDICT files.
       
   For more information on the JMdict project, please see the
   documentation files.
   
   By May 1999 the EDICT file had been converted into the new format. A
   major part of this consisted of identifying and combining entries
   which were effectively variants of each other.
   
   Since V99-002, the EDICT file has been generated from the new format.
   This has meant:
    a. a marginal increase in the number of entries, as there is an
       increased number of variants;
    b. the English fields of the variant entries are now exactly the
       same, as they have generated from the single expanded entry;
    c. the tags such as (vs), (an), etc. now appear before the first word
       of the English fields.
       
   USAGE
   
   EDICT can be used, with acknowledgement, for any free software or
   server, or included in file and software distributions at a nominal
   charge for the distribution medium. It is also available under
   non-exclusive licence for commercial uses. Consult the Licence
   Statement information at Appendix A.
   
   It is, of course, the main dictionary used by PD and GPL Copyright
   software such as JDIC, JREADER, XJDIC, MacJDic, etc. It can be used as
   the dictionary within MOKE (it may need to be renamed JTOE.DCT if used
   with version 2.1 of MOKE), and it is also used by the NJSTAR and JWP
   Word Processor packages.
   
   CONTRIBUTIONS
   
   I will be delighted if people send me corrections, suggestions, and
   ESPECIALLY additions. Before ripping in with a lot of suggestions,
   make sure you have the latest version, as others may have already made
   the same comments.
   
   The preferred format for submissions is a JIS, EUC or Shift-JIS file
   (uuencoded for safety) containing replacement/new entries. This can be
   emailed to me at the address at the end of this file.
   
   Amendments to EDICT are carried out using a "perl" program kindly
   provided by Jeffrey Friedl. This program carries out additions,
   deletions and replacements, as well as checking the formats of the
   entries. I would greatly assist if all contributions to EDICT follow
   the format set in that program. The format consists of entries
   prepended by a letter to indicate the action to be carried out: A for
   addition, D for deletion, and E/C for a replacement pair.
   Alternatively, the prepended codes can be "NEW: ", "DEL: " and "old:
   /new: " respectively.
   
   Examples:
   
AKANJI1 [kana1] /new entry #1/

AKANJI2 [kana2] /new entry #2/


Akana3 /new entry #3/


EKANJI4 [kana4] /old entry to be replaced/
CKANJI4 [kana4] /replacement entry/


DKANJI5 [kana5] /entry to be deleted/

   or
   
NEW: KANJI1 [kana1] /new entry #1/

NEW: KANJI2 [kana2] /new entry #2/


old: KANJI3 [kana3] /old entry to be replaced/
new: KANJI3 [kana3] /replacement entry/


DEL: KANJI4 [kana4] /entry to be deleted/

   Please provide an annotated reason for any deletions or amendments you
   send.
   
   The order of entries in the submission file is immaterial, however the
   E/C or pairs of lines must be in order.
   
   I prefer not to get a "diff" or "patch" file as the master EDICT is
   under continuous revision, and may have had quite a few changes since
   you got your copy.
   
   Users intending to make submissions to EDICT should follow the
   following simple rules:
     * all verbs in plain form. The English must begin with "to ....".
       Add (vi) or (vt) to the first translation if the nature of the
       verb is not implicit in the translation(s);
     * add (an) or (a-no) or (vs) as appropriate to nouns. Do not put the
       "na" or "no" particles on the Japanese, or the "suru" auxiliary
       verb. For entries which have (vs), do not enter them as verb
       infinitives (e.g. "to cook"), instead enter them as
       gerunds/participles/whatever (e.g. cooking (vs)).
     * indicate prefixes and suffixes by "(pref)" and "(suf)" in the
       first English entry, not by using "-" in the kanji or kana.
     * do not add definite or indefinite articles (e.g. "a", "an", "the",
       etc) to English nouns unless they are necessary to distinguish the
       word from another usage type or homonym.
     * do not guess the kanji. One of the most persistent problems in
       editing EDICT is finding and eliminating incorrect kanji.
     * do not use the "/", "[" or "]" characters except in their
       separating roles.
     * if you are using a reference in romaji form, make sure you have
       the correct kana for "too/tou" and "zu", where the Hepburn romaji
       is often ambiguous.
     * do not use kana or kanji in the "English" fields. Where it is
       necessary to use a Japanese word, e.g. kanto, use Hepburn romaji.
     * make sure your kana is correct. A persistent problem is the
       submission of words like "honyaku" as ho+nya+ku instead of the
       correct ho+n+ya+ku.
     * do not include words formed by common Japanese suffixes, such as
       "-teki", unless they cannot be deduced from the root.
       
   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
   
   The following people, in roughly chronological order, have played a
   part in the development of EDICT.
   
   Mark Edwards, Spencer Green, Alina Skoutarides, Takako Machida,
   Theresa Martin, Satoshi Tadokoro, Stephen Chung, Hidekazu Tozaki,
   Clifford Olling, David Cooper, Ken Lunde, Joel Schulman, Hiroto
   Kagotani, Truett Smith, Mike Rosenlof, Harold Rowe, Al Harkom, Per
   Hammarlund, Atsushi Fukumoto, John Crossley, Bob Kerns, Frank
   O'Carroll, Rik Smoody, Scott Trent, Curtis Eubanks, Jamie Packer,
   Hitoshi Doi, Thalawyn Silverwood, Makato Shimojima, Bart Mathias,
   Koichi Mori, Steven Sprouse, Jeffrey Friedl, Yazuru Hiraga, Kurt
   Stueber, Rafael Santos, Bruce Casner, Masato Toho, Carolyn Norton,
   Simon Clippingdale, Shiino Masayoshi, Susumu Miki, Yushi Kaneda,
   Masahiko Tachibana, Naoki Shibata, Yuzuru Hiraga, Yasuaki Nakano, Atsu
   Yagasaki, Hitoshi Oi, Chizuko Kanazawa, Lars Huttar, Jonathan Hanna,
   Yoshimasa Tsuji, Masatsugu Mamimura, Keiichi Nakata, Masako Nomura,
   Hiroshi Kamabe, Shi-Wen Peng, Norihiro Okada, Jun-ichi Nakamura,
   Yoshiyuki Mizuno, Minoru Terada, Itaru Ichikawa, Toru Matsuda, Katsumi
   Inoue, John Finlayson, David Luke, Iain Sinclair, Warwick Hockley,
   Jamii Corley, Howard Landman, Tom Bryce, Jim Thomas, Paul Burchard,
   Kenji Saito, Ken Eto, Niibe Yutaka, Hideyuki Ozaki, Kouichi Suzuki,
   Sakaguchi Takeyuki, Haruo Furuhashi, Takashi Hattori, Yoshiyuki Kondo,
   Kusakabe Youichi, Nobuo Sakiyama, Kouhei Matsuda, Toru Sato, Takayuki
   Ito, Masayuki Tokoshima, Kiyo Inaba, Dan Cohn, Yo Tomita, Ed Hall,
   Takashi Imamura, Bernard Greenberg, Michael Raine, Akiko Nagase, Ben
   Bullock, Scott Draves, Matthew Haines, Andy Howells, Takayuki Ito,
   Anders Brabaek, Michael Chachich, Masaki Muranaka, Paul Randolph, Vesa
   Karhu, Bruce Bailey, Gal Shalif, Riichiro Saito, Keith Rogers, Steve
   Petersen, Bill Smith, Barry Byrne, Satoshi Kuramoto, Jason Molenda,
   Travis Stewart, Yuichiro Kushiro Keiko Okushi, Wayne Lammers, Koichi
   Fujino, Joerg Fischer, Satoru Miyazaki, Gaspard Gendreau, David Olson,
   Peter Evans, Steven Zaveloff, Larry Tyrrell, Heinz Clemencon, Justin
   Mayer, David Jones, Holger Gruber, David Wilson, John De Hoog, Stephen
   Davis, Dan Crevier, Ron Granich, Bruce Raup, Scott Childress, Richard
   Warmington, Jean-Jacques Labarthe, Matt Bloedel, Szabolcs Varga, Alan
   Bram, Hidetaka Koie, David Villareale, Hirokazu Ohata, Toshiki Sasabe,
   William Maton, Tom Salmon, Kian Yap, Paul Denisowski, Glen Pankow,
   Richard Northcott, Roger Meunier, Petteri Kettunen, Jeff Korpa, Kanji
   Haitani, Liam O'Brien, Serdar Yegulalp, Jonathan Way, Gururaj Rao,
   Yoichiro Niitsu, Ralph Seewald, Andreas Jordell, Chua Hian Koon,
   Hartmut Pilch, Shouichi Takeuchi, Ayumu Yasutomi, Mike Wright, James
   Rose, Nich Hill.
   
   Jim Breen
   (jwb@csse.monash.edu.au)
   School of Computer Science & Software Engineering
   Monash University
   Clayton 3168
   AUSTRALIA
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   APPENDIX A: EDICT LICENCE STATEMENT
   
   In March 2000, James William Breen assigned ownership of the copyright
   of the dictionary files assembled, coordinated and edited by him to
   the The Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group at Monash
   University.
   
   Information about the formal usage arrangement for EDICT can be found
   on the Group's WWW page at: http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/edrdg/
   
   In summary, EDICT can be used, with acknowledgement, for any free
   software or server, or included in file and software distributions at
   a nominal charge for the distribution medium. It is also available
   under non-exclusive licence for commercial uses.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   APPENDIX B. LANGUAGE CODES FROM ISO 639
   
   The following language codes have been used with non-English derived
   gairaigo. They have been derived from the ISO 639:1988 "Code for the
   representation of names of languages" standard.
   
ar      Arabic
zh      Chinese (Zhongwen)
de      German (Deutsch)
en      English
fr      French
el      Greek (Ellinika)
iw      Hebrew (Iwrith)
ja      Japanese
ko      Korean
nl      Dutch (Nederlands)
no      Norwegian
pl      Polish
ru      Russian
sv      Swedish
bo      Tibetan (Bodskad)
eo      Esperanto
es      Spanish
in      Indonesian
it      Italian
lt      Latin
pt      Portugese
hi      Hindi
ur      Urdu
mn      Mongolian
kl      Inuit (formerly Eskimo)

   And I have added the following, which are not in the Standard:
   
ai      Ainu