Newsgroups: sci.lang.japan
Subject: Re: English->Kanji/hiragana/katakana dictionary sought
From: <NU169273@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Date: Wednesday, 29 Jul 1992 17:06:35 CDT
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network

Please understand there is a newer version supposedly out of the below
that has been mentioned in the thread just recently if I'm not
mistaken.  Yours truly,  Kevin Paulson, 1109 16th Street North #1,
                         Fargo, ND  58102

P. S.  Let me know if this isn't just old news.  :)

E D I C T J
===========

Public Domain Japanese/English Dictionary file,  coordinated  by
Jim Breen.

CURRENT VERSION
---------------

The version date is now included in  the  dictionary  under  the
entry "aaaa" in katakana. (This keeps it as the first entry when
it is sorted.)

The  master  copy  of  EDICTJ 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.

INTRODUCTION
------------

EDICTJ is an attempt 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, however it has the potential to be used in a large
number of packages.

At  present it is in the "public domain",  however consideration
is being given to placing it under Gnu or  Copyleft  protection,
mainly  to  prevent  the  work  of  its  many contributors being
exploited by commercial software developers.

FORMAT
------

EDICTJ is in the "EDICT" format used by MOKE,  which is based on
the  structure  of the hankan files in the Wnn project.  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
consists of an ascii file with one entry per line. The format of
entries is:

KANJI [KANA] /english_1/english_2/.../

     or

KANA /english_1/.../

CONTENTS
--------

EDICTJ 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 as part of EDICTJ.  A  number  of  corrections
have  been  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.

(b) additions by Jim Breen.  Apart from a  number  of  additions
made during normal MOKE usage (e.g.  using it to read fj.* news)
I laboriously keyed in a ~2000 entry dictionary used in my first
year nihongo course years ago.  I have then worked through other
vocabulary  lists  and  dictionaries  trying  to make sure major
entries were not omitted. [All this was terrific revision.] This
task is continuing, although it has slowed down, and I suspect I
will run out of energy well before EDICTJ reaches the 6000 entry
mark.

(c) additions by others.  Many people have  contributed  entries
and  corrections  to EDICTJ.  A full list is at the back of this
file.

At 5000+ entries,  EDICTJ is nowhere as big as a good commercial
dictionary,  which  typically has 20,000+ entries with examples,
etc.   It  is,   however,   bigger  than  some  of  the  smaller
dictionaries,    and   when   used   in   conjunction   with   a
search-and-display program like JDIC it  provides  an  effective
on-line dictionary service.

COPYRIGHT?
----------

A  word  on copyright.  Of course most of the material in EDICTJ
came from other  published  lists.  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.  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 EDICTJ),  and the means of publication.  The  advice  I  have
received  from people who know about these things is that EDICTJ
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.

LEXOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
---------------------

EDICTJ 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 limitations on size inherent in the dictionary  due  to  its
current usage (MOKE scans it sequentially and JDIC needs to hold
it  in RAM) has meant that examples of usage cannot be included,
and inclusion of phrases is very limited.

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
not  included.  Verbs  are,  of  course,  are  in  the  plain or
"dictionary" form.

In working on EDICTJ,  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) 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,  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.

USAGE
-----

EDICTJ can be used as  the  dictionary  within  MOKE  simply  by
renaming it "EDICT". If you are a MOKE user and have been adding
to  your EDICT using the "Ask English?" option,  you may wish to
append your additions.  Why not send them to me and I  will  add
them to EDICTJ?

EDICTJ  can  be  used,  with  acknowledgement,  for  any purpose
whatever, EXCEPT for inclusion in new commercial products.  Mark
Edwards can,  of course, use it in later MOKE releases.  Stephen
Chung may also be using it in his PD "JWP".

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 or EUC file
(uuencoded  for  safety)  containing  replacement/new   entries.
Separate the amendments from the new material: e.g.

**Amendments to EDICTJ yyyymmmdd**

old entry1
new entry1
old entry2
........

**New Entries**

New entry1
New entry2
.........

I  prefer  not  to  get  a  "diff" or "patch" file as the master
edictj may have had quite a few changes since you got your copy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
----------------

Mark Edwards, Spencer Green, Alina Skoutarides,  Takako Machida,
Theresa  Martin,   Satoshi  Tadokoro,  Stephen  Chung,  Hidekazu
Tozaki, Clifford Olling.

Jim Breen
(jwb@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au)
Department of Robotics & Digital Technology
Monash University
Caulfield East 3145
AUSTRALIA

18 October 1991 (approx 5440 entries, 192kbytes)