EDICT
Encyclopedia
The JMdict/EDICT project was started by Jim Breen
in 1991 with the aim to provide a machine-readable Japanese
to English
dictionary
. Since that time it has been updated and expanded by many contributors. The dictionaries resulting from the project are simply text files; other programs are needed to search and display them. Jim Breen's own online dictionary WWWJDIC
is a convenient way of searching EDICT.
The original structure for the entries in the EDICT file was quite simple, and it soon became apparent that a richer structure was required to represent adequately the complexities of the Japanese lexicon. In 1999 an XML
version (JMdict) was introduced which allowed for such things as multiple surface forms of lexemes and multiple readings, as well as cross-references, annotations, etc. It also catered for glosses in other languages, and is released containing French
, German
, Russian
, etc. translation
for many entries. The JMdict file, which is in UTF-8
encoding, is the primary output from the project, with the original EDICT format still being produced for systems which rely on that format. An expanded version (EDICT2), which reflects the structure of the XML entries, is also produced and is used by several systems including the WWWJDIC
server. Versions are also produced in the XML format used by Apple's "Dict" application and in the EPWING/JIS X 4081 format used by many Japanese electronic dictionary systems.
This project is considered a standard Japanese-English reference on the Internet
, and is used by the Unihan Database and several other Japanese-English projects. Since 2000, the EDICT project has been managed by the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (EDRDG). In 2010 maintenance of the dictionary was moved to an online database system.
EDICT also inspired other projects, including the CEDICT
Chinese dictionary
project started by Paul Denisowski in 1997.
As of June 2011, the JMdict/EDICT file had about 155,000 entries.
Jim Breen
James William Breen is a Research Fellow at Monash University in Australia, where he was a professor in the area of telecommunications before his retirement in 2003...
in 1991 with the aim to provide a machine-readable Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
. Since that time it has been updated and expanded by many contributors. The dictionaries resulting from the project are simply text files; other programs are needed to search and display them. Jim Breen's own online dictionary WWWJDIC
WWWJDIC
WWWJDIC is an online Japanese dictionary based on the electronic dictionaries compiled and collected by Australian academic Jim Breen. The main Japanese–English dictionary files contain around 150,000 entries, and the ENAMDICT dictionary contains over 720,000 Japanese names...
is a convenient way of searching EDICT.
The original structure for the entries in the EDICT file was quite simple, and it soon became apparent that a richer structure was required to represent adequately the complexities of the Japanese lexicon. In 1999 an XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
version (JMdict) was introduced which allowed for such things as multiple surface forms of lexemes and multiple readings, as well as cross-references, annotations, etc. It also catered for glosses in other languages, and is released containing French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, etc. translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
for many entries. The JMdict file, which is in UTF-8
UTF-8
UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...
encoding, is the primary output from the project, with the original EDICT format still being produced for systems which rely on that format. An expanded version (EDICT2), which reflects the structure of the XML entries, is also produced and is used by several systems including the WWWJDIC
WWWJDIC
WWWJDIC is an online Japanese dictionary based on the electronic dictionaries compiled and collected by Australian academic Jim Breen. The main Japanese–English dictionary files contain around 150,000 entries, and the ENAMDICT dictionary contains over 720,000 Japanese names...
server. Versions are also produced in the XML format used by Apple's "Dict" application and in the EPWING/JIS X 4081 format used by many Japanese electronic dictionary systems.
This project is considered a standard Japanese-English reference on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, and is used by the Unihan Database and several other Japanese-English projects. Since 2000, the EDICT project has been managed by the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group (EDRDG). In 2010 maintenance of the dictionary was moved to an online database system.
EDICT also inspired other projects, including the CEDICT
CEDICT
The CEDICT project was started by Paul Denisowski in 1997 and is presently maintained by MDBG, under the name CC-CEDICT, with the aim to provide a complete Chinese to English dictionary with pronunciation in pinyin for the Chinese characters.- Content :...
Chinese dictionary
Chinese dictionary
Chinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important...
project started by Paul Denisowski in 1997.
As of June 2011, the JMdict/EDICT file had about 155,000 entries.