Bamboo & Silk Manuscripts Paleographic Contextual Database 簡帛網中國古代簡帛字形 辭例資料庫[]
Center of Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts of Wuhan University 武漢大學簡帛研究中心. © 2005.
The Center has created a database of single-graph images taken from the official publications of the excavated bamboo and silk manuscripts from the ancient states of Chu, Qin and Han. Users can enter a character or component (pianpang 偏旁) into the main search box to view graphic forms or use the contextual search to see all phrases containing the character; both searches can be further narrowed by selecting specific manuscripts or corpora.
Entries and search functions are in traditional Chinese characters only.
Chinese Classics Concordances[]
http://www.umass.edu/ctexts/index.php
Sergey Zinine, © 2009.
This statistics-heavy site allows users to see which graphs were used and with what frequency in the following classical Chinese texts: 春秋左傳, 穀梁傳, 公羊傳, 詩經, 毛詩, 書經, 易經, 周禮, 儀禮, 孝經, 郭店出土文獻, 禮記, 孟子, 論語, and 莊子. Custom searches, text comparisons and concordances can be performed using graphs, compounds, phases, Mandarin pinyin and English. Baxter-Sagart 2011 and Sergei Starostin reconstructed pronunciations are also available via a separate search function.
The site is in English; texts and search functions are in traditional Chinese characters only.
Chinese Etymology[]
Richard Sears汉字叔叔, © 2003, 2008, 2011.
This site contains images of graphic forms taken from the contents of three well-established paleographic dictionaries: 甲骨文编 (oracle bone forms), 金文编 (bronze inscription forms), 六書通 (seal forms) and說文解字 (seal forms). Unicode data, English glosses, component forms, etymological explanations and direct links to other dictionaries are provided for each graph in the right-side panel.
Searches can be made using simplified or traditional graphs. iPhone and Android mobile apps for the site are also available.
CHISE IDS 漢字検索[]
http://chise.zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ids-find
Tomohiko Morioka, © 2010.
This extensive Japanese-language website, designed for graph component analyses, also features images of graphic forms from a huge number of stone carvings (拓本文字), including both single graphs and compounds. Character data, full graph component analyses (including variant forms) and component maps are also provided, as well as an array of links to other graphs and graphic forms.
Searches can be made in traditional or simplified Chinese characters (though they return different results), or Japanese kanji.
Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants 異體字字典[]
http://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw
Taiwan Ministry of Education中華民國教育部, © 2000.
This well-designed dictionary from the Taiwan MOE is the best online resource for checking the variant forms of a graph. The dictionary features basic definitions and citations in digital text for each variant, and the right side panel contains linked images of citations taken from the pages of a number of standard reference works for graphic forms, including: 說文解字, 古文字類編, 漢語古文字字形表, 漢簡文字類篇, 漢隸字源, 隸辨, 金石文字辨異, 偏類碑別字, 碑別字新編, 六朝別字記新編, 敦煌俗字譜, 干祿字書, 龍龕手鏡, 龍龕手鑑, 玉篇, 廣韻, 集韻, 集韻考正, 類篇, 四聲篇海, 宋元以來俗字譜, 字學三正, 字彙, 正字通, 字彙補, 康熙字典, 彙音寶鑑, 異體字手冊, 大陸簡化字表, 角川漢和辭典, 中日朝漢字字形對照, 中文大辭典, 漢語大字典, 中國書法大字典, 草書大字典, 學生簡體字字典, 簡體字表, 佛教難字字典, 中華字海, 古文四聲韻, 宋體母稿異體字, 書法字彙, 重訂直音篇, and 補充資料.
Searches must use the site’s two interfaces (radical and stroke-count), and the site is in traditional Chinese characters. For offline use, a 10-CD set is also available for purchase.
Digital Dictionary of Buddhism 電子佛教辭典[]
http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/
A. Charles Muller, ed. © 1995.
With over 60,000 entries, the DDB is an extremely extensive database of Buddhist terms and terminology, with searches allowed in Chinese characters, English, Sanskrit, Pali and Tibetan. Entries are taken from a large multilingual catalogue of reference works and include pronunciations, basic meanings, translations and extensive contextual definitions listed under “Senses”. Search functions for the CJKV-English and SAT Daizōkyō Text Database are also provided.
Subscription is recommended (and can be gained free of charge by contributing to the DDB), but limited guest access is also permitted. Extensive topical indexes are freely available on the home page.
The Digital Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese 古漢語詞源字典（網絡版）[]
Jeffrey Tharsen, ed. © 2012.
As the homepage states, “this site contains a range of new tools designed to facilitate extensive analyses of the phonology and phonological structures of early Chinese texts.” Two interfaces allow characters or entire texts to be cut-and-pasted into the Text Entry box, and then the graphs are parsed and phonetic data returned for each character from the following dictionaries: Qieyun 切韻 and Guangyun 廣韻 (including Baxter’s reconstructed pronunciations), Baxter-Sagart 2011 (Old Chinese and Middle Chinese reconstructions) and Schuessler’s ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese (OC, MC and Late Han reconstructions, including etymological notes on sister languages and dialect forms). A text file upload function is also available for longer texts, and a multi-level search function returns sets of graphs based on the search criteria.
There are English and traditional Chinese versions of the website; all entries must be in traditional Chinese.
Gg-art China Museum Calligraphy Dictionary 中华博物汉语字典书法字典[]
http://images.gg-art.com/dictionary/index.php
Guangzhou Huan Hui Cultural Development Company Ltd. 中华博物 广州环汇文化发展有限公司
This Chinese dictionary is primarily useful for the many calligraphic and variant graphic forms provided for each character, including links to pages in many standard character form reference works, but it also contains an array of definitions in Chinese and simple English glosses (divided by parts of speech), followed by compounds from the site’s Dictionary of Common Usage 常用词典.
Entries and search functions are in simplified Chinese characters, though traditional characters can also be used to return stroke order and compositionally related graphs.
Phonemica 乡音苑[]
Kellen Parker and Steve Hansen, Phonemica users (crowd-sourced), © 2012.
This well-designed website is designed “to record spoken stories in every one of the thousands of varieties of Chinese”, transcribe the recordings into putonghua and Mandarin pinyin (or occasionally IPA), translate them into English, and use them to analyze dialects and dialect patterns throughout China. Users’ comments on each recording are listed below.
A map or full list of recordings is available, and the site is also on Weibo.
Popular Chinese Internet Memes, Slang, Expressions, Acronyms[]
http://www.chinasmack.com/glossary
ChinaSMACK, © 2008-2013.
Despite the sensationalist nature of this website, the glossary is the best quick reference guide to the evolving slang used by Chinese “netizens” on the internet. Head words are in Chinese (more or less), with part of speech and pronunciation in Mandarin pinyin provided, followed by translations and definitions in English.
This is a simple glossary, with no additional search functions or links.
Unihan[]
http://www.unicode.org/charts/unihan.html
Unicode, Inc. © 1991-2013.
The Unihan Database is the result of the effort to create one unified character set for all Chinese, Japanese and Korean graphs, currently supports tens of thousands of unique graphs, and is now the standard character set for most systems. The website features grid display and two search functions: radical and stroke count, or text search for English gloss or pronunciation in Mandarin pinyin, Cantonese jyutping, Stimson’s Tang pronunciation from T’ang Poetic Vocabulary, Korean hangul, Japanese on or Japanese kun. On the webpage for each graph, full encoding data, stroke count, dictionary codes and direct links for the online MDBG, CantoDict and WWWJDIC dictionaries is provided.
One should be aware that only a subset of all Chinese graphs have been included into the Unicode standard – thereby becoming searchable and independent of modalities such as writing style and format – and only a subset of this is represented in most Chinese fonts. For a more complete coverage it may be necessary to install the CJK Extensions, such as the PMingLiu-ExtB font package. (See also ctext.org: http://ctext.org/font-test-page .)
The database is also freely available for download as code charts in PDF or data text file format.
漢字の写真字典
http://homepage2.nifty.com/Gat_Tin/kanji/kaindex.htm
Yoshio Yoshida, ed. © 1998-2013.
This Japanese-language website is dedicated to photos of unique and interesting graphic forms of Chinese characters and Japanese kanji as found in public monuments and signs throughout East Asia. Graphic composition is discussed in Japanese next to each photo, along with location and similarities to other graphic forms.
There is a Google search bar on the site, or users can browse the numerous categories of graphic forms.
上古音查询
http://www.eastling.org/oc/oldage.aspx
Eastling.org 东方语言学, Shanghai Normal University Phonetics Lab上海师范大学语音实验室.
This Chinese-only website provides an array of Middle Chinese phonological data for graphs, including reconstructions by Bernhard Karlgren, Li Fang-kuei李方桂, Wang Li王力, William Baxter, Zhengzhang Shangfang 郑张尚芳 and Pan Wuyun潘悟云 (though there seem to be some errors in the data, so use with caution).
Entries are in traditional Chinese, and the search function accepts simplified or traditional graphs.