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Kokugo Dictionaries

by Tom Gally

The best and largest sources of information about the Japanese language are the 国語辞書 kokugo jisho.

As explained by lexicographer 倉島長正 Kurashima Nagamasa in his 1997 book 「国語」と「国語辞書」の時代 'Kokugo' to 'Kokugo Jisho' no Jidai, the term kokugo, which means "national language," seems to have come into widespread use in Japan only with the rise of national consciousness that accompanied the Meiji Restoration. The dictionaries that arose out of that era were called kokugo jisho, and the term persisted until the late 20th century, when the more international term 日本語辞書 Nihongo jisho, or "Japanese dictionary," came to be used. Today, kokugo usually means the Japanese language and literature as taught in Japanese schools, while Nihongo refers to the language itself in contrast to the other languages of the world. In the following, I use Nihongo jisho or "Japanese dictionary" to refer to all types of dictionaries of the Japanese language, both general and specialized, and reserve kokugo jisho or "kokugo dictionary" specifically for general-purpose dictionaries in which the meanings of Japanese words are explained in Japanese.

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of kokugo dictionaries in print, ranging in size from huge multivolume works for scholars and language fanatics to small pocket-sized books of negligible scope and use. Most of the dictionaries are so derivative of each other, with nearly identical definitions found in dictionary after dictionary, that one wonders whether copyright protection means anything at all in the case of dictionaries in Japan. But while market pressures have forced many publishers to turn out quick-and-dirty unoriginal dictionaries, that same commercial competition has also driven a few publishers to spend the time and money required to compile distinctive works of lasting value. While all have shortcomings, the best kokugo dictionaries are probably among the best reference works in existence in any language.

The following list, though not comprehensive, includes most of the major kokugo dictionaries available today. I have used many of these dictionaries myself as a translator and reader of Japanese and while working on several bilingual dictionary projects, and though I do not pretend to know all the sublimities and defects of each I hope that my comments about them will help readers choose among them.

The list is divided into three categories: Large Single-Volume Dictionaries, Small Single-Volume Dictionaries, and Multivolume Dictionaries.

Large Single-Volume Dictionaries

大辞林 Daijirin
(Ed. by 松村明 Matsumura Akira, 三省堂 Sanseidou, 2nd ed., 1995. ISBN 4-385-13900-8.)

Though Koujien is regarded by many in Japan as the authoritative dictionary and is the one most often cited by newspaper editorialists trying to make etymological points of questionable validity, I regard the best single-volume kokugo dictionary to be Daijirin. Designed to compete directly with Koujien, Daijirin is different in one key way from its illustrious predecessor: whereas Koujien arranges the senses of its definitions in historical order, Daijirin puts the most common contemporary meanings first. The result, for a person reading modern Japanese, is that Daijirin is the most likely to list the intended meaning where it can be found easily.

Another advantage of Daijirin is that its definitions tend to be more detailed than those of other dictionaries. Often I've found that Daijirin best hits the mark, nailing a word's meaning precisely where others miss.

And a third advantage of Daijirin is its unusual, though not unprecedented, kanji and jukugo index entitled 漢字引き・逆引き大辞林 Kanji-biki, Gyaku-biki Daijirin. (ISBN 4-385-13901-6). Published as a separate volume in 1997, this book contains all of the headwords in the 2nd edition of the mother volume, indexed by their first and last kanji. The kanji themselves are arranged by on-yomi and indexed by stroke count (though not by radical). While not as convenient for finding unknown kanji as the kan-ei dictionaries, this supplement at last provides readers of Japanese with the ability to look up all words - including those with unknown readings - in a single dictionary.

大辞泉 Daijisen
(Ed. by 松村明 Matsumura Akira, 小学館 Shougakukan, 1st ed., 1995. Slightly revised ed., 1998; ISBN 4-09-501212-9.)

This dictionary seems in many ways a clone of Daijirin. Not only is the same Tokyo University professor listed as editor - though it is important to note that the names appearing on the covers of Japanese dictionaries often have little relation to the people who actually did the work; one case in point being Koujien, even the most recent editions of which list as editor one 新村出 Shinmura Izuru, who has been dead since 1967 - but the definitions in Daijisen follow closely those of Daijirin as well. It also follows Daijirin's practice of putting the contemporary meanings first in its definitions.

The two chief differences I've noticed are that Daijisen has color pictures while Daijirin uses line drawings - a rather obvious difference - and that the example sentences and phrases in Daijisen are more often typical of the contemporary language rather than citations from classical literature. This latter point makes Daijisen my first choice when I am writing Japanese and I want to check how words are used in context.

広辞苑 Koujien
(Ed. by 新村出 Shinmura Izuru, 岩波書店 Iwanami Shoten, 5th ed., 1998. ISBN 4-00-080112-0.)

Koujien is a fine dictionary with a sterling reputation. Because it gives definitions in historical order, it is the best single-volume choice for people interested in how the meanings of words have changed over time.

In my experience as a translator of contemporary Japanese, though, I have found Koujien less useful than Daijirin. When the fourth edition of Koujien came out in 1991, I made it my dictionary of first resort for several months, moving the first edition of Daijirin to another shelf. During that time, though, I found that sometimes I would be unsatisfied with the definitions in Koujien or the word I was looking for wouldn't even be listed. Often the information I needed could be found in Daijirin.

The fifth edition published in 1998 seems to have been expanded and modified significantly. The publisher claims about one-third of the entries have been revised. I haven't done a systematic check, but I have noticed that I am less annoyed by unhelpful definitions than I was with the fourth edition.

日本語大辞典 Nihongo Daijiten
(Ed. by 梅棹忠夫 Umesao Tadao et al., 講談社 Koudansha, 2nd ed., 1995. ISBN 4-06-125002-7.)

Though subtitled in English "The Great Japanese Dictionary," this dictionary is, in my opinion, the least great of the four large single-volume kokugo dictionaries described here. With its many color pictures, pages of advice on giving speeches and writing letters, and short English glosses for many of the entries, it wears its marketing strategy on its sleeve: to sell to people who don't know dictionaries. While all of the big dictionaries are advertised as gifts for recent graduates and newlyweds, this one seems most consciously designed to appeal to the casual, unintellectual consumer.

Nihongo Daijiten's definitions in Japanese are noticeably shorter than in Daijirin, Daijisen, or Koujien, and, despite being as large and heavy as the others, Nihongo Daijiten has significantly fewer entries and pages, the thicker paper and larger pictures having taken their toll. Even the English glosses, though quite well done, are too skimpy to make this book much use as a Japanese-English dictionary. The one area where this dictionary excels is in its pictures. They are clear and attractive, and they make the book a pleasure for casual browsing. They appear, though, at a heavy price to what I, for one, want most in a dictionary: words.

Small Single-Volume Dictionaries

Although the large single-volume dictionaries are the best general references on the Japanese language, their weight and bulk make them unwieldy and unportable. For many people, especially those who use kokugo dictionaries mainly to determine the right kanji for a particular word, a smaller dictionary is more than adequate. The smaller dictionaries usually emphasize the contemporary language and exclude archaisms, so it is sometimes possible to find more complete definitions or more appropriate examples in these than in the larger works.