A database of Old Chinese reconstructions. It was started in 1991 and is gradually growing since that time, although at a rather slow pace. Right now it contains more or less sufficient information for about 4.000 entries.

    Database structure.

    1. Character. Contains characters in Big5 encoding. Note that they are displayed either as pictures or as font symbols, if you choose the necessary control option (Graphics - as fonts) and if Chinese fonts are installed in your browser.
   If you have some Chinese input system installed on your computer, you can also search for characters - but do not forget to set the "Graphics" option to "Fonts".

    2. Fanqie. Contains the fanqie spellings from Guangyun. Rather loosely filled yet.

    3. Modern (Beijing) reading. Provided for most characters.

    4. Middle Chinese reading. Middle Chinese (Qieyun) reading in my reconstruction (Starostin 1989).

    5. Old Chinese reading. Old Chinese (Early Zhou) reading in my reconstruction (Starostin 1989).

    6. Japanese reading. Japanese (On and Kun) readings, still absent for most characters.

    7. Vietnamese reading. Sino-Vietnamese readings, provided for about 1500 characters.

    8. Dialects. A link to the database of Chinese dialectal readings by William Wang and Chin-Chuan Cheng.

    9. Shuowen gloss. Quotations from Shuowen, still absent for most characters.

    10. Translation. English translations, given very concisely, mostly taken from Schuessler's dictionary (Schuessler 1987).

    11. Comments. Various considerations.

    12. Etymological notes. Brief etymological notes, partially (but not always) overlapping with the next field.

    13. Sino-Tibetan. A link to the Sino-Tibetan etymological database.

    14. Number in GSR. Number in Karlgren's "Grammata Serica Recensa".