The two most well-known Chinese characters dictionaries are Songben Yupian from China and Quanyun Yupian from Korea. These dictionaries contain a wealth of information on Chinese characters at the diachronic and synchronic level, while also retaining much information on Chinese characters during the period of its movement overseas. This paper is a corpus-based study which analyzes the differences in the style of arrangement, phonetic notation mode, interpretation, form interpretation, and other aspects of the two dictionaries, and further summarizes the laws of the development of Chinese characters in overseas dissemination. The result of this study indicates that the function of the two dictionaries is different, that the Chinese characters remained stable during their transmission to other countries, and that the overall trend in the evolution of the characters is toward simplification, and that the main way that Chinese characters morph extraterritorially is via phonetic and semantic replacement.

‘Tong’, a term commonly used in ancient Chinese dictionaries, is also widely used in Korean Chinese dictionaries. Through the study of the term in Jeonwun Okpyeon, this paper finds that the term is mainly used to define the characters with the same or close relationship in pronounciation. This is similar to the term in ancient Chinese annotations and dictionaries. However, the term in Jeonwun Okpyeon can also be used to define the situation in which Chinese characters’ shapes and meanings are interlinked. It is, in fact, desirable that the characteristic as such be paid special attention to in the study into ancient dictionary styles of both China and Korea. Based on the exhaustive investigation and analysis of “Tong” in Jeonwun Okpyeon, the paper obtains various types of ‘Tong’, which provides support for the determination of its connotation as well.

Chinese Character studies have mainly been focused on four areas: orthography, phonology, meaning, and character frequency. To add a new dimension to the existing approaches, this paper will provide and examine a quantitative data about the range of the vocabulary in Chinese character dictionaries. As a promising new method, the new approach, both diachronic and dynamic, will be very useful in exploring changing aspects of Chinese Characters usage, compared with the existing synchronic and static approaches. This paper aims to provide analysis of all Chinese Characters included in Chŏnun-okp'yŏn, the most authoritative dictionary of Joseon dynasty published in 1805 meaning ‘Chinese Rhyme Dictionary’, and in Sinjajeon, meaning ‘New Dictionary of Chinese Characters’ published in 1915, to explain their changing aspects in the entries of two dictionaries, and then to show how social change affected the use of Chinese Characters in early twentieth-century Korea. To that end, I construct the database of the two dictionaries on the basis of a detailed analysis of all the characters with respect to the radicals, strokes, components, and structures of these characters, which shows that Chŏnun-okp'yŏn includes 10,997 Chinese characters and Sinjajeon contains 13,348 characters with 13,084 in the body text and 264 in three appendices. 2,114 characters were newly inserted and 7 characters were removed in the body text of Sinjaeon. In particular, the number of the radical headings containing more than 20 newly inserted characters are 35, with 1,624 new characters in total, accounting for 77.1% of the total. The total number of radical headings including more than 30% newly inserted characters are 26. In addition, the number of radical headings containing more than 10 newly inserted characters with a growth rate of more than 20% is 903, accounting for 43% of the total number of characters. Based on these data, modern Koreans appears to have a wider vocabulary consisted of Chinese characters. The number of characters under the radicals meaning animal and plant ( 犬 (dog), 牛 (cow), 肉 (meat), 木 (tree), 米 (rice), 禾 (pine), 田 (farmland), 虫 (insect) etc.), those meaning mineral (石 (stone), 玉 (jade), etc), those meaning industrial products (皮 (leather), 巾 (towel) ect.), those meaning pathology (疒 (illness), 歹 (broken bones), etc.), increased quite a bit, the words reflecting newly emerged phenomena of industrialization or modernization in the early 20th century. In addition, it can be pointed out that the words used for spoken Chinese newly appears in Sinjaeon.

Quan yun Yu pian is a dictionary of North Korea times in Korea. It carries rich information of Chinese character’s forms, pronunciation and meanings. The dissertion analyses comparatively between 2139 tongzi of QuanyunYupian and tongshangzi of Yu pian’s editon of Song Dynasty in order to reveal the rules of outside Chinese characters’ development and change. This article analyses comparatively between 2139 tongzi of Quan yunYu pian and tong shangzi of Yu pian’s editon of Song Dynasty in order to reveal the rules of outside Chinese characters’ development and change.

“Quan Yun Yu Pian”is a traditional dictionary which was compiled in the late 18th century in South Korea. It reflects the Chinese characters are how to be used and developed in South Korea. On one hand,“Quan Yun Yu Pian”is deeply affected in compiling style and explanation on the contents by“Yu Pian”and“Kang Xi Dictionary”. On the other hand, it has also a distinct individual characteristics. Our studies are based on the text and we hope to reveal the rules how the Chinese characters are changed and developed through the collation, analysis and research of the same characters.