Just added a link to this online tool in the ‘References & Tools’ link list. The description of the site reads: “An Historical and Comparative Encyclopaedia of Chinese Conceptual Schemes.” The General Editor of the site is: Christoph Harbsmeier 何莫邪; Associate Editor is: Jiang Shaoyu 蔣紹愚.
Here is the front matter you’ll encounter when you go to the site:
Main Features
- The Thesaurus Linguae Sericae (TLS) is designed as as a collaborative forum for discussion on the close reading of Chinese texts.
- TLS provides a corpus of classical Chinese texts wherever possible with interlinear translations.
- TLS links the texts incorporated with an analytic dictionary of the Chinese language.
- TLS pays special attention to historical keywords.
- TLS works towards a cross-cultural study of conceptual history.
- TLS compiles a detailed synonym dictionary of Chinese.
- TLS systematically organises the Chinese vocabulary in taxonomic hierarchies of synonym groups.
- TLS develops a system of syntactic categories for the analysis of Chinese texts.
- TLS develops a system of rhetorical devices for the analysis of Chinese texts.
- TLS deploys a system of standard semantic relations, aiming to define the Chinese conceptual space as a relational space.
- TLS seeks to make available up-to-date databases on historical phonology and the history of Chinese characters.
Cautionary Notes
- This database is no more than an on-line construction site.
- Due to lack of funding, very little in TLS has so far been proofread or double-checked. Caveat lector!
- TLS encourages suggestions for improvement at the bottom of every page.
Please acknowledge your use of TLS in your publications.
Evaluations and advice on best usage are welcome here!
Wonderful. On the bookmark bar immediately. RN
Hi,
I blogged about the site several days ago HERE.
The site is really good. A few things I would change or add would be 1) the text or links to the Kangxi Zidian and the Hanyu Da Zidian; 2) the ability to jump to specific places in the texts; 3) the ability to jump to certain texts in the list of example usage; 4) a pinyin search should be included, in the future. One which does not require the tone mark or number (as Chinese Text Project does); 5) I notice the Chuci English translation is “based on” Hawkes, but it would be helpful to know who modified it.
I searched for two words together: 報德 in both TLS and CTP. TLS came up with 7 records, CTP Advanced Text Search with 41. It seems TLS did not find any examples in the Huainanzi and only 1 of the 8 in the Shiji.
Most of the above points can be explained by pointing out that TLS is more focussed on conceptual schemes and meanings whereas the CTP is more focuessed on texts, as the name implies.
As Scott (from whom we learned about the site) has pointed out to me, the little black arrows to the left of chunks of text are worth clicking on.
(No doubt the help pages mention that somewhere.)
I have received a reply from Jens Ostergaard Petersen regarding a few things I did not see how to do. Here’s two important ones:
To search for a character (e.g., 德) in a specific text, click “Select File”, then select “the Texts File” (at the very bottom). In the field labeled Text, you input “德”; in the field labeled Text Reference, you input “莊子,”or whichever text you are interested in.
To search for a specific chapter of a text, (e.g. the Daodejing), in the “Complex Search,” input e.g. 道德經 in “Text Reference and” “38” (or whatever) in “Sequence No. 1.”