Thanks to an initiative by Singapore’s top Chinese linguist Chew Cheng Hai, a global Chinese dictionary listing words and phrases used differently in different places was published about a week ago. The 1,112-page tome contains some 10,000 entries.

More than 35 linguists from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia had spent the last five years putting the dictionary together. They were supported by a research fund from China’s Education Ministry and its publisher, Commercial Press in Beijing.

The dictionary has three aims: 1- to promote better understanding among Chinese communities in different parts of the world where the same language is used, 2- to promote standard modern Chinese usage to all users of the language through the explanations to the words and phrases given in good standard Chinese, 3-  by showing the different words and phrases used in different places, it enables users to compare and decide which ones to adopt or discard.

See: Asiaone