Multifunction Chinese Character Database - 漢語多功能字庫

The Research Centre for Humanities Computing (alias: Humanum) has since 1999 implemented a series of online language tools, including Lin Yutang's Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage (E-version), the Chinese Character Database: With Word-formations Phonologically Disambiguated according to the Cantonese Dialect, and a webpage featuring Hong Kong, Mainland China & Taiwan: Chinese Character Frequency-A Transregional, Diachronic Survey . These webpages have been favourably received by users far and wide, as can be reflected by the ever increasing search counts over time. In 2013, the second above-named webpage won the 2013 Meritorious Websites Contest, which should be a further attestation of the positive impact of the Centre’s work . In 2014, on the basis of this award-winning database, the Multi-function Chinese Character Database was developed. Apart from the basic function of the original database, four key elements (inter alia) were introduced, namely, “archaic script forms”, “componential trees”, “etymologies”, and “Chinese-English lookup”. Then in 2018 after another 4 years of work, the Centre has brought forth a new version of the Multifunction Chinese Character Database. This time, besides the inclusion of nearly three thousand new etymological accounts (and the revision of many old ones), additional elements of the database were implemented and released for public use. These new features include "Guangyun Middle Chinese Syllabary", “Pronunciation of other dialects”, “Shuowen Jiezi fulltext Search”, “Du Shi Fangyu Jiyao” (or “Compendium of Chinese Historical Geography”), and “Chinese Idioms Collection”. The working spirit of the Research Centre remains the same as ever: to help as much as possible with the provision of an infra-structure that might benefit the teaching and learning of the Chinese language and script over the next generations.