President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pledge to publish a cross-strait Chinese dictionary will be implemented in several phases, with the first stage, which is comprised of 5,000 characters and 30,000 phrases, to be made available online by the end of next year, former premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday.
Liu was assigned by Ma to compile the dictionary as chairman of the National Culture Association (NCA), an institution subordinate to the Presidential Office, after he resigned from the premiership in September last year.
CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Ma had said that publishing the dictionary was aimed at facilitating cross-strait cultural exchange as people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait use different Chinese characters and phrases to describe the same things.
“A full hard copy version of the dictionary is expected to come out by 2015,” Liu told a press conference.
Liu said he had expanded on Ma’s original idea to build up what he called a “Chinese language knowledge base” run by cloud computing service providers after consulting with the experts at the Institute for Information Industry and the K.T. Li Foundation for the Development of Science and Technology.
HIGH TECH
By applying cloud computing technology, the online “Chinese language knowledge base” will not only overcome the page limitations of a hard copy, but also increase the influence of the Chinese language in the world, Liu said.
Liu said the program would start with a compilation that juxtaposes about 5,000 characters and 30,000 phrases commonly used by people from both sides of the Strait in their daily lives, adding that any content related to politics, such as the name of a country and government institutions, will not be included to avoid politically sensitive issues.
One of the examples cited by the NCA was the Chinese term tudou (土豆), which means “peanuts” in Taiwan and “potato” in China.
The platform will be operated in a way similar to that of Wikipedia, meaning that anyone can suggest more content or edit posted content after a submission is approved by experts, Liu said.
NCA secretary-general Yang Tu (楊渡) said the program was in collaboration with some civil and official institutions in China as the NCA and the Chinese institutions had signed a memorandum of understanding in March to complete the online knowledge base and the dictionary in accordance with the timetable.
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