Initiatory Research On Wu Dialect Odd Characters

Traditional Chinese dialect research has a long history, continuing from the Zhou Dynasty till nowadays. Records of dialect can be found in books on classics, history, celebrities and literature, yet in which dialectological monographs are rare. Yang Xiong's Dialects written in Han Dynasty is recognized as the first monograph of traditional dialectology. Then in the Jin Dynasty came Guo Pu's Annotation of Dialects, when a number of rhyming dictionaries also reflected dialects. During the Jin to the Song and Yuan dynasties, dialectological study was in a declining phase. Until the Ming and Qing dynasties, Dialectology regained vitality. Li Shi's Shu Dialect written in Ming Dynasty is considered as the first regional dialect dictionary. But through our research, we found that a dictionary called Wu Dialect's Odd Characters, which was ignored in the past, is likely to replace Shu Dialect of that status.Wu Dialect's Odd Characters was written in the late Ming dynasty. This book recorded dialectical words of areas including Changzhou and Changshu in Jiangsu Province. Because there are a large number of uncommon and rare-seen fonts, it was titled " Odd Characters ". This book is not only hard to found a copy, and also lack of research. Through the preliminary inquiry, we discovered that the book's value has been underestimated before. We hope this article can draw more attention of researchers on this book and it can be used more efficiently. Before research begins, we have first collated this book to clear obstacles for the future usage. Then we mainly analyzed this book from both aspects of characters and vocabulary, therefore we had deeper understanding of it. Finally, we summarized the distinguishing features and values for doing further research of this book.