Quick Answer: What Is the Erya?
The Erya (尔雅, Ěryǎ), sometimes rendered Approaching Correct Meanings, is an early Chinese glossary that explains words through related expressions and subject categories.[1][4] Its nineteen chapters move from general vocabulary to kinship, buildings, objects, music, the natural world and living things.[1]
- Primary task: Clarify meanings and names encountered in older language and texts.
- Organization: Group words by meaning or subject, rather than modern alphabetical order.
- Historical importance: Preserve an early system for relating vocabulary, knowledge and classical interpretation.[1]
Calling it a dictionary is useful, provided the reader does not expect a modern Mandarin learner’s dictionary with pinyin, graded examples and current usage.
One Erya entry gathers words for a beginning; another distinguishes relatives; another places creatures in a category unfamiliar to modern biology. The interest lies in how the book connects names with meanings. Its concise entries become clearer when read alongside their later explanations.
An Early Glossary with a Long Commentary Tradition
The text accumulated older material and was arranged over time. Scholarship commonly places important stages of its formation in the late pre-imperial and early Han periods (汉, Hàn), approximately the third and second centuries BCE.[4] Its compiler is not securely identified, and traditional attributions to ancient sages should be distinguished from established authorship.[2][4]
Guo Pu (郭璞, Guō Pú), who lived from 276 to 324 CE, supplied an influential commentary on the older glossary.[4] The Song (宋, Sòng) scholar Xing Bing (邢昺, Xíng Bǐng) later produced a subcommentary. An edition containing both can place several historical voices around a short base entry.[2]
The Erya is included among the Thirteen Classics (十三经, Shísān Jīng). Its place there reflects the importance of explaining language for classical learning: a glossary can participate in a canon even though it is not organized as philosophical dialogues or moral instructions.[5]
How the Nineteen Chapters Are Arranged
The first three chapters are Shigu (释诂, Shìgǔ), Shiyan (释言, Shìyán) and Shixun (释训, Shìxùn). They principally explain general expressions. The remaining sixteen turn to named relationships, things and categories. The following grouping is a reading aid, not the text’s own four-part division:[1]
| Chapter range | Main subjects |
|---|---|
| 1–3 | General words, expressions and glosses. |
| 4–7 | Kinship in Shiqin (释亲, Shìqīn), then buildings, objects and music. |
| 8–12 | Celestial and seasonal matters, lands, hills, mountains and waters. |
| 13–19 | Plants, trees and categories of creatures, ending with domestic animals. |
The arrangement makes semantic neighborhoods visible. A reader interested in relatives enters through a relationship category; one investigating an old plant name enters through a different subject. Neither reader begins by counting strokes or searching an alphabetical list.[1]
Three Examples of How the Glosses Work
The opening entry places chu (初, chū), zhao (肇, zhào) and several other expressions under shi (始, shǐ), “beginning.” The list relates words through a shared sense. It does not establish that every member can replace every other member in any sentence; context still matters.[1]
The kinship chapter defines a father’s younger brother as shufu (叔父, shūfù), while a mother’s brother is jiu (舅, jiù). English “uncle” collapses a distinction the text preserves. This offers a concrete entry into Chinese family terms, though current usage should be checked separately from the ancient definitions.[1]
The chapter Shiyu (释鱼, Shìyú), conventionally associated with fish, also includes turtles and other creatures. Its scope is therefore broader than the modern zoological category “fish.” An English chapter heading should not be treated as a modern scientific classification of everything within it.[1]
Erya, Shuowen Jiezi and Shiming
The Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字, Shuōwén Jiězì) chiefly investigates written graphs and organizes them through graphic components. Erya’s central organizing interest is lexical meaning and subject association. The two works answer different questions about language.[3]
The Shiming (释名, Shìmíng) adds another approach: it explains names through identical or similar sounds.[4] Sound-based exegesis, semantic grouping and graphic analysis can interact, but they should not be collapsed into one method. For the visual history of writing, continue with Chinese characters and scripts for an account of graph development.
How to Read an Erya Entry
- Identify the subject: Find the chapter and establish what category the entry belongs to.
- Read the base gloss: Separate the expression being explained from the word or description that explains it.
- Compare the commentary: Identify what Guo or a later commentator adds, then return to the passage where the unfamiliar word occurs.
The opening “beginning” entry is a manageable starting point because its structure is immediately visible. A longer natural-history entry may need several layers of explanation, especially when the identification of a plant or animal is uncertain.[1]
Choose an annotated edition that marks the base text and commentary distinctly. Modern punctuation, pronunciation guides and English labels are editorial aids. They should help a reader understand the old entry without concealing differences between its categories and present-day usage.
FAQs About the Erya
Is the Erya the oldest Chinese dictionary?
It is commonly treated as the earliest surviving Chinese glossary of its kind. That claim needs its category: a semantic glossary and a dictionary of written graphs serve different purposes.[3]
Did Guo Pu write the Erya?
No. He annotated an older, cumulatively formed text. His commentary is important, but it is not the same historical layer as the base glossary.[2]
Is the Erya useful for learning modern Mandarin?
It is most useful for historical vocabulary and reading older texts. For current pronunciation and ordinary contemporary usage, a modern dictionary is the more appropriate starting point.[3]
Sources
[1] Public-domain Chinese text. Erya: nineteen chapters
[2] Taiwan Ministry of Education, Revised Mandarin Chinese Dictionary. Erya: dictionary entry
[3] Kadooka Ken-ichi, Ryukoku Journal of Humanities and Sciences. Three Categories of Chinese Dictionaries: Thesaurus, Character Dictionary, Rhyme Book (2011)
[4] Wai-yee Li, Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. Introduction to Keywords in Chinese Culture, pp. xiii–xvi
[5] Taiwan Ministry of Education, Revised Mandarin Chinese Dictionary. Thirteen Classics: dictionary entry