Kōjien


is a single-volume Japanese dictionary first published by Iwanami Shoten in 1955. It is widely regarded as the most authoritative dictionary of Japanese, and newspaper editorials frequently cite its definitions. As of 2007, it had sold 11 million copies.

Izuru Shinmura

Kōjien was the magnum opus of Shinmura Izuru, 1876–1967, a professor of linguistics and Japanese at Kyoto University. He was born in Yamaguchi Prefecture and graduated from the prestigious Tokyo University, where he was a student of Kazutoshi Ueda. After studying in Germany, Ueda taught comparative linguistics and edited foreign-language dictionaries in the latter part of the Meiji era. Through his tutelage, Shinmura became involved in Japanese language lexicography. Even Kōjien editions published after his death credit Shinmura as the chief editor.

History

Jien

The predecessor of Kōjien originated during the Great Depression in East Asia. In 1930, the publisher Shigeo Oka wanted to create a Japanese dictionary for high school students. He asked his friend Shinmura to be chief editor, and they chose the title Jien in a classical allusion to the Ziyuan Chinese dictionary. Shinmura appointed his son Takeshi Shinmura as an editor, and in 1935, Hakubunkan published the Jien dictionary. It contained some 160,000 headword entries of old and new Japanese vocabulary, as well as encyclopedic content, and quickly became a bestseller.

1st edition

The editors began working on a revised edition, but the 1945 Firebombing of Tokyo destroyed their work. After the war, Shinmura and his lexicographers began anew in September 1948. Iwanami Shoten published the first Kōjien in 1955. It included approximately 200,000 headwords, about 40,000 more than the Jien.

2nd edition

The 2nd edition deleted about 20,000 old entries and added about 20,000 new ones, especially scientific terms.
On December 1, 1976, a revised and expanded version of the 2nd edition was published.

3rd edition

The 3rd edition added 12,000 entries, and was published in CD-ROM format in 1987.

4th edition

Three major Japanese publishers released new dictionaries specifically designed to compete with the Iwanami's popular and profitable Kōjien: Sanseidō's Daijirin, Shōgakukan's Daijisen, and Kōdansha's Nihongo Daijiten. In response, the 4th edition Kōjien was a major revision that added some 15,000 entry words, bringing the total to over 220,000. The CD-ROM version was published in 1993 and revised with color illustrations in 1996.
In 1992, Iwanami published both an e-book format 4th edition and a useful Gyakubiki Kōjien.

5th edition

The 5th edition includes over 230,000 headwords, and its 2996 pages contain an estimated total of 14 million characters. Iwanami Shoten currently publishes Kōjien in several printed and digital formats, and also sells dictionary subscription services for cell phone and Internet access. Various manufacturers of Japanese electronic dictionaries have licensed the digital Kōjien, and it is the core dictionary in many models.
Shinmura's preface to the 1st edition stated his hope that the Kōjien would become regarded as the standard by which other dictionaries would be measured. This has largely been fulfilled; many people regard the Kōjien as the most authoritative Japanese language dictionary on the market. It remains a bestseller in Japan. According to Iwanami, the 1st edition Kōjien sold over one million copies, and the 5th edition brought cumulative total sales to over eleven million in 2000.

6th edition

The sixth edition was released on January 11, 2008, includes more than 10,000 new entries, bringing the total to approximately 240,000. It also contains an additional 1,500 quotations.

7th edition

The seventh edition was released on January 12, 2018. Changes include 10,000 new words were added from 100,000 words collected by its editors firstly, including "apuri", "Isuramu-koku", LGBT, "hanii torappu", "jidori" and "diipu raningu". Other changes include citing available source literature for a given explanation of a term, listing changes of the usages of a term, addition of 140 pages without adding book thickness.
However, the definition of LGBT in the edition was written as "individuals whose sexual orientation differs from the majority." Some criticized that the definition only describes the "LGB" portion of the acronym which refers to sexual orientation, while the "T" refers to sexual identity.

Publication

Japanese dictionaries

By Iwanami Shoten

By Amhbook/Amunhaksa

The Kōjien, like most Japanese dictionaries, writes headwords in hiragana syllabary and collates them in gojūon order. Baroni and Bialock describe the Kōjien as "an old standard that gives extensive definitions, etymologies, and variant usages for words, places, historical and literary figures, and furigana for difficult or old terms."
This dictionary is notable for including current Japanese catchphrases and buzzwords. For instance, the 4th edition added furītā, which blends two loanwords: furī and arubaitā.
The Kōjien dictionary had a censorship policy before it became politically correct, and omitted taboo words such as sexual slang or offensive terms. It includes encyclopedic information such as 2700 illustrations and maps, and mini-biographies of notable people. The appendices include Japanese grammar notes, kanji with difficult readings, Japanese calendar and Gregorian calendar charts, and lists of gairaigo acronyms.
Gally says, "Koujien is a fine dictionary with a sterling reputation. Because it gives definitions in historical order, it is the best single-volume choice for people interested in how the meanings of words have changed over time." However, he notes, "In my experience as a translator of contemporary Japanese, though, I have found Koujien less useful than Daijirin." This criticism is based on his use of the fourth edition, though, and he concedes that later editions seem to have improved in this regard.

Kojien University

As part of the publication of Kojien 7th edition, Kojien University seminars were held in 2018-01-12 and 2018-01-14. Second round of the seminars were planned in 2018-02-10.

Citations