未完に終わった2つの初期英和辞典

抄録

Two English-Japanese dictionaries which were compiled by the respectable interpreters of the Dutch language at the end of the Edo period were not completed. It was partly because the compilers were not specialists in the English language, and partly because they did not recognize the importance of the source dictionaries from which they edited. One of the English-Dutch dictionaries which formed the basis of the English-Japanese dictionary was considered the best and the most useful on account of its full phonetic representation and its variety of illustrative examples. And the other source dictionary was thought to be the richest in its entry words. The distinctive merits of these source dictionaries, however, turned out to be difficulties for the compilers of the English-Japanese dictionaries. On the other hand, Tatsunosuke Hori, another Dutch interpreter, used a pocket English-Dutch dictionary as a base-book of his English-Japanese dictionary, knowing that in spite of its poor content it would be much easier to compile the dictionary. It took him only two years to complete it with the aid of his colleagues.