Eitel's Chinese Dictionary in the Cantonese Dialect (1877, 2nd ed. 1910-1) started out as an authorized revision of Williams' Tonic Dictionary, but later took on a life of its own as Eitel attempted to synthesize the Tonic with the vocabulary of James Legge's translations of the Chinese classics, as well as the imperial Kang Xi dictionary used by native scholars of Mandarin. The work is notable not least for its avowed intention to serve not merely as a glossary of the spoken language, but also as a model of 'the general written language of China'. Eitel's apparent attempt to standardize the 'reading pronunciation' of Cantonese may well have been motivated by his experience as Director of Chinese Studies, a position to which he was appointed two years before the publication of his dictionary. Originally a missionary with the Basel and Lutheran missions, he later became Inspector of Schools and Chinese Secretary in the British colonial administration.

Cantonese is spoken by an estimated 73 million people worldwide. It remains hugely influential and a source of great pride--especially for its speakers in Hong Kong, where it flourishes as the predominant language and so sets Hong Kong apart linguistically from all of mainland China. The first and most authoritative reference of its kind to be published in the last forty years, ABC Cantonese-English Comprehensive Dictionary comprises about 15,000 lexical entries that are unique to the colloquial Cantonese language as it is spoken and written in Hong Kong today. Author Robert S. Bauer, a renowned lexicographer and authority on Cantonese, has utilized language documentation resources to the fullest extent by gathering material firsthand from dictionaries, glossaries, and grammars; newspapers and magazines; government records; cartoons and comic books; film and television; websites; and native speakers striding the sidewalks of Hong Kong to capture concretely contemporary Cantonese. In addition to the Introduction, which presents an exhaustive description and analysis of Hong Kong Cantonese, this dictionary's special features include: alphabetical ordering of the lexical entries by their Jyut Ping romanized Cantonese pronunciations; parts of speech; cross-referencing with semantically related lexical items; variant pronunciations and written forms in Chinese characters and English letters; explanatory notes on social status and usage (literal, figurative, slang, jargon, humorous, obscene, obsolete, etc.); information on sociocultural, historical, and political aspects; and example sentences showing lexical usage in the context of spoken Cantonese.

Designed to help the user find the best word or phrase in Cantonese to express the meaning of an English word or expression. English words are listed in alphabetical order. Includes a brief introduction to Cantonese pronunciation, tones, a comparative chart of four romanisation systems, and grammatical notes. Suitable for self-study, and developing vocabulary.