Dictionary adds chat-room Chinese words that are simply 'niu' (awesome)

China's growing love affair with internet chat rooms has this week been reflected by the latest set of words included in the
Oxford Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary.

It would appear that the authors of the tome - claimed to be the largest single-volume dictionary of its kind with more than 670,000 words and phrases provided - have tapped straight in to modern China's internet fixation (400 million users and counting). And it would appear that they have discovered a wealth of "new'' words used to describe the things which most concern the youth of today.

Hence, Oxford has welcomed "shanzhai" (which means cheap copy and usually refers to a knock-off mobile phone) and "shengnu" (spinster or woman who has forgone marriage in search of a career) - two words most commonly found on China's internet forums but which have begun to appear in mainstream media as well.

The new edition of the book was compiled by 60 editors at Oxford University Press (http://www.oupchina.com.hk) and its Chinese partner, the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, and they took six years to scour their sources - and the internet - to see what words were "in."

The immediate reaction, however, has been mixed with some people claiming such a "dumbing down'' of the Chinese language does nothing to help educate the youth of today.

"This may be fashionable but it is not good Chinese. If it is included in an Oxford dictionary, students may think that it is fine to use those words,'' railed Hong Kong's Ho Hon-keun, vice-chairman of the Education Convergence education lobby group, in the South China Morning Post.

But times have changed, say the dictionary's publishers, and it pays to keep things as modern as possible.

"The need for studying Chinese by foreigners today is totally different from decades ago," the dictionary's chief editor Julie Kleeman told the China Daily. "Precise, native and practical - that is our core advantage.''

The latest version of the Oxford Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary is being released on Thursday and will retail for around HK$350 (35 euros). Its publishers say an online version will be made available "as soon as possible.''

The Oxford dictionary is the most widely used Chinese-English reference publication due to the extensive use of phonetic "pinyin'' versions of Chinese. The other main Chinese-English dictionary on the market is the Far East Chinese-English Dictionary, published by the Far East Book Company, which retails for HK$250 (25 euros).

A quick guide to some handy new phrases:

Fangnu - mortgage slave
Mengliao - hot gossip
Niu - awesome
Shanzhai - knock-offs, cheap copies
Shengnu - spinster

MS