Jingdian Shiwen

Jingdian Shiwen , often abbreviated as ''Shiwen'' in Chinese philological literature, was a circa 582-589 CE exegetical dictionary or glossary, edited by the Tang Dynasty classical scholar Lu Deming . This Chinese dictionary contains invaluable ''fanqie'' annotations for pronunciations of s in the Chinese classic texts, the Taoist ones as well as the Confucian ones. It also cites some ancient books that are no longer extant, and are only known through ''Jingdian Shiwen''.

Bernhard Karlgren considered ''Jingdian Shiwen'' and the 601 ''Qieyun'' rime dictionary as the two primary sources for reconstructing Middle Chinese. Many studies in Chinese historical linguistics utilize the important ''Jingdian Shiwen'' data.