Recently, an elderly man began to attract people's attention. Che Hongcai, a distinguished professor at the School of International Communication at the Communication University of China, has compiled a "Pashto Chinese Dictionary" that will be published. It took 36 years for Che Hong to finally complete a national task. However, no one, except the compilers, remembers such a national mandate. This national mission began in 1975 with the National Conference on Dictionaries; In 1978, the Commercial Press entrusted it to Che Hongcai, but it was not until 2012 that Che Hongcai handed over the more than 2 million words of the Pashto Chinese Dictionary he and Zhang Min had compiled to the Commercial Press, and the staff there did not know that there was such a job in the country.

A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily learned yesterday that the "Pashto Chinese Dictionary," which Che Hongcai participated in compiling, will be published this year. "Looking back on the path I have traveled over the past few decades, I have only been swept up in the tide of history, governed by the changes in the size and shape of the environment in which I live." This is how Che Hongcai describes the trajectory of his life. Che Hongcai said that now his lifelong wish has been completed.

Progress: This year people only learned about Cha Hongcai's national mission

Cha Hongcai was born in 1936. In middle age, he took over the task of compiling a Pashto lexicograph, and spent 36 years at his desk, during which time he was unknown. It wasn't until 2014 that Che Hongcai, who had passed his prime, was well known to the public because of him and his national mission.

In April 2012, Che Hongcai, a distinguished professor at the School of International Communication at the Communication University of China, delivered the 2 million-word Pashto Chinese Dictionary he and Zhang Min had compiled to the Commercial Press. Che Hong remembered that when he brought part of the sample of the dictionary to the printing house that day, the staff who received him did not understand for a moment what the old man in front of him and the Pashto dictionary he had compiled were.

In the following time, Che Hongcai communicated with the editors of the Commercial Press many times. The editor reassured him that the dictionary had already selected the topic.

In June 2013, Che Hongcai and another lexicographer, Zhang Min, added new entries, and he also engraved the Pashto software he used to compile the dictionary into a CD-ROM and delivered it to the Commercial Press.

When the contract for the dictionary was signed, Song Qiangmin, who had participated in the compilation of the dictionary for a period of time, had passed away. After obtaining a power of attorney from the other party's family, Che Hongcai signed the contract on behalf of his former companion.

Che Hong had only seen a sample of typesetting once, but at a glance he found that the order was reversed. Since Pashto is written from right to left, special attention is required during the typesetting and printing process.

"This dictionary is being prepared and will be published by the end of this year." Cui Yan, director of the Foreign Language Office of the Commercial Press, told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that the dictionary has more than 2 million words, which is a medium-sized dictionary, and one volume will be printed. According to the provisions of the contract, Che Hong received a manuscript fee of 80 yuan per 1,000 words.

"Decades have passed, and now that the book is out, his work is over." Che Hongcai's wife Xueping said.

In order to compile a dictionary, Che Hongcai began to learn how to use a computer with his son a few years ago, and now the computer has a general small problem, and the 78-year-old Che Hongcai can also solve it by himself.

"Now I watch the news on the Internet and look up information." When Che Hongcai said this to a reporter from Beiqing Daily, his wife Xueping added with a smile, "He can also shop online." ”

The reporter learned that Che Hongcai and his partner Zhang Min took over the compilation of "Pashto Chinese-Selected Dictionary of Chinese Pashto".

The old man delivered the manuscript 36 years later, and the editors didn't understand it for a while

When he took over the lexicographic task entrusted to him by the state in 1978, Che Hongcai was nearly middle-aged.

The mission spanned nearly 36 years, with a hiatus in the middle and a restart by Che Hong.

In 2012, the lexicographical task was preliminarily completed. In April of this year, Che Hongcai took the printed dictionary compilation process, the style description, a few pages of typeset proofs, and the editor-in-chief's resume, and took a bus alone from his home at the Communication University of China to the Commercial Press on Wangfujing Street in Beijing after two transfers.

He pushed the door open and entered, not knowing who to turn to.

"What are you doing here?" The doorman asked. Che Hongcai replied, "I want to publish a book." Knowing that the book that Che Hongcai was going to publish was in a foreign language, the doorman Jian yì went to the foreign language room. This is the first time that Che Hongcai has come to the Commercial Press since 1978.

During this time, he walked through the wrong door once, and when Che Hong found the right position, a little girl in the editing room received him. Che Hongcai said that a "Pashto Chinese Dictionary" should be published. The other party didn't understand for a while. After hearing Che Hongcai mention that the number of words in the dictionary is more than 2 million words, the little girl got up and called the director of the compilation room.

"This is a task given to me by the state, and I will deliver it now." Che Hongcai handed over the materials he brought to the director of the editing office, and the two talked for about 30 minutes, and the director said on the spot that he would seriously study the materials brought by Che Hongcai.

In the materials that explain the compilation process, Che Hongcai mentioned that the dictionary was approved by the Commercial Press. The staff of the Commercial Press then inquired in the library's reference room and found that the record of the task of organizing the compilation of the "Pashto Chinese Dictionary" was indeed on file, and the time was 1978.

Retrospective: An important meeting in the history of Chinese dictionaries

Pashto is the official language of Afghanistan and not many people know about it. The origins of the compilation of this Pashto Chinese Dictionary date back to 1975.

In the seventies and eighties of the 20th century, the domestic book market was scarce, and dictionaries were almost in short supply. From May 23 to June 17, 1975, a symposium on the compilation of Chinese and foreign language dictionaries was held in Guangzhou, and the content of the discussion was that in the ten years from 1975 to 1985, the planning and compilation of 160 Chinese and foreign language dictionaries was planned.

This meeting is considered an important conference for the lexicon edition. Yang Deyan, a well-known publisher and former general manager of the Commercial Press, wrote in 2005 that "this is the first planning meeting in the history of Chinese dictionaries on the compilation of dictionaries, and it is also the most important meeting in the industry so far." ”

After the discussion of the dictionary plan (draft) at the meeting, some local representatives took the initiative to undertake some of the next tasks.

In the circular issued by the State Council, all ministries and commissions of the central government, as well as relevant departments of all provinces, municipalities (autonomous regions), should strengthen coordination and strive to complete the tasks set forth in the plan ahead of schedule. Among the 160 Chinese and foreign language dictionaries included in the plan, there is no shortage of darlings. Dictionaries of small languages, such as the Pashto Chinese Dictionary, are undertaken by the Commercial Press.

In 1978, he was appointed to take over the national mission

In 1975, the Commercial Press found the Beijing Radio Station at that time, and the national task was handed over to the Pashto section of the radio station. At this time, Che Hongcai was in the foreign language department of the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, but he had been seconded to the Pashto section of the radio station.

"At the beginning, there was no clear division of labor, and there were more than a dozen people in charge of the Pashto language, some doing it, and some watching from the sidelines." Zhang Min, the main compiler of the dictionary in the later period, recalled that later, Che Hongcai and his student Song Qiangmin slowly took on the task.

In 1978, with the transfer of Che Hongcai's work, he was brought back to the Foreign Language Department of Beijing Broadcasting Institute with national tasks. His former student, Song Qiangmin, became an assistant, and another compiler, Zhang Min, occasionally came over to help.

The Commercial Press provided Cha Hongcai with a Pashto dictionary translated from Russian. Based on this dictionary, Cha Hongcai and Song Qiangmin compiled a Pashto dictionary. But soon, Che Hong discovered that the meaning of many Pashto words had changed in the Russian translation, and the blueprint could only be used as a reference material, not directly.

"The dictionary is the teacher of future generations, it has to influence at least two or three generations after it, and it has the role of connecting the past and the future, and there are not many opportunities for a language like Pashto to be published, so we work very seriously." Che Hongcai said.

In the compilation, in order to make the definition of each word as accurate as possible, on the basis of the original explanation, Che Hongcai also found a variety of versions of the dictionary of Pashto Russian, Pashto Persian, Persian English, Pashto Urdu and other versions of the dictionary to confirm it.

The compilation of the dictionary involves the collocation of words, as well as a modest list of illustrations, including a considerable number of idioms, idioms, and proverbs.

"Although this dictionary is not an encyclopedic dictionary, due to its special language background, it involves historical figures, customs and religion-related entries, and it is also briefly introduced in simple words, so that readers will not have nowhere to refer to it." Che Hongcai said that sometimes he turned around all morning, in order to determine a word, and sometimes, he couldn't make a few words a day.

He and his partner collate 100,000 vocabulary cards

Apart from the time involved, there is little financial support for the lexicography. Two people, a small office in Building 5 of the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, a desk, a handmade bracket, and a borrowed Pashto typewriter.

For the convenience of typesetting and preservation, the vocabulary needs to be copied on the cards one by one. In the team, Song Qiangmin was responsible for copying and polishing the Chinese, and he had no money to buy cards, so Che Hongcai and Song Qiangmin found a printing factory to accept the leftovers from printing, and then cut them into 10cm × 15cm cards.

From 1978 to 1982, Cha Hongcai devoted all his energy to the compilation of dictionaries. By 1981, in three years, Che Hongcai and Song Qiangmin had sorted out 100,000 cards, which they put in wooden card boxes and stuffed them into the Wen Jiàn cabinet, which was about 70 percent of the dictionary's workload.

However, a series of subsequent job transfers forced Cha Hongcai to suspend the compilation work, and the Wen Jiàn cabinet containing 100,000 cards sat quietly in his office for several years. Che Hong was not at ease, once he went back to the office decoration, he found that the cards were laid on the ground by the workers to sleep, and after a tantrum he quickly took the cards home, and found that there were still a lot less after checking them one by one.

"For a while, I didn't even dare to look at these cards." The card that moved home was put like this, and Che Hong felt sad when he saw it, "That's the hard work of many people for many years." After that, Che Hongcai and Zhang Min made a re-entry of the destroyed and lost cards.

The mission of the year is gradually forgotten

100,000 vocabulary cards have been copied, and the compilation of dictionaries is 70 per cent. Just as the mission speech was completed, Cha Hongcai and his partner's life experience changed, and the mission was gradually forgotten.

"It seems that no one mentions the dictionary anymore, and it disappears all at once." Zhang Min, one of the main compilers of the later period, told the reporter of the Beiqing Daily that in the era of change, everyone went to their own work.

In the compilation materials of the "Pashto Chinese Dictionary" submitted by Che Hongcai, there are 6 people in the team. Che Hongcai and Zhang Min are the editors-in-chief, and Song Qiangmin, who was the first to participate, is also on the list of the compilation team.

Song Qiangmin was busy with work, and later went to the United States, and Cha Hongcai's own fate was constantly changing due to the arrangement of the state, and the task of compiling a dictionary had no time to take care of it.

At that time, I took on the task of compiling the dictionary with great ambition, and in 2012, I carefully walked into the Commercial Press with the materials, and it took 34 years. During this period, Che Hongcai returned to the university to teach, participated in the construction of a new major, and was seconded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to engage in diplomatic work in the Middle East.

At the beginning of 2000, both Che Hongcai and Zhang Min were hired back to teach Pashto in universities, during which they wrote four Pashto textbooks for teaching preparation, but due to the lack of Pashto software, the differences in writing were difficult to overcome in the compilation of textbooks. It wasn't until 2003 that Chehong found a Pashto app on an Afghan website in Sweden.

The task of the Pashto dictionary was also revived around 2008. At this time, Che Hongcai and Zhang Min finished teaching two classes of students and officially retired. The two of them had nothing to worry about, and as soon as they met, they made a decision - to finish the rest of the dictionary.

"Both the country and the individual are changing, from the relationship between China and the Arab States to the Commercial Press." Cui Yan, director of the Foreign Language Office at the Commercial Press, tried to explain to a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily why the national mission had been forgotten. But in the end, she didn't quite know why. "The situation has changed so much." Cui Yan said.

"He has too few people on his team." Cui Yan compares the compilation work of most medium-sized dictionaries and above, and there is often a team behind it. Cui Yan recalled that when Che Hongcai came to the Commercial Press with the dictionary materials, the editorial team of the Foreign Language Room was impressed and decided to make this dictionary.

"Most of this group does not care about fame and fortune, and regards cultural inheritance as a responsibility." Cui Yan saw the typical characteristics of the older generation of lexicographers from this old professor, "You must know that compiling a dictionary cannot be used as a scientific research project, and many young scholars are not willing to enter this industry. ”

The important dictionaries we see today, such as Ciyuan (revised version), the Great Chinese Dictionary, the Great Chinese Dictionary, and the Encyclopedia of China, were all included in the national task in 1975. Many of the contemporaries of the era have long been famous, and the Pashto Chinese Dictionary is still to be published.

Old Professor: The country has forgotten, but I have not forgotten

Beijing Youth Daily: Not many people know Pashto, how did you come into contact with the language?

Che Hongcai: In 1957, I was admitted to Beijing Institute of Foreign Languages to study English, and when I was a junior year, the state instructed me to select a group of foreign language students from all over the country to learn minor languages. Considering the ambiguity of the names of minor languages, they were called non-lingua franca at that time. There are more than a dozen countries that I can go to, and I accepted the organization to go to the Faculty of Arts of Kabul University in Afghanistan to study Pashto.

At that time, in the face of organizational distribution, there was no selection to speak of, and the needs of the state were the will of individuals. We were educated by that generation and have the typical characteristics of that generation.

Beijing Youth Daily: How did you take over the task of compiling a dictionary?

Che Hongcai: In 1975, the State Council convened a national conference on dictionaries in Guangzhou, and formulated a plan for the publication of dictionaries. The plan includes a Pashto Chinese Dictionary, which is undertaken by the Commercial Press. At that time, I was seconded to the Pashto section of Beijing Radio at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute. The task was given to the radio, and the radio station was given to our group, and after several changes, the task was given to me again.

In 1978, I returned to the Department of Foreign Languages from the International Desk with the task of compiling a dictionary, and seconded a graduate who had changed careers as my assistant to compile a dictionary from Russian provided by the Commercial Press.

Beiqing Daily: How did the work of lexicographing stop later? Why is it being codified again?

Cha Hongcai: At that time, everyone didn't think about this task. Song Qiangmin later immigrated to the United States. In 1982, when the Department of Foreign Languages wanted to add an international journalism major, I was sent out to conduct a student survey to demonstrate the feasibility of opening an international journalism major. Later, I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was busy with other things, and the dictionary was put on hold. Song Qiangmin and I met later, and neither of us mentioned it.

Although I was busy, I was also thinking in my heart that the country had forgotten, and I had not forgotten myself. It wasn't until 2000 that the task slowly resumed. I was hired back to teach Pashto at the college. At that time, there were no textbooks, so we accumulated a lot of experience by teaching and writing textbooks. Later, the technology gradually matured, and computers also had Pashto software.

Beiqing Daily: During this period, were you wronged?

Cha Hongcai: I have no grievances, but I have experienced sad things. I took the cards home from the office, and my daughter went to college and came back to see the cards and help me clean them up. For a while, I didn't even dare to look at the cards. The card is just put away, and it is uncomfortable to look at it. That's a lot of people's work for many years.

Beiqing Daily: What have you been doing in the past 36 years?

Che Hongcai: In 2000, I returned to the school to teach Pashto, and Zhang Min and I taught and wrote textbooks at the same time, and there were four books before and after. Since 2008, in addition to the "Pashto Chinese Dictionary", it has cooperated with other publishing companies to compile three Pashto dictionaries, including a dictionary of military terms. These dictionaries are based on the Pashto Chinese Dictionary as the parent text. What have I been doing for so many years, these dictionaries are witnesses.