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Che Hongcai thought he'd crank out a dictionary for Chinese students of one of the Afghan languages in about two years, but it turned into the job of a lifetime. Sun Li and Hu Meidong catch up with the linguist 35 years later.
Though his face gradually turns glistening red and his voice cracks with emotion, it seems Che Hongcai won't stop talking unless someone reminds him to take a drink of water. Such eloquence amuses Che's wife, Xue Ping, who describes her husband as a "taciturn" man and jokes it was like Che was letting out what he kept inside for years all in the one conversation.
The subject that's making Che so talkative and passionate is the Pashto-Chinese dictionary, a laborious quest that has taken up about half of Che's life, even though the publisher didn't remember commissioning it. Pashto is one of the official languages of Afghanistan.
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After 35 years of toil, 78-year-old Che Hongcai will finally have the chance to see his magnum opus, the Pashto-Chinese dictionary, published at the end of this year. Provided to China Daily |
After 35 years of toil, the 78-year-old linguist will finally have the chance to see his magnum opus, the 50,000-odd-entry, 2.5-million-word dictionary published at the end of this year.
As one of the first batches of students sent by the Chinese government to learn Pashto at Kabul University in the 1960s, Che was contacted by the Commercial Press in 1978 and entrusted with compiling the dictionary.
Then a foreign-language teacher at Beijing-based Communication University of China, Che felt it was "a glorious national mission". The Pashto-Chinese project was one of 160 language dictionaries ordered by the State Council in 1975.
"This is what I studied hard abroad for. I received the task without any hesitation," Che recalls.
With the aid of one of his students, Song Qiangmin, and a former classmate in Kabul University, Zhang Min, Che embarked on the task that he thought he could finish in about two years. He had language proficiency, determination and rich source materials.
While a Pashto-Russian dictionary, with its Russian part being translated into Chinese, served as the "great model", seven other Pashto-related dictionaries given by Mohammad Nawaz Tair, a Pashto language scholar in Pakistan, made "erudite contributions", Che says.
As there was no funding for the project, Che had to borrow a Pashto typewriter and asked for free extra paper from a printing plant to make cards documenting entries.
Each day, Che and his partners would work on the tome in a small office, with all the reference dictionaries open on the only desk.
Che appreciated the unique chance to publish the dictionary, considering that Pashto is a little-known language in the country. To guarantee accuracy, every definition would be crosschecked with a series of dictionaries, such as a Pashto-Persian dictionary and a Persian-English dictionary.
Che also consulted with some Afghan experts working with China Radio International for helping fact-check history and customs to ensure example sentences were correct.
But soon, Che realized he might not finish as quickly as he'd expected.
"The language is a vast sea awash with advanced and difficult vocabularies," Che says. "When chancing upon some complex words it could take me the whole day to finish just a few entries."
"Che devoted himself to the dictionary and always came home late," says his wife, Xue. "Whenever I visited the office, there was tranquility, with Che and Song Qiangmin attentively translating and editing.
"The office was later packed with cards that could be piled up to the ceiling and I dared not interrupt, because once I patted Che on his back it was like he got an electric shock," Xue recalls.
By 1981, Che and his team had 100,000 cards that filled more than 30 filing cabinets. About 70 percent of the project was done, Che says.
A hiatus started in 1982 as the university authorities required Che to do research to prepare for some new majors and to build a correspondence-course for the university, which he did for six years.
In 1989, when Che thought he could continue his compilation, the country appointed him as an envoy to Pakistan, and then to Afghanistan. When Che completed his diplomatic career and returned home, it was 1993.
By that time, the university authorities had changed and it seemed the dictionary project was forgotten.
In the 1980s when relations were strained between China and Afghanistan, editors of the Commercial Press would ask Che about the dictionary about once every six months, but no one asked Che again after he came back.
"It was low ebb of my life when I felt helpless, and I soon retired in 1995," Che says.
In 2000, the Communication University of China invited Che back to teach Pashto majors, and Che found the Afghan language was in demand due to the two countries' escalating exchanges. The language was even spotlighted on the global arena when the war in Afghanistan began after Sept 11, 2001.
Che's enthusiasm got a boost when he found software in 2003 that enabled him to record Pashto into a computer, a necessary step of compiling a dictionary in the modern age.
In 2008, Che finished his teaching and moved to Xiamen, where his son worked, to reboot his dictionary project.
More than 100 drawers of cards were carried to Che's house in Xiamen a few at a time as he traveled frequently between Xiamen and Beijing.
As Song Qiangmin has passed away in 2000, Che invited another co-editor, Zhang Min, to help with the text proofing.
With the same devotion and carefulness he showed decades ago, Che prepared new entries, rewrote example sentences and typed them into the computer. The long hours in front of the computer screen led to Che's cataract.
But Che had no regrets. He felt relief as he finally delivered the hefty draft to the Commercial Press in 2012.
"I never thought of contacting the staff of the publishing house to explain and secure a deal before I finished the draft," Che says.
"The dictionary was a mission issued by the country, and I'm sure the country will get it published."
On the day Che visited the publisher, editor Zhang Wenying listened to his story and then sorted through the archives to find the 1978 document about the dictionary project.
A deal was immediately signed. According to Zhang, Che will be paid 80 yuan ($13) per thousand words. The dictionary will now be proofread and may be published in November if everything goes well.
Che says his journey was nothing worth bragging about.
"I just completed what I agreed to," Che says.
Contact the writers through sunli@chinadaily.com.cn.
Cui Shoufeng contributed to this story.
