General Details
Title: 新世紀ビジュアル大辞典
Volumes: 1
Language: Japanese
Publisher: 学習研究社
Year: 1998
Pages: 3104
The 新世紀ビジュアル大辞典, or The Millennium Encyclopedic Lexicon is a massive 3104-page one-volume encyclopedia that was published by Gakken in November 1998. The Japanese title includes the word ビジュアル, Visual, and this is an important word to emphasize - this book is filled with diagrams, photographs, illustrations, maps, and charts. Every entry marked with a blue asterisk has an accompanying illustration somewhere in the margins of its resident 2-page spread. The first set of pages (2 - 9) provide a guide to using the book, with special notes on how foreign words and names are spelled and alphabetized. This is followed by a list of contributors (pages 10 - 11) and image sources (pages 12 - 15). The majority of the book (p. 17 - 2902) is the encyclopedia itself. The encyclopedia's endpapers give page numbers to the start of each kana's section and line up with the markings on the edge of the pages; these serve to quickly orient oneself.
Sample Entries
The standard entries I look up for comparison purposes, when available, are St. Louis and umbrella. The entry for umbrella (p. 458) and accompanying illustration (for the second definition) are above, and it is transcribed and translated here:
✻ かさ [傘] ① 雨・雪・日光などを避けるためにさしかざす柄のついた道具。からかさ・こうもりがさ・日がさなど。さしがさ。umbrella ; sunshade ② 紋所の１つ。
Umbrella [umbrella] ① A tool with an attached handle held aloft for the purpose of avoiding rain/snow/sunlight. Paper umbrellas, western-style umbrellas, sunshades, etc. Parasols. umbrella ; sunshade ② One of the family crests.
The entry for St. Louis (no accompanying image) is on p. 1424.
セントルイス (Saint Louis) アメリカ合衆国、ミズーリ州中東部、ミシシッピ川西岸の商工業都市。人口３８万。１７６４年建設。スペイン、フランスの支配を経て、１８０３年ルイジアナ購入によりアメリカ領。鉄鋼・自動車・機械・食品など各種工業がさかん。
St. Louis (Saint Louis) Commercial and industrial city on the western shore of the Mississippi River, in the center of the eastern part of the state of Missouri in the United States of America. Population 380,000. Established 1764. After being under the control of Spain and France, in 1803 it became part of American territory through the Louisiana Purchase. Prosperous forms of industry include iron and steel, automotive, machinery, foodstuffs, etc.
The entries are concise and clearly worded, but it assumes a level of Japanese literacy that does without furigana accompanying the kanji characters. Almost all non-biographical entries, however, provide a one-word English translation. Of particular interest are the labelled animal diagrams displaying the internal anatomy and the city maps complete with top landmarks clearly marked. A series of appendices follow the main text of the encyclopedia: notes on kana usage, lists of the general use kanji, grammatical tables for spoken and literary Japanese, an exhaustive guide on correspondence / letter writing, a guide to polite language, notes on giving speeches, a guide to the seasons and astrology, astronomical charts, a guide to counters, greetings around the world, a short list of international manners, a conversion table to go between Western-style and Japanese-style years, a chronology of world history, common abbreviations, a color chart for 350 shades, and a world atlas.
This volume makes a great one-volume desk reference. The pictures are clear and in full-color and there is a ton of information packed into a relatively small amount of space. The downside to this is that the book is extremely thick and thus a bit unwieldy, and the print size is very small. I bought the book secondhand, and the previous owner had left a magnifying bookmark wedged between the pages; it is a welcome addition to this wonderful, albeit heavy, book.