Materials for the Thesaurus of Chinese Culture: Ornithological Vocabulary in Chinese Lexicography and Art Literature[Материалы К Тезаурусу Китайской Культуры: Орнитологическая Лексика В Китайской Лексикографии И Художественной Словесности]

This work is presented in the framework of a more extensive project on compiling an ancient Chinese dictionary of a new type, collectively developed by the staff of the Oriental Studies Laboratory of SASH of RANEPA. An integral part of this work is a consistent description of individual semantic fields, especially those that may have a special, "symbolic" significance for the classical cultural code. One of such fields is ornithological - the names of birds, which already in the most ancient monuments of Chinese literature have a pronounced allegorical symbolism. An important task of composing the thesaurus is clarifying both the specific meanings of certain elements of the "ornithological field" and their symbolic connotations found in monuments, dictionaries and classical commentaries.