from many sources, particularly the 'light carriage' (?? ) surveys made during the Zhou and Qin dynasties, where imperial emissaries were sent into the countryside annually to record folk songs and idioms from across China, reaching as far north as Korea.

Contents

The Fangyan originally contained some 9,000 characters in 15 chapters, but two chapters have since been lost.

Definitions typically list regional synonyms. For example, the entry

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