The CHANT Database, now directed by Prof. Ho Che Wah of the Chinese Department is a long standing project in the Institute of the Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong covering both traditional and excavated ancient Chinese texts spanning the two millennia from 1500 BC to about 600 AD into one single, vast and comprehensive database. It has been working over a decade with quite a few generous Earmarked Grants and Central Allocation from the RGC. The present project mainly focuses on the completion of the last database, the Leishu (extant Chinese Encyclopaedias) Database, which would exceed 40M characters in total. With the completion of this project, the CHANT database is truly comprehensive, consisting of all sorts of excavated and traditional materials, which we believe, would be the most comprehensive electronic library of ancient Chinese texts.

http://www.chant.org/

The past twenty years saw large-scale integrated survey reports on various main dialects. Surveys are there on Yue粵 dialects by Zhan Bohui and Zhang Risheng and Hakka客家and Gan贛dialects by Li Rulong and Chang Song Hing. There are as yet no special surveys on Min dialects that cover all provinces and districts. In the 1950s, Min dialect district was divided into Southern and Northern Min dialect districts. In the 1980s, these 2 districts were redivided into Southern, Eastern and Northern Min sub-districts. The term "Min dialects" had long been used to designate dialects within the Fujian province. But in fact the actual distribution of Min dialects stretches from southern Zhejiang in the north, going down south along Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi; then across the harbours to Hainan and Taiwan Islands. In addition, many Chinese in Southeast Asia who emigrated from China also speak some Min dialects. Min dialects are so complicated that only a large-scale survey with careful collection of data (1) can give a better description of the special nature of the Min dialects; (2) can establish indications for district division; and (3) can study their historical changes and patterns of migration. This study has selected 30 points which can be taken as representational. They are as follows: -

The fieldwork will make use of our survey materials: Dialect Pronunciation Survey Handbook (about 2300 characters), and Dialect Vocabulary Survey Handbook (about 2100 vocabulary items and 150 sentences). Information gathered from the survey will be published under the tentative title of An Integrated Survey and Study of Min Dialects. Related materials will also be available on World Wide Web for the common use of the public.