Mulleres na Lexicografía / Women in Lexicography

Linda Chen In Chinese: 陳蒙鶴 Chén Mônghè also known as: Chen Mong Hock / Linda Chen Mong Hock

Chinese, English, Malay

1928 (Wenzhou, Chekiang Province, Republic of China) - 2002 ( Singapore) Linguist, writer, feminist, businesswoman Chen was born in China to a family of a wealthy tradesman. At a young age, she emigrated to Singapore, where she grew up. At that time, Singapore, as a British territory, was already a multilingual society, with Malay and Chinese spoken, among others. However, English had an overarching position over others and people would speak it as a lingua franca instead of learning each other’s native language. Exceptionally, Chen, who was already bilingual in Chinese and English, picked up Malay in her second home country.

Chen finished her BA at the University of Malaya in Singapore and worked briefly as an English teacher at a local school. She then resumed education and started her master’s degree. During that time, she compiled the first Malay- Chinese dictionary. The significance of this work is reflected in its wide usage in teaching Malay in the 50s and the 60s. Meanwhile, she also translated several Chinese children's stories into Malay. In addition to exploiting her linguistic ability to bridge the gap between different ethnic groups, she also engaged in numerous socialistic movements. Most subsequent papers and journals addressed her role as a social activist, thereby overshadowing her role as a lexicographer. During the times of Cold War, however, her socialistic activism also made her a target of the colonial government since those engagements were associated with the promotion of communism. In 1956, Chen was arrested for the first time and was jailed for 20 months. After her sentence, she got married and finished her master’s degree. She was placed under surveillance between 1959 and 1963 until being rearrested in 1963 as part of a special operation. After jail, she moved to London with her husband, who completed a master’s degree there. The couple then returned to Singapore and Chen was running her family's multi-national bookstore until death.

馬華大辭典(Mǎ-Húa Dà Cídiǎn, “Great Malay-Chinese dictionary”) (1961). As no copies could be found during our research, the only reliable source is traced back to Google Book. According to the information provided, this is an extensive reference work of 1,750 pages.

1. Bibliography: Linda Chen: Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Chen Tan, Jing Quee. (2007). In Memory of Linda Chen (1928-2002). s/pores journal. https://s-pores.com/2007/04/linda-chen/ 2.Lexicographic works: 陳蒙鶴 (Chén Mônghè). (1961). 馬華大辭典 (Mǎ-Húa Dà Cídiǎn). https://books.google.es/books/about/%E9%A6%AC%E8%8F%AF%E5%A4%A7% E8%BE%AD%E5%85%B8.html?id=XcEYOgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y 3.Photo: Tan, Jing Quee. (2007). In Memory of Linda Chen (1928-2002). s/pores journal. https://s-pores.com/2007/04/linda-chen/

U-Tong Sih

María José Domínguez Vázquez