East Asia, which for our purposes includes the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, and China, is not an area defined by a uniform culture. Before Christian missionaries arrived there in the sixteenth century, it was the home to the long and complex Chinese lexicographical tradition, and to those of what may be called the Chinese periphery; these are discussed from their beginnings to 1700 or 1800 in Chapters 3, 6, and 10. These older traditions continued, variously modified, after contact with the new traditions of missionary lexicography: for that of Chinese, see Chapter 15, and for those of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, see Chapter 16.

A result was that missionary lexicographers in East Asia, unlike their counterparts in the Americas, Africa, and Australasia, could benefit from existing educational systems and methods, particularly of teaching Japanese and Chinese. So, many dictionaries produced by missionaries in East Asia share a distinctive set of features. Of course, some basic features of European origin were shared by all missionary dictionaries, but generally the works in Asia form a highly diverse, but coherent, group.