Daniel Kane ( zh, c=康丹, p=Kāng Dān; 25 January 194816 April 2021) was an Australian diplomat and linguist, and one of the world's foremost authorities on the extinct

Jurchen Jurchen may refer to: * Jurchen people, Tungusic people who inhabited the region of Manchuria until the 17th century ** Haixi Jurchens, a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty ** Jianzhou Jurchens, a grouping of ...

and

Khitan language Khitan or Kitan ( in large script or in small, ''Khitai''; , ''Qìdānyǔ''), also known as Liao, is a now-extinct language once spoken in Northeast Asia by the Khitan people (4th to 13th century). It was the official language of the Liao E ...

s and their scripts.

Biography

Daniel Kane was born in January 1948 in Melbourne. Bereaved of his father when young, circumstances of

extreme poverty Extreme poverty, deep poverty, abject poverty, absolute poverty, destitution, or penury, is the most severe type of poverty, defined by the United Nations (UN) as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, includi ...

Ted Rule, Christopher Nailer, Edwin Lowe, Annie Luman Ren et al.
''Daniel Kane,1948-2021,''

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australia ...

, 19 July 2021 pp-1-4. constrained him to cut his education short and enter the work force at 16. He left school and joined a bank, working as a teller at a branch in Lygon Street, Carlton. There the then Dean of Arts at the university noticed he had a remarkable talent for languages, appearing to speak to Greek and Italian clients fluently - he had picked up Italian, for one, listening and talking to the sons of immigrants at school in his preteen years - and invited him to finish high school and take up studies at the nearby university. He undertook further education in his spare time and matriculated to

Melbourne University The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

with high honours. He took a

First Class Honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

degree there in 1971, majoring in Chinese and Russian and was granted a Ph.D. scholarship to the

ANU , image=Detail, upper part, Kudurru of Ritti-Marduk, from Sippar, Iraq, 1125-1104 BCE. British Museum.jpg , caption=Symbols of various deities, including Anu (bottom right corner) on a kudurru of Ritti-Marduk, from Sippar, Iraq, 1125–1104 BCE , ...

. His Ph.D. was conferred in 1975 with a thesis on the

Jurchen language Jurchen language ( zh, t=女真語, p=Nǚzhēn yǔ) was the Tungusic language of the Jurchen people of eastern Manchuria, the rulers of the Jin dynasty in northern China of the 12th and 13th centuries. It is ancestral to the Manchu language. ...

Tungusic language The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...

a precursor of, and related to

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. The Later Jin (1616–1636) an ...

spoken during the Jin dynasty in North China. Parallel to his academic career, Kane has also had a career in diplomacy. He joined the

Australian Department of Foreign Affairs The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the department of the Australian federal government responsible for foreign policy and relations, international aid (using the branding Australian Aid), consular services and trade and in ...

in 1976 and was posted to Beijing for four years (1976-1980) during the early part of the reform period and particularly the period of the Democracy Wall which he rose early to read every morning and whose unsurpassed knowledge of which formed the basis of much of what was known outside China of that movement. He was also Cultural Counsellor at the Australian Embassy in Beijing for two years in the 1990s (1995-1997). Academically he was lecturer in Chinese at the University of Melbourne in 1981 and visiting scholar at the Department of Chinese at

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charte ...

in 1988 and 1993. From 1997 he was Professor of Chinese at

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

until his retirement in 2012. He was widowed in 2010 when his wife, the

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

scholar of

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

history and Chinese modernization, Yè Xiǎoqīng (葉曉青), died of cancer, after risking her initial recovery from an early diagnosis of cancer to bear their son Ian (易安 (Yìān). Kane suffered for several years from

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms beco ...

Publications

Books

* * *

Papers

References

External links

Professor Daniel Kane
*Daniel Kane
'The decipherment of dead languages in China: the case of Kitan,'
George E. Morrison Lecture 19 October 2017 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kane, Daniel 1948 births 2021 deaths Australian Esperantists Australian sinologists Linguists from Australia Linguists of the Jurchen language Linguists of the Khitan language Macquarie University faculty People from Melbourne