Henry Courtenay Fenn, more commonly known as H. C. Fenn, (February 26, 1894 – July 1978) was an American

sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

and architect of

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

's Chinese language program.

Life

H. C. Fenn was the son of the Reverend Dr.

Courtenay Hughes Fenn Courtenay Hughes Fenn, or C. H. Fenn, (April 11, 1866 – 1953) was an American Presbyterian missionary to China, and compiler of '' The Five Thousand Dictionary'', a widely used basic Chinese-English dictionary that has gone through numerous repri ...

, missionary to China and compiler of '' The Five Thousand Dictionary'', and his wife Alice Holstein May Fenn, and grew up in

Peking Beijing, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's most populous national capital city as well as China's second largest city by urban area after Shanghai. It is l ...

. He married Constance Latimer Sargent on January 27, 1925.

Career

Fenn was active in the "Yale system" of Chinese grammar developed by himself, George Kennedy, Gardner Tewksbury, Wang Fangyu and others working in the Institute of Far Eastern Languages (IFEL) at

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

in the late 1940s. He was director of IFEL from 1952 to 1962. After his mandatory retirement from Yale, he set up a Chinese language department at Dartmouth and spent three years at

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

Selected works

* ''Songs from Hypnia'', Henry C. Fenn, 1915 * ''A Syllabus of the History of Chinese Civilization and Culture'', by L. C. Goodrich and H. C. Fenn, 1929, 1941 * ''Beginning Chinese'', by John De Francis, edited by Henry C. Fenn and George A. Kennedy, 1946 * ''Chinese characters easily confused'', Henry C. Fenn, 1953 * ''Chinese dialogues'', edited by Henry C. Fenn & Pao-che`n Lee, 1953 * ''Speak Mandarin'', by Henry C. Fenn and Gardner M. Tewksbury, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1967 * "Introduction to Chinese Sentence Structure," by Henry C. Fenn, date unknown.

Sources

Chinese Language and Culture: Remembering Henry C. Fenn
Yale University {{DEFAULTSORT:Fenn, Henry Courtenay 1894 births 1978 deaths American sinologists Yale University faculty Children of American missionaries in China