Jin Guangping or Aisin-Gioro Hengxu (1899–1966) was a Chinese

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

ethnicity who is known for his studies of the Jurchen and Khitan languages and scripts.

Life

Jin was a sixth generation descendant of the

Qianlong Emperor The Qianlong Emperor (25 September 17117 February 1799), also known by his temple name Emperor Gaozong of Qing, personal name Hongli, was the fifth Emperor of China, emperor of the Qing dynasty and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China pr ...

's fifth son, Yongqi (Prince Rong). In 1911, shortly before the fall of the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

, he inherited a ducal title, ''feng'en zhenguo gong'' (奉恩鎮國公), from the Prince Rong peerage. After the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

was established, he changed his family name from "

Aisin Gioro The House of Aisin-Gioro is a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as chie ...

" to " Jin" ("Jin" means "gold" in Mandarin, just like "Aisin" in Manchu). His son, Jin Qizong, and granddaughter, Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun, are both renowned scholars of Manchu and Jurchen. Jin died in 1966, during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

Khitan and Jurchen studies

Jin was a pioneer in the research on the Khitan

large Large means of great size. Large may also refer to: Mathematics * Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics * Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers * Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (o ...

and

small Small means of insignificant size Size in general is the Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude or dimensions of a thing. More specifically, ''geometrical size'' (or ''spatial size'') can refer to three geometrical measures: length, area, or ...

scripts and the

Jurchen script The Jurchen script (Jurchen: ; ) was the writing system used to write the Jurchen language, the language of the Jurchen people who created the Jin Empire in northeastern China in the 12th–13th centuries. It was derived from the Khitan scrip ...

. During the 1920s and 1930s a number of memorial inscriptions in unknown scripts had been discovered, but it was not clear what the relationship between these scripts was, and how the newly discovered scripts corresponded to the "large" and "small" Khitan and "large" and "small" Jurchen scripts that were mentioned in the histories of the Liao and Jin dynasties. In 1957 Jin determined that the memorial inscriptions for Emperor Xingzong of Liao and his consort, and of

Emperor Daozong of Liao Emperor Daozong of Liao (14 September 1032 – 12 February 1101), personal name Chala, sinicised name Yelü Hongji, was the eighth emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female e ...

and his consort, were written in a phonetic script influenced by the

Old Uyghur alphabet The Old Uyghur alphabet was a list of alphabets used by Turkic languages, Turkic script used for writing Old Uyghur, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in Turpan and Gansu that is the ancestor of the modern Western Yugur language. The term "Old Uyghu ...

, whereas the memorial of Xiao Xiaozhong which had been discovered in 1951 was written in a logographic script based on

Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...

. He identified the former script as the Large Khitan script and the latter script as the Small Khitan script, an identification that is now widely accepted. In 1962 Jin further identified the script used in the ''Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters'' (''Nǚzhēn Yìyǔ'' 女真譯語) and on a number of Jin Dynasty monuments as the "large" Jurchen script. He also collaborated with his son, Jin Qizong, on a comprehensive study of the Jurchen script which was published in 1964.

Works

* 1957. "Jǐnxī Xīgūshān Qìdānwén mùzhì shìyì" 錦西西孤山契丹文墓誌試釋 ttempt to interpret the Khitan writing on the memorial from Xigushan in Jinxi in '' Kǎogǔ Xuébào'' 考古學報 ournal of Archaeology1957 no.2 pages 83–84. * 1962. "Cóng Qìdān dàxiǎozì dào Nǚzhēn dàxiǎozì" 從契丹大小字到女真大小字 rom Khitan large and small scripts to Jurchen large and small scripts in ''Nèiměnggǔ Dàxué Xuébào'' 內蒙古大學學報 ournal of Inner Mongolia University1962 no.2. * 1964. With Jin Guangping. ''Nǚzhēn Yǔyán Wénzì Yánjiū'' 女真語言文字研究 tudy of Jurchen Language and Script Reprint, Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1980. * 1996. With Jin Qizong and Aisin Gioro. ''Àixīnjuéluóshì Sāndài Mǎnzhōuxué Lúnjí'' 愛新覺羅氏三代滿洲學論集 ollected Essays on Manchu Studies by Three Generations of the Aisin-Gioro Family Yuanfang Press. * 2002. With Jin Qizong and Aisin Gioro. ''Àixīnjuéluóshì Sāndài Ā'ěrtàixué Lúnjí'' 愛新覺羅氏三代阿爾泰學論集 ollected Essays on Altaic Studies by Three Generations of the Aisin-Gioro Family Meizandō.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jin Guangping 1899 births 1966 deaths Linguists of the Jurchen language Linguists of Khitan Manchurologists Manchu people Aisin Gioro Writers from Beijing Date of birth missing Place of birth missing Date of death missing Place of death missing 20th-century Chinese linguists Prince Rong