__NOTOC__ Joseph de Guignes (; 19 October 1721 – 19 March 1800) was a French orientalist,

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 Turkologist born at

Pontoise Pontoise () is a commune north of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the "new town" of Cergy-Pontoise. Administration Pontoise is the official (capital) of the Val-d'Oise '' département'', although in reality the ' ...

, the son of Jean Louis de Guignes and Françoise Vaillant. He died in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He succeeded

Étienne Fourmont Étienne Fourmont (23 June 1683 – 8 December 1745) was a French scholar and Orientalist who served as professor of Arabic at the Collège de France and published grammars on the Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese languages. Although Fourmont is ...

at the Royal Library as secretary interpreter of the Eastern languages. His ''Mémoire historique sur l'origine des Huns et des Turcs'', published in 1748, earned him admission to the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

in 1752, and he became an associate of the French Academy of Inscriptions in 1754. There soon followed the five-volume work ''Histoire générale des Huns, des Mongoles, des Turcs et des autres Tartares occidentaux'' (1756–1758). In 1757, he was appointed to the chair of Syriac at the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

. Guignes originated the proposition that the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

who attacked the Roman Empire were the same people as the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

mentioned in Chinese records. This view was popularised by his contemporary

Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English essayist, historian, and politician. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is known for ...

in ''

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', sometimes shortened to ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. The six volumes cover, from 98 to 1590, the peak of the Ro ...

''. The idea has been strenuously debated by central Asianists, including Maenchen-Helfen, Henning, Bailey, and Vaissière. Guignes maintained that the Chinese nation had originated in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

ian colonization, an opinion to which, in spite of every refutation, he obstinately clung. He published a number of articles arguing that

Egyptian hieroglyphs Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined Ideogram, ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct char ...

and Chinese characters were related, one deriving from the other. Although he was mistaken in that, he is recognized for proving that

cartouche upalt=A stone face carved with coloured hieroglyphics. Two cartouches - ovoid shapes with hieroglyphics inside - are visible at the bottom., Birth and throne cartouches of Pharaoh KV17.html" ;"title="Seti I, from KV17">Seti I, from KV17 at the ...

rings in Egyptian texts contained royal names, a thesis he developed from a hint previously made by J. J. Barthélemy.

Works

* 1748 –
Mémoire historique sur l'origine des Huns et des Turcs
' * 1756 �
''Histoire generale des Huns, des Mongoles, des Turcs et des autres Tartares occidentaux,''
3 vols. Paris: Desaint & Saillant. * 1761 – '' Recherches sur les Navigations des Chinois du Cote de l'Amerique, et sur quelques Peuples situés a l'extremite orientale de l"asie.''Needham
p. 782.
/ref> * 1789 �
''An historical essay on the origin of the Oriented characters in the Royal printing-house, on the works which have been printed at Paris, in Arabic in Syriac, in Armenian, &c. and on the Greek characters of Francis I. commonly called the King's Greek.''
London:

Notes

References

* McClintock, John. (1891)
''Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature.''
New York: Harper & brothers
OCLC 174522454
* Needham, Joseph, Ling Wang, Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, Gwei-Djen Lu, Dieter Kuhn. (1971)
''Science and civilisation in China.''
Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Guignes, Joseph De 1721 births 1800 deaths People from Pontoise French orientalists Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres French sinologists

Works

See also

Notes

References