Qian Xuantong (188717 January 1939) was a Chinese linguist and writer considered to be a leading figure of the Doubting Antiquity School, along with Gu Jiegang. He was a professor of literature at National Peking University.

Biography

Born in Huzhou, Zhejiang, Qian was named Qian Xia at birth and was given the

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

Deqian. Qian trained in traditional Chinese

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

. After receiving his university education in Japan, Qian held a number of teaching positions in mainland China. He was a student of Zhang Binglin; some of Zhang's works were copied and printed in Qian's

seal script Seal script or sigillary script () is a Chinese script styles, style of writing Chinese characters that was common throughout the latter half of the 1st millennium BC. It evolved organically out of bronze script during the Zhou dynasty (1 ...

handwriting. As a philologist, Qian was the first to reconstruct the vowel system of

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

in the IPA. A close friend of Lu Xun, Qian was a key figure in the May Fourth Movement and the

New Culture Movement The New Culture Movement was a progressivism, progressive sociopolitical movement in China during the 1910s and 1920s. Participants criticized many aspects of traditional Chinese society, in favor of new formulations of Chinese culture inform ...

. Despite his close relationship with the Chinese classics, he promoted the abolition of Literary Chinese. He was also a strong supporter of

Esperanto Esperanto (, ) is the world's most widely spoken Constructed language, constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887 to be 'the International Language' (), it is intended to be a universal second language for ...

, at one time even proposed the substitution of Chinese by it. An open letter Qian wrote in response to an anti-Confucian essay by

Chen Duxiu Chen Duxiu ( zh, t=陳獨秀, p=Chén Dúxiù, w=Ch'en Tu-hsiu; 9 October 1879 – 27 May 1942) was a Chinese revolutionary, writer, educator, and political philosopher who co-founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921, serving as its fi ...

stated: Chen thought that abolishing written Chinese would destroy the spoken language as well, and he countered Qian's proposal by suggesting that Chinese could use a Roman alphabet. He and Liu Bannong promoted vernacular Chinese, attacking classical stylists such as Lin Shu. His skepticism of the Chinese heritage was such that he at one time wanted to change his surname to Yigu (). He also did important work regarding standardization of

simplified characters Simplified Chinese characters are one of two standardized character sets widely used to write the Chinese language, with the other being traditional characters. Their mass standardization during the 20th century was part of an initiative by t ...

, as well as the

Standard Chinese Standard Chinese ( zh, s=现代标准汉语, t=現代標準漢語, p=Xiàndài biāozhǔn hànyǔ, l=modern standard Han speech) is a modern standard form of Mandarin Chinese that was first codified during the republican era (1912–1949). ...

dialect and the design of

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

. His son Qian Sanqiang was a

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

who was instrumental in China's early nuclear weapons program, sometimes referred to as the "father of the atomic bomb" for China.

References

Citations

Works cited

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Qian, Xuantong 1887 births 1939 deaths Academic staff of Beijing Normal University Chinese Esperantists Educators from Huzhou Academic staff of Peking University Phoneticians Scientists from Huzhou Writers from Huzhou 20th-century Chinese linguists Chinese language reform