Zhou Youguang
周有光
Zhou in the 1920s
Born
Chou Yao-ping

(1906-01-13)13 January 1906
Changzhou, Jiangsu, Qing Empire
Died14 January 2017(2017-01-14) (aged 111)
Beijing, People's Republic of China
Alma materSt. John's University
Guanghua University
Known forDevelopment of Pinyin; supercentenarian
Notable workThe Historical Evolution of Chinese Languages and Scripts
Political partyChina Democratic National Construction Association
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1933; died 2002)​
Children2
Chinese name
Chinese周有光
Birth name
Chinese周耀平

Zhou Youguang (Chinese: 周有光; pinyin: Zhōu Yǒuguāng; 13 January 1906 – 14 January 2017), also known as Chou Yu-kuang or Chou Yao-ping, was a Chinese economist, banker, linguist, sinologist, Esperantist,[1][2] publisher, and supercentenarian, adored as the "father of Pinyin",[3][4][5] a system for the writing of Mandarin Chinese in Roman script, or romanization, which was officially adopted by the government of the People's Republic of China in 1958, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1982, and the United Nations in 1986.[5][6]

Early life and career

Zhou Youguang and wife Zhang Yunhe in 1938

Zhou was born Zhou Yaoping in Changzhou (Changchow), Jiangsu Province, on 13 January 1906 to a Qing Dynasty official.[3][7] At the age of ten, he and his family moved to Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. In 1918, he entered Changzhou High School, during which time he first took an interest in linguistics. He graduated in 1923 with honors.[8]

Zhou enrolled that same year in St. John's University, Shanghai where he majored in economics and took supplementary coursework in linguistics.[7] He was almost unable to attend due to his family's poverty, but friends and relatives raised 200 yuan for the admission fee, and also helped him pay for tuition.[8] He left during the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925 and transferred to Guanghua University, from which he graduated in 1927.[7]

On 30 April 1933, Zhou married Zhang Yunhe. The couple went to Japan for Zhou's studies.[7] Zhou started as an exchange student at the University of Tokyo, later transferring to Kyoto University due to his admiration of the Japanese Marxist economist Hajime Kawakami, who was a professor there at the time. Kawakami's arrest for joining the outlawed Japanese Communist Party in January 1933 meant that Zhou could not be his student. Zhou's son, Zhou Xiaoping (周晓平), was born in 1934. The couple also had a daughter, Zhou Xiaohe (周小禾).[8]

In 1937, due to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Zhou and his family moved to the wartime capital Chongqing, and his daughter died.[5] He worked for Sin Hua Bank before entering public service as a deputy director at the National Government's Ministry of Economic Affairs, agricultural policy bureau (经济部农本局). After the 1945 Japanese defeat in World War II, Zhou went back to work for Sin Hua where he was stationed overseas: first in New York City and then in London. When he was in New York, he met Albert Einstein twice while visiting friends at Princeton University.[9]

Zhou participated for a time in the China Democratic National Construction Association. After the founding of the People's Republic was established in 1949 he returned to Shanghai,[7][3][4] where he taught economics at Fudan University for several years.[5]

Designing Pinyin

Because of his friendship with Zhou Enlai who recalled the economist's fascination with linguistics and Esperanto, he summoned Zhou to Beijing in 1955 and tasked his team with developing a new alphabet for China.[10] The Chinese government placed Zhou at the head of a committee to reform the Chinese language to increase literacy.

While other committees oversaw the tasks of promulgating Mandarin Chinese as the national language and creating simplified Chinese characters, Zhou's committee was charged with developing a romanization to represent the pronunciation of Chinese characters.[3] Zhou said the task took about three years, and was a full-time job.[3] Pinyin was made the official romanization in 1958, although (as now) it was only a pronunciation guide, not a substitute writing system.[11] Zhou's team based Pinyin on several preexisting systems: the phonemes were inspired by Gwoyeu Romatzyh of 1928 and Latinxua Sin Wenz of 1931, while the diacritic markings representing tones were inspired by zhuyin.[12]

In April 1979, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in Warsaw held a technology conference. Speaking on behalf of the People's Republic of China, Zhou proposed the use of the "Hanyu Pinyin System" as the international standard for the romanization of Chinese. Following a vote in 1982 the scheme became ISO 7098.

In the modern era Pinyin has largely replaced older romanization systems such as Wade-Giles.[5]

Later activities

Zhou Youguang in 2012

During the Cultural Revolution, Zhou was sent to live in the countryside and to be "reeducated", as were many other intellectuals at that time.[3][4] He spent two years at a labor camp.[13]

After 1980, Zhou worked with Liu Zunqi and Chien Wei-zang on translating the Encyclopædia Britannica into Chinese, earning him the nickname "Encyclopedia Zhou".[7] Zhou continued writing and publishing after the creation of Pinyin; for example, his book 中国语文的时代演进 (Zhōngguó yǔwén de shídài yǎnjìn), translated into English by Zhang Liqing, was published in 2003 as The Historical Evolution of Chinese Languages and Scripts.[14] Beyond the age of 100, he published ten books, some of which have been banned in China.[13]

In 2011, during an interview with NPR, Zhou said that he hoped to see the day China changed its position on the Tiananmen Square killings in 1989, an event he said had ruined Deng Xiaoping's reputation as a reformer.[13] He became an advocate of political reform and democracy in China, and was critical of the Communist Party of China's attacks on traditional Chinese culture when it came into power.[13]

In early 2013, both Zhou and his son were interviewed by Dr. Adeline Yen Mah at their residence in Beijing. Mah documented the visit in a video and presented Zhou with a Pinyin game she created for the iPad.[15] Zhou became a supercentenarian on 13 January 2016 when he reached the age of 110.[16]

Zhou died on 14 January 2017 at his home in Beijing, one day after his 111th birthday; no cause was given.[5] His wife had died in 2002, and his son had died in 2015.[5]

Google honored what would have been his 112th birthday with an animated version of its logo in Mandarin.[17]

Books

Zhou was the author of more than 40 books, some of them banned in China and over 10 of them published after he turned 100 in 2006.[5]

Title (Simplified Chinese) Pinyin English title Publication year
新中国的金融问题 Xīn zhōngguó de jīnróng wèntí New China's financial problems 1949
汉语拼音词汇 Hànyǔ pīnyīn cíhuì Chinese phonetic alphabet glossary 1950
中国拼音文字研究 Zhōngguó pīnyīn wénzì yánjiū A study of Chinese phonetic alphabets 1953
资本的原始积累 Zīběn de yuánshǐ jīlěi Primitive accumulation of capital 1954
字母的故事 Zìmǔ de gùshi The alphabet's story 1954
汉字改革概论 Hànzì gǎigé gài lùn On the reform of Chinese characters 1961
电报拼音化 Diànbào pīnyīn huà Telegraph romanization 1965
汉语手指字母论集 Hànyǔ shǒuzhǐ zìmǔ lùn jí Essays on Chinese Sign Language 1965
汉字声旁读音便查 Hànzì Shēngpáng dúyīn Biànchá A handy guide to the pronunciation of phonetics in Chinese characters[18] 1980
拼音化问题 Pīnyīn huà wèntí Problems with Pinyin 1980
语文风云 Yǔwén fēngyún The tempest of language 1981
中国语文的现代化 Zhōngguó yǔwén de xiàndàihuà Modernization of the Chinese language 1986
世界字母简史 Shìjiè zìmǔ jiǎn shǐ A brief history of the world's alphabets 1990
新语文的建设 Xīn yǔwén de jiànshè Constructing new languages 1992
中国语文纵横谈 Zhōngguó yǔwén zònghéng tán Features of the Chinese language 1992
汉语拼音方案基础知识 Hànyǔ Pīnyīn Fāng'àn jīchǔ zhīshì Fundamentals of Pinyin 1993
语文闲谈 Yǔwén xiántán Language Chat 1995
文化畅想曲 Wénhuà chàngxiǎng qǔ Capriccio on culture or Cultural fantasia 1997
世界文字发展史 Shìjiè wénzì fāzhǎn shǐ History of the worldwide development of writing 1997
中国语文的时代演进 Zhōngguó yǔwén de shídài yǎnjìn The historical evolution of Chinese languages and scripts 1997
比较文字学初探 Bǐjiào wénzì xué chūtàn A tentative study of comparative philology 1998
多情人不老 Duō qíngrén bùlǎo Passionate people don't age 1998
汉字和文化问题 Hànzì hé wénhuà wèntí Chinese characters and the question of culture 1999
新时代的新语文 Xīn shídài de xīn yǔwén The new language of the new era 1999
人类文字浅说 Rénlèi wénzì qiǎnshuō An introduction to human (written) language 2000
现代文化的冲击波 Xiàndài wénhuà de chōngjíbō The shock wave of modern culture 2000
21世纪的华语和华文 21 Shìjì de huáyǔ hé huáwén Written and spoken Chinese of 21st century 2002
周有光语文论集 Zhōu Yǒuguāng yǔwén lùn jí Collection of essays by Zhou Youguang on the Chinese language 2002
百岁新稿 Bǎi suì xīn gǎo Centenarian's essay 2005
朝闻道集 Zhāo wén dào jí Essay collection 2010
拾贝集 Shi bèi jí Selected essays 2011
今日花开又一年 Jīnrì huā kāi yòu yī nián Today a new year blooms 2011
我的人生故事 Wǒ de rénshēng gùshi My life story 2013
逝年如水 - 周有光百年口述 Shì nián rúshuǐ - Zhōu Yǒuguāng bǎinián kǒushù "The years passed like water" - Zhou Youguang's oral recounting of his life 2015

See also

References

  1. ↑ (fr) Le soutien ambigu de la République Populaire de Chine à l'esperanto, Médiapart, 17/06/2019
  2. ↑ Harrison Smith, Zhou Youguang, whose Pinyin writing system helped modernize China, dies at 111, The Washington Post, 16/01/2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Father of pinyin". China Daily. 26 March 2009. Archived from the original on 21 July 2012. Retrieved 12 July 2009. Reprinted in part as Simon, Alan (21–27 January 2011). "Father of Pinyin". China Daily Asia Weekly. Hong Kong. Xinhua News Agency. p. 20.
  4. 1 2 3 Branigan, Tania (21 February 2008). "Sound Principles". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 21 November 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2009.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Margalit Fox (14 January 2017). "Zhou Youguang, Who Made Writing Chinese as Simple as ABC, Dies at 111". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 20 January 2017.
  6. ↑ Bristow, Michael (22 March 2012). "The man who helped 'simplify' Chinese". BBC News. Archived from the original on 22 January 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 李怀宇 (8 December 2005). 周有光：与时俱进文章里 百年风云笑谈中·南方社区·南方网 [Zhou Youguang: A lifetime of unstable situations and being laughed at]. 南方网 (in Chinese). Retrieved 15 January 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 金玉良 (2003). 苏州杂志2003第2期-周有光忆学生时代 [Zhou Youguang's Time as a Student]. Journal of Suzhou University (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
  9. ↑ "China's Zhou Youguang, linguist turned dissident, dies at 111". Hong Kong Free Press. AFP. 16 January 2017.
  10. ↑ Harrison Smith, Zhou Youguang, whose Pinyin writing system helped modernize China, dies at 111, The Washington Post, 1. January 2017.
  11. ↑ Ramsey, S. Robert (1989). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-691-01468-5.
  12. ↑ Rohsenow, John S. 1989. Fifty years of script and written language reform in the PRC: the genesis of the language law of 2001. In Zhou Minglang and Sun Hongkai, eds. Language Policy In The People's Republic Of China: Theory And Practice Since 1949, p. 23
  13. 1 2 3 4 Lim, Louisa (19 October 2011). "At 105, Chinese Linguist Now A Government Critic". NPR. Retrieved 19 October 2011.
  14. ↑ Youguang Zhou 周有光. The Historical Evolution of Chinese Languages and Scripts; 中国语文的时代演进, translated by Zhang Liqing 张立青. Ohio State University National East Asian Language Resource Center. 2003.
  15. ↑ "Dr. Adeline Yen Mah meets the founder of Pin Yin Youguang Zhou". chinesecharacteraday.com. 14 March 2013.
  16. ↑ Lai, Kitty (15 January 2016). "Zhu ni shengri kuaile! Father of Pinyin turns 110 years old, celebrates with a strawberry-topped cake". Shanghaiist. Retrieved 16 January 2016.
  17. ↑ "Zhou Youguang: Why Google honors him today". Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera Media Network. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  18. ↑ The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 1984. p. 315. ISBN 0-8248-0866-5. ———. 1980f. Hanzi Shengpang duyin Biancha [A handy guide to the pronunciation of phonetics in Chinese characters]. Kirin.

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