Yuen Ren Chao

Yuen Ren Chao(Chinese: 趙元任; 3 November 1892 – 25 February 1982), also known asZhao Yuanren, was a Chinese-American linguist, educator, scholar, poet, and composer, who contributed to the modern study of Chinesephonologyand grammar. Chao was born and raised in China, then attended university in the United States, where he earned degrees fromCornell UniversityandHarvard University. A naturally giftedpolyglotand linguist, hisMandarin Primerwas one of the most widely used Mandarin Chinese textbooks in the 20th century. He invented theGwoyeu Romatzyhromanization scheme, which, unlikepinyinand other romanization systems, transcribes Mandarin Chinese pronunciation withoutdiacriticsor numbers to indicatetones.
Chao was born inTianjinin 1892, though his family's ancestral home was inChangzhou, Jiangsu. In 1910, Chao went to the United States with aBoxer Indemnity Scholarshipto study mathematics and physics atCornell University, where he was a classmate and lifelong friend ofHu Shih(1891–1962), the leader of theNew Culture Movement. He then became interested in philosophy; in 1918, he earned aPhDin philosophy fromHarvard Universitywith a dissertation entitled "Continuity: Study in Methodology".
Already in college his interests had turned to music and languages. He spoke German and French fluently and some Japanese, and he had a reading knowledge ofAncient Greekand Latin. He wasBertrand Russell's interpreter during Russell's visit to China in 1920. InMy Linguistic Autobiography, Chao wrote of his ability to pick up a Chinese dialect quickly, without much effort. Chao possessed a natural gift for hearing fine distinctions in pronunciation that was said to be "legendary for its acuity",enabling him to record the sounds of various dialects with a high degree of accuracy.
In 1920, Chao returned to China and taught mathematics atTsinghua University. The next year, he returned to the United States to teach atHarvard University. In 1925, he again returned to China, teaching at Tsinghua, and in 1926 began a survey of theWu dialects.While at Tsinghua, Chao was considered one of the 'Four Great Teachers / Masters' of China, alongsideWang Guowei,Liang Qichao, andChen Yinke.
He began to conduct linguistic fieldwork throughout China for the Institute of History and Philology ofAcademia Sinicafrom 1928 onwards. During this period of time, he collaborated withLuo Changpei, another leading Chinese linguist of his generation, to translateBernhard Karlgren'sÉtudes sur la Phonologie Chinoise(published in 1940) into Chinese.
In 1938, he left for the US and resided there afterwards. In 1945, he served as president of theLinguistic Society of America, and in 1966 a special issue of the society's journalLanguagewas dedicated to him. In 1954, he became an American citizen. In the 1950s he was among the first members of theSociety for General Systems Researchand he also participated in theMacy conferences. From 1947 to 1960, he taught at theUniversity of California at Berkeley, where in 1952, he became Agassiz Professor of Oriental Languages.
While in the United States in 1921, Chao recordedStandard Chinesepronunciationgramophone records, which were then distributed nationally, as proposed byCommission on the Unification of Pronunciation.
He is the author of one of the most important standard modern works onChinese grammar,A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, which was translated into Chinese separately byLü Shuxiangin 1979 and byTing Pang-hsinin 1980. It was an expansion of the grammar chapters in his earlier textbooks,Mandarin PrimerandCantonese Primer. He was co-author of theConcise Dictionary of Spoken Chinese, which was the first dictionary to characterize Chinese characters asboundorfree—usable only in polysyllables or permissible as a monosyllabic word, respectively.
Chao invented theGeneral Chinesephonetic system to represent the pronunciations of all majorvarieties of Chinesesimultaneously. It is not specifically a romanization system, but two alternate systems: one uses Chinese characters phonetically as asyllabary, and the other is an alphabetic romanization system with similar sound values and tone spellings toGwoyeu Romatzyh. On 26 September 1928, Gwoyeu Romatzyh was officially adopted by the Republic of China—led at the time by theKuomintang(KMT).The corresponding entry in Chao's diary, written in GR, readsG.R. yii yu jeou yueh 26 ry gong buh le. Hoo-ray!!!("G.R. was officially announced on September 26. Hooray!!!")Chao also contributedChao tone lettersto theInternational Phonetic Alphabet.
His translation ofLewis Carroll'sAlice's Adventures in Wonderland, where he tried his best to preserve all the word plays of the original, is considered "a classical piece of verbal art."
Chao also wrote "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den", a Chinese text consisting of 92 characters, each with the syllableshiin modern Standard Chinese, only varying by tone. When written out usingChinese charactersthe text can be understood, but it is incomprehensible when read out aloud in Standard Chinese, and therefore also incomprehensible on paper when written in romanized form. This example is often used as an argument against theromanization of ChineseandClassical Chinese, despite how Chao was actually a proponent for romanizingwritten vernacular Chinese.
His composition "How could I help thinking of her" was a pop hit during the 1930s in China; its lyrics were penned by fellow linguistLiu Bannong.
Chao translatedJabberwockyinto Chineseby inventing characters to imitate whatRob Gifforddescribes as the "slithy toves that gyred and gimbled in the wabe of Carroll's original".
In 1920, he married the physicianYang Buwei.The ceremony was simple, as opposed to traditional weddings, attended only byHu Shihand one other friend. Hu's account of it in the newspapers made the couple a model of modern marriage for China'sNew Culturegeneration.
Yang Buwei publishedHow to Cook and Eat in Chinesein 1946, and the book went through many editions. Their daughter Rulan wrote the English text and Mr. Chaodevelopmentally editedthe text based on Mrs. Chao's developed recipes, as well as her experiences gathering recipes in various areas of China. Among the three of them, they coined the terms "pot sticker" and "stir fry" for the book, terms which are now widely accepted, and the recipes popularized various related techniques.His presentation of his wife's recipe for "Stirred Eggs" is a classic of American comic writing.
Both Chao and his wife Yang were known for their good senses of humor, he particularly for his love of subtle jokes and language puns: they published a family history entitled,Life with Chaos: the autobiography of a Chinese family. Their first daughterRulan Chao Pian(1922–2013) was Professor of East Asian Studies and Music at Harvard. Their second daughter Nova Chao (1923–2020) was a Harvard-trained chemist, professor atCentral South Universityand member of theChinese Academy of Engineering. Their third daughterLenseywas born in 1929; she is a children's book author and mathematician.
Late in his life, Chao was invited byDeng Xiaopingto return to China in 1981. Previously at the invitation of PremierZhou Enlai, he and his wife returned to China in 1973 for the first time since the 1940s. After his wife died in March 1981 he visited China again between May and June. He died inCambridge, Massachusetts.