- Wang Li
Infobox Writer
name = Wang Li
birthdate = birth date|1900|8|10
birthplace =Guangxi ,China
deathdate = death date and age|1986|5|3|1900|8|10
deathplace =Beijing ,China
occupation = linguist
influences =Liang Qichao ,Yuen Ren Chao ,Wang Guowei ,Chen Yinke Wang Li (zh-c|王力), or Wang Liaoyi (王了一), (1900-1986) was a Chinese linguist.
Born into a poor but educated family in Bobai (博白),
Guangxi , he was largely self-taught before entering theTsinghua University in 1927. There he was taught byYuen Ren Chao andLiang Qichao , among others. Encouraged by Chao, he went toParis to study linguistics in 1927. There he devoted himself to the study ofphonology , and attended the class ofTheoretical linguistics byJoseph Vendryes . He got his PhD from theUniversity of Paris with his experiments done on the tones of the Bobai dialect, following the line ofLiu Bannong .To eke out a living, he translated works of French literature into Chinese during his stint in Paris. He would translate more after his return to China, including the plays of
Molière , and a version ofBaudelaire 's "Les Fleurs du Mal" in classical Chinese verse.He returned to China in 1932, and began his academic career. Before the
Second Sino-Japanese War , he taught in the Tsinghua University. From 1939 to 1940, he studied in theÉcole française d'Extrême-Orient inVietnam , learning theVietnamese language , which aided his study ofhistorical Chinese phonology . In 1946, he began to teach in theZhongshan University . One of his students there wasMichael Halliday . In 1948, he switched to the Lingnan University. In 1954, he began to teach in thePeking University , until his death.He called his study "Study where both dragons and worms are carved" (龍蟲並雕齋), which indicates the fact that he, as a prolific writer, produced highly technical theses as well as popular textbooks and essays. His important works include:
*"Hanyu Shigao" (漢語史稿 "A sketch of the history of the Chinese language")
*"Hanyu Shilüxue" (漢語詩律學 "The study of the metrical rules of Chinese poetry")
*"Tongyuan Zidian" (同源字典 "A dictionary of word families [in the Chinese language] ")External links
*zh icon [http://www.guoxue.com/master/wangli/wangli.htm Biography and bibliography] , with related essays and memoirs
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