Peter Stephen DuPonceau

Infobox Person
name = Pierre-Etienne (Peter Stephen) Du Ponceau


image_size = 180px
caption = DuPonceau, circa 1790
birth_date = June 3, 1760
birth_place = Saint-Martin-de-Ré, France
death_date = April 1, 1844
death_place = Philadelphia, United States
occupation = Philosopher, linguist, jurist

Peter Stephen DuPonceau, born Pierre-Etienne Du Ponceau, (June 3, 1760, Saint-Martin-de-Ré, France - April 1, 1844, Philadelphia) was a French linguist, philosopher, and jurist. He spent the majority of his life in the United States.

Early life and war career

DuPonceau's education took place at a Benedictine college, where he gained an interest in linguistics. However, he abruptly ended his education after only 18 months over a dissatisfaction with the scholarly philosophy taught at the college. He emigrated to America in 1777, at age 17, with Baron von Steuben. Once there, he served as a secretary for Steuben in the Revolutionary Army. After the American Revolution, he moved to Philadelphia, where he would spend the rest of his life.

Work in philosophy and linguistics

DuPonceau joined the American Philosophical Society in 1791 and served as president of it from 1827 until his death. He became famous in the field of linguistics for his analysis of Indigenous languages of the Americas—as a member of Society's Historical and Literary Committee, he helped build a collection of texts detailing the native languages of the Americas. His book concerning their grammatical systems ("Mémoire sur le systeme grammatical des langues de quelques nations Indiennes de l'Amérique du Nord") won the Volney Prize of the French Institute in 1835.

DuPonceau was also one of the first western linguists to hold the view that Chinese characters represent spoken words, not ideas. He used the example of Vietnamese using chữ Nôm at the time to show that the Vietnamese employed Chinese characters primarily for sound and not for meaning. It would be over 100 years before this idea would become accepted in linguistic circles. [cite web
title=The Ideographic Myth
url=http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/ideographic_myth.html
publisher=pinyin.info
last=DeFrancis
first=John
accessdate=2008-08-20]

Notes

References

*cite encyclopedia
last = Mooney
first = James
encyclopedia = The Catholic Encyclopedia
title = Peter Stephen Duponceau
url = http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05205b.htm
accessyear = 2007
accessmonth = April 11
date = 1909
publisher = Robert Appleton Company
volume = Volume V
location = New York
*
*