My research career

Abstract

I was born in Rongcheng County in Shandong province on June 22. 1913. In 1934, I was admitted to the Department of Chinese at Peking University, where I studied linguistics and Chinese historical phonology under two famous linguists. Professor Luo Changpei and Professor Wei Jiangong. At the same time. I was learning ancient Chinese graphology and Chinese historical semantics from Professor Shen Jianshi and Professor Tang Lan. By that time, I was engaged in studying Fangyan, a book by the Western Han author Yang )(tong. which purports to be an amalgamation and commentary on various dictionaries. As such, the book was obviously based on multiple sources. My philological research revealed that the author of Fangyan intended the book to be an exegesis of the ancient dictionary Erya by drawing on his contemporary dialects. I published the result of this research in the form of a paper "Fangyan Kaoyuan", which appeared in Luo Changpei Xiansheng Jintan Wenji (Memorial Volume Dedicated to Professor Luo Changpeil.