Peter A. Boodberg | |||||||||||
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![]() Peter Boodberg (c. 1938)
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Native name | Пётр Алексеевич фон Будберг | ||||||||||
Born |
Vladivostok, Russian Empire |
8 April 1903||||||||||
Died | 29 June 1972 Berkeley, California, United States |
(aged 69)||||||||||
Nationality | Russian, Baltic German | ||||||||||
Fields | Chinese language, history; Altaic languages | ||||||||||
Institutions | University of California, Berkeley | ||||||||||
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley | ||||||||||
Notable students | William Boltz, Richard Mather, Edward Schafer, Fr. Paul Serruys | ||||||||||
Chinese name | |||||||||||
Chinese | 卜弼德 | ||||||||||
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Transcriptions | |
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Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | Bǔ Bìdé |
Gwoyeu Romatzyh | Buu Bihder |
Wade–Giles | Pu3 Pi4-te2 |
Peter Alexis Boodberg (born Pyotr Alekseyevich von Budberg; 8 April 1903 – 29 June 1972) was a Russian-American scholar, linguist, and sinologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley for 40 years. Boodberg was influential in 20th century developments in the studies of the development of Chinese characters, Chinese philology, and Chinese historical phonology.
Peter Alexis Boodberg was born "Pyotr Alekseyevich von Budberg" (Russian: Пётр Алексеевич фон Будберг) on 8 April 1903 in Vladivostok, Russia, which was then still a part of the Russian Empire. The Boodbergs were a Baltic German family, originally from Mainz, that had lived in Estonia since the 13th century. After Russia annexed Estonia in 1721, they became a prominent diplomatic and military family in Imperial Russia. Boodberg's father, Baron Alexis von Budberg (1869–1945), was a nobleman and commanding general of the Russian forces in Vladivostok. His father's position ensured that Boodberg enjoyed a strong education in the Latin and Greek Classics and in the major European languages. Boodberg was a cadet at a military academy in St. Petersburg until the outbreak of World War I, when Boodberg's parents sent him and his brother to Harbin, Manchuria, out of concern for their safety. Boodberg attended the Oriental Institute (modern Far Eastern Federal University) in Vladivostok, where he studied Chinese, which he had begun learning as a teenager in Harbin, and learned several other Asiatic languages.