Zhang Taiyan
| Zhang Binglin | |||||||||||
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| Born |
25 December 1868 Yuhang, Zhejiang, Qing Empire |
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| Died | 14 June 1936 (aged 67) Suzhou, Jiangsu, Republic of China |
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| Political party |
Unity Party Republican Party Progressive Party |
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| Spouse(s) | Tang Guoli | ||||||||||
| Children |
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Chinese | 章炳麟 | ||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
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| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Zhāng Bǐnglín |
| Wade–Giles | Chang1 Ping3-lin2 |
| IPA | [ʈʂáŋ pìŋlǐn] |
Zhang Binglin (December 25, 1868 – June 14, 1936), also known as Zhang Taiyan, was a Chinese philologist, textual critic, philosopher, and revolutionary.
His philological works include Wen Shi (文始 "The Origin of Writing"), the first systematic work of Chinese etymology. He also made contributions to historical Chinese phonology, proposing that "the niang (娘) and ri (日) initials [in Middle Chinese] come from the ni (泥) initial [in Old Chinese]" (known as niang ri gui ni 娘日歸泥). He developed a system of shorthands based on the seal script, called jiyin zimu (記音字母), later adopted as the basis of zhuyin. Though innovative in many ways, he was skeptical of new archaeological findings, regarding the oracle bones as forgery.
An activist as well as a scholar, he produced many political works. Because of his outspoken character, he was jailed for three years by the Qing Empire and put under house arrest for another three by Yuan Shikai.
Zhang was born with the given name Xuecheng (學乘) in Yuhang (now a district in Hangzhou), Zhejiang to a scholarly family. Later he himself changed his given name to Jiang (絳) with the sobriquet Taiyan, to show his admiration for the early Qing scholar and activist Gu Yanwu. When he was 23, he began to study under the great philologist Yu Yue (1821–1907), immersing himself in the Chinese classics for seven years.
After the First Sino-Japanese War, he went to Shanghai, becoming a member of the Society for National Strengthening (強學會) and writing for a number of newspaper, including Liang Qichao's Shi Wu Bao (時務報). In September 1898, after the failure of the Wuxu Reform, Zhang escaped to Taiwan with the help of a Japanese friend and worked as a reporter for Taiwan Nichinichi Shimpō (臺灣日日新報?) and wrote for Qing Yi Bao (清議報) produced in Japan by Liang Qichao.
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