Joseph Edkins

Joseph Edkins
Joseph Edkins
	Missionary to China
Born	19 December 1823; Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, England
Died	23 April 1905 (aged 81); Shanghai, Qing China
Education	University of London
Spouse(s)	Jane Rowbotham Edkins; (née Stobbs)
Chinese name
Chinese	艾約瑟
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Ài Yuēsè

Joseph Edkins (19 December 1823 – 23 April 1905) was a British Protestant missionary who spent 57 years in China, 30 of them in Beijing. As a Sinologue, he specialised in Chinese religions. He was also a linguist, a translator, and a philologist. Writing prolifically,^[1] he penned many books about the Chinese language and the Chinese religions especially Buddhism. In his China's Place in Philology (1871), he tries to show that the languages of Europe and Asia have a common origin by comparing the Chinese and Indo-European vocabulary.

^ De Lacouperie, Terrien (1894). Western origin of the early Chinese civilisation from 2,300 B.C. to 200 A.D., or, Chapters on the elements derived from the old civilisations of west Asia in the formation of the ancient Chinese culture. London: Asher & Co.

[1] De Lacouperie, Terrien (1894). Western origin of the early Chinese civilisation from 2,300 B.C. to 200 A.D., or, Chapters on the elements derived from the old civilisations of west Asia in the formation of the ancient Chinese culture. London: Asher & Co.

[1]