Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 3 July 1890 |
| Died | 7 October 1969 (aged 79) |
| Resting place | Mountain Lu, Jiujiang |
| Alma mater | Fudan University Humboldt University of Berlin University of Zurich Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris Harvard University |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, classical literature researcher, linguist, fellow of Academia Sinica |
| Parent | Chen Sanli |
| Relatives | Chen Baozhen (grandfather) |
| Chen Yinke | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 陳寅恪 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 陈寅恪 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||
Chen Yinke, or Chen Yinque[1] (3 July 1890 – 7 October 1969), was a Chinese historian, linguist, orientalist, politician, and writer. He was a fellow of Academia Sinica, considered one of the most original and creative historians in 20th century China. His representative works are Draft essays on the origins of Sui and Tang institutions (隋唐制度淵源略論稿), Draft outline of Tang political history (唐代政治史述論稿), and An Alternative Biography of Liu Rushi (柳如是別傳).[2]
Chen, together with Lü Simian, Chen Yuan and Ch'ien Mu, was known as the "Four Greatest Historians" of Modern China (現代四大史學家). Chen knew many languages; he was well-versed in Sanskrit and Pali, and had an understanding of various other languages including Mongolian, Manchu, Persian, English, French, German, Latin, Greek, and Japanese.
- ^ Chen's pronunciation of his own name (陈寅恪) would be rendered as 'Chén Yínquè' in the Pinyin romanization system, and many scholars have adopted this reading and spelling. However, the validity of reading 恪 as 'què' is disputed. The character 恪, meaning "respectful; reverent", is archaic and literary, so it is rarely read aloud. Nevertheless, historical rime books and the Kangxi Dictionary uniformly imply 'kè' as the reading that would follow from regular sound changes that have taken place as Middle Chinese evolved into modern Beijing Mandarin. When the national language was standardized, the Ministry of Education (ROC) designated 'kè' as the 'Guoyu' reading, as did the Ministry of Education (PRC) more recently for the 'Putonghua' standard. Though most dictionaries indicate only this reading, the Cihai (as recently as the 1999 edition), has given 'què' as an alternative 'old' reading for 恪. This is almost certainly an oblique acknowledgment of Chen's reading of this character. Phonologists have speculated that 'què' is a Mandarin approximation of the pronunciation of 恪 in Chen's childhood Hakka dialect.
- ^ Yu (1999), pp. 198–199.