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Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren (; 15 October 1889 – 20 October 1978) was a Swedish
sinologist Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the e ...
and
linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingui ...
who pioneered the study of Chinese historical phonology using modern comparative methods. In the early 20th century, Karlgren conducted large surveys of the
varieties of Chinese Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of ...
and studied historical information on rhyming in ancient Chinese poetry, then used them to create the first ever complete reconstructions of what are now called
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
and
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...
.


Early life and education

Bernhard Karlgren was born on 15 October 1889 in
Jönköping Jönköping (, ) is a city in southern Sweden with 112,766 inhabitants (2022). Jönköping is situated on the southern shore of Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern, in the province of Småland. The city is the seat of Jönköping Munici ...
, Sweden. His father, Johannes Karlgren, taught
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
,
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, and
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
at the local high school. Karlgren showed ability in linguistics from a young age, and was interested in Sweden's dialects and traditional folk stories. He mastered classical languages and was an accomplished translator of Greek poetry into his native language. He displayed an early interest in China, and wrote a drama, ''The White Hind,'' set in that country in his early teens. His first scholarly article, a phonetic transcription, based on a system devised by Johan August Lundell, of traditional folk stories from his native province of
Småland Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized ...
, was completed when he was 14, and published in 1908 when he was only 18 years old. He studied Russian at
Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance durin ...
under Johan August Lundell, a Slavicist interested in
comparative linguistics Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their history, historical relatedness. Genetic relat ...
. He graduated in 1909 with a bachelor's degree in Nordic, Greek, and Slavonic languages. Although he initially intended to specialize in the
Scandinavian languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
, on the advice of his elder brother Anton Karlgren (18821973) he decided to focus on Chinese instead, attracted to it also by the fact that, as Lundell had told him, Chinese contained a great number of dialects. He departed for St. Petersburg, which, under the guidance of Vasily Vasilyev, had created one of the major European centres for the study of Chinese. While there, Karlgren, studying under A. I. Ivanov, won a grant to study Chinese dialects, even though he had no background in Chinese at that point. Karlgren lived in China from 1910 to 1912. He achieved basic fluency and literacy after only a few months of study, and prepared a questionnaire of 3,100
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...
to gather information on Chinese dialects. After his grant money ran out, Karlgren supported himself by teaching French and, famously, English, which, according to one anecdote, he had never been taught but had picked up from English-speaking passengers on the ship from Europe to China. In fact he had received a high credit in English in his final High School exams. He eventually gathered data on 19 different Mandarin dialects, as well as Shanghainese, the Fuzhou dialect of
Eastern Min Eastern Min or Min Dong (, Foochow Romanized: Mìng-dĕ̤ng-ngṳ̄), is a branch of the Min group of Sinitic languages of China. The prestige form and most-cited representative form is the Fuzhou dialect, the speech of the capital of Fujian. ...
, and
Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...
, plus the Vietnamese and Japanese pronunciations of the characters in his questionnaire.


Career

Karlgren returned to Europe in January 1912, first staying in London, then in Paris, before arriving in
Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...
, where in 1915 he produced his doctoral dissertation, "'" ("Studies on Chinese Phonology"). Although his dissertation was written in French, most of his subsequent scholarly works were in English. After obtaining his doctorate, Karlgren taught at the
University of Gothenburg The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 s ...
, serving as its rector from 1931 to 1936. In 1939, Karlgren succeeded Johan Gunnar Andersson as director of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (), a post he held until 1959. This public museum was founded in 1926 on Andersson's pioneering discoveries of prehistoric archaeology made in China in the 1920s, and later expanded to cover later periods as well as other parts of Asia. Karlgren had been in close contact with Andersson for many years, and also succeeded Andersson as editor of the museum's journal, the ''Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities'' (BMFEA, 1929–) and continued in this position until the 1970s. Karlgren himself first published many of his own major works in this annual journal, or as books in the monograph series of the museum. In 1946, Karlgren began a far-reaching attack on the then rather loosely argued historiography of ancient China. Reviewing the literature on China's pre-Han history in his article ''Legends and Cults in Ancient China'', he pointed out that "a common feature to most of these treatises is a curious lack of critical method in the handling of the material". In particular, Karlgren criticised the unselective use of documents from different ages when reconstructing China's ancient history. "In this way very full and detailed accounts have been arrived at—but accounts that are indeed caricatures of scientifically established ones." In 1950, Karlgren was inducted into the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...
.


Death and legacy

Karlgren died on 20 October 1978 in Stockholm at age 89. Karlgren was the first scholar to use European-style principles of
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...
to study the Chinese language. He was also the first one to reconstruct the sounds of what are now called
Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
and
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 12 ...
(what he called "Ancient Chinese" and "Archaic Chinese" respectively). Karlgren suggested that at the very earliest stage recoverable, the personal pronouns were declined for case. Karlgren attempted to unearth Chinese history itself from its linguistic development and diffusion. As he writes in his English adaptation ''Sound and Symbol in Chinese'' (1923), Chapter I: "Thus, though Chinese traditions give no hint whatever of an immigration from any foreign country, and though there consequently is no external chronological ''point d'appui'', we are nonetheless able to state, from internal evidence, that the Chinese tradition which places the reign of the
emperor Yao Emperor Yao (; traditionally c. 2356 – 2255 BCE) was a legendary Chinese ruler, according to various sources, one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Ancestry and early life Yao's ancestral name is Yi Qi () or Qi (), clan name ...
in the twenty-fourth century B.C. is correct; that the Chinese even in those remote times were skilled astronomers; that they put down in writing in the Chinese language records of memorable events, and in all probability wrote their accounts soon after the events; in short, that a well-developed Chinese civilization—resting undoubtedly on foundations many centuries old—together with the Chinese language, existed on Chinese soil two thousand years before Christ." Although important as a pioneer of historical Chinese linguistics, Karlgren's original findings have been surpassed. Today the phonological systems proposed by Karlgren have largely been superseded, as their weaknesses are obvious: "Karlgren saw himself as reconstructing phonetics, not phonology, and paid little attention to phonological structure. As a result, the systems he reconstructed often lack the symmetry and pattern which are in the phonological systems of natural languages." Nevertheless, Karlgren's groundbreaking works laid the foundation of modern Chinese historical linguistics and many of his works are still used as works of reference.


Awards and decorations

* Commander Grand Cross of the
Order of the Polar Star The Royal Order of the Polar Star (Swedish: ''Kungliga Nordstjärneorden'') is a Swedish order of chivalry created by King Frederick I on 23 February 1748, together with the Order of the Sword and the Order of the Seraphim. The Order of ...
(23 November 1961)


Selected works

* * Adapted a
''Sound and symbol in Chinese''
London: Oxford University Press, 1923. Reprinted 2007: Toronto: Global Language Press, . * * Reprinted by Dover Publications, . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * In Swedish he published numerous popular works on Chinese language, culture and history. In the 1940s, he published three novels under the pen name Klas Gullman.


See also

* ''
Grammata Serica Recensa The ''Grammata Serica Recensa'' is a dictionary of Middle Chinese and Old Chinese published by the Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren in 1957. History Karlgren made fundamental contributions to the study of the phonology of Middle and Old Chin ...
'' * Karlgren–Li reconstruction of Middle Chinese


Notes

;Footnotes ;Works cited * * * * Translation of Göran Malmqvist, ' 'Bernhard Karlgren: Portrait of a Scholar'' Stockholm: Norstedts. 1995. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Karlgren, Bernhard 1889 births 1978 deaths People from Jönköping Swedish sinologists Linguists from Sweden Historical linguists Uppsala University alumni University of Gothenburg faculty Rectors of the University of Gothenburg Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Paleolinguists 20th-century linguists Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy Commanders Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star Members of the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy