Hugh McBirney Stimson (December 5, 1931 – January 24, 2011) was an American

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 ex ...

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. Lingu ...

who specialised in the

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

of the

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

(618–907). He was particularly known for his research into Chinese historical phonology which enabled him to reconstruct the spoken language of Tang poetry.

Biography

Stimson was born in Port Chester,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in 1931. He studied for his undergraduate degree at Yale University, where he was a prestigious "scholar of the house" in his final year. After graduating in 1953 he stayed on at Yale to study towards a PhD, spending a year at the

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served d ...

during 1954–1955. His dissertation, completed in 1959, was a study of the

Old Mandarin Old Mandarin or Early Mandarin was the speech of northern China during the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty (12th to 14th centuries). New genres of vernacular literature were based on this language, including verse, dram ...

phonological system documented in the '' Zhongyuan Yinyun''. After spending a year as assistant director of the

Foreign Service Institute The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the United States federal government's primary training institution for employees of the U.S. foreign affairs community, preparing American diplomats as well as other professionals to advance U.S. foreign ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

(1959–1960), he took up a position at Yale University, in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Department Linguistics. He remained at Yale for his entire academic career, retiring in 2006 after forty-six years teaching at the university. During his time at Yale University he served several times as chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and as director of undergraduate studies. He was president of the

American Oriental Society The American Oriental Society was chartered under the laws of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned societies in America, and is the oldest devoted to a particular field of scholarship. The Society encourages basi ...

for a period during the 1970s.

Works

*1966. ''The Jongyuan in Yunn: a guide to old Mandarin pronunciation''. Yale University, Far Eastern Publications. *1972. ''One Thousand Chinese Characters with Literary Glosses''. Yale University, Far Eastern Publications. *1975. ''Introduction to Chinese Pronunciation and the Pīnyīn Romanization''. Yale University, Far Eastern Publications. *1976. ''T'ang Poetic Vocabulary''. Yale University, Far Eastern Publications. *1976. ''Fifty-Five T'ang Poems: A Text in the Reading and Understanding of T'ang Poetry''. Yale University, Far Eastern Publications. In addition to his research on Chinese philology and poetry, Stimson contributed to a series of text books on ''Spoken Standard Chinese'' (1976–1978) and ''Written Standard Chinese'' (1980–1991), as well as a number of other pedagogical texts for teaching Mandarin Chinese.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stimson, Hugh McBirney 1931 births 2011 deaths People from Port Chester, New York Linguists from the United States American sinologists Yale University faculty