Li Rong (4 February 1920 – 31 December 2002) was a Chinese

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. Linguis ...

known for his work on Chinese dialectology. He was director of the Institute of Linguistics at the

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) is a Chinese research institute and think tank. The institution is the premier comprehensive national academic research organization in the People's Republic of China for the study in the fields of ...

from 1982 to 1985, and editor of the ''

Language Atlas of China The ''Language Atlas of China'' (), published in two parts in 1987 and 1989, maps the distribution of both the varieties of Chinese and minority languages of China. It was a collaborative effort by the Australian Academy of the Humanities and the ...

'' and the ''

Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects The ''Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects'' () is a compendium of dictionaries for 42 local varieties of Chinese following a common format. The individual dictionaries cover dialects spread across the dialect groups identified in the '' La ...

''. Li Rong was born in

Wenling Wenling ( Wenling dialect: Ueng-ling Zy ; ) is a coastal county-level city in the municipal region of Taizhou, in southeastern Zhejiang province, China. It borders Luqiao and Huangyan to the north, Yuhuan to the south, Yueqing to the west, loo ...

county,

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

. In 1939 he was admitted to the Southwest Associated University in

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...

, studying Chinese literature. In 1943, he went on to postgraduate study at the Language Institute of

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

, then based in Kunming. His master's thesis, a study of the system of ''

fanqie ''Fanqie'' ( zh, t= 反切, p=fǎnqiè) is a method in traditional Chinese lexicography to indicate the pronunciation of a monosyllabic character by using two other characters, one with the same initial consonant as the desired syllable and one ...

'' pronunciation guides in the '' Qieyun'', a 7th-century

rime dictionary A rime dictionary, rhyme dictionary, or rime book () is an ancient type of Chinese dictionary that collates Chinese character, characters by tone (linguistics), tone and rhyme, instead of by radical (Chinese character), radical. The most import ...

, was published in 1952. In this work, he demonstrated that the mysterious "divisions" of the later

rime table A rime table or rhyme table () is a Chinese phonological model, tabulating the syllables of the series of rime dictionaries beginning with the ''Qieyun'' (601) by their onsets, rhyme groups, tones and other properties. The method gave a significa ...

s reflected distributional patterns in the ''Qieyun''. Li Rong founded the Chinese dialectology journal ''Fangyan'' in 1979, and served as its editor. He led a team from the

, collaborating with the

Australian Academy of the Humanities The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australia ...

to produce the ''

'' in 1987. The ''Atlas'' was based on Li's revised classification of Chinese dialects, with separate Jin,

Hui The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...

and

Pinghua Pinghua (; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Pìhng Wá''; sometimes disambiguated as /) is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of the Guangxi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with some speakers in Hunan province. Pinghua ...

groups. Although this classification has been adopted by many workers, it remains controversial. Li was also the chief editor of the ''

'', containing descriptions of 42 varieties from locations scattered across China.

Selected works

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References

{{Authority control Linguists from China Middle Chinese 1920 births 2002 deaths Peking University alumni Scientists from Taizhou, Zhejiang 20th-century linguists