Peter Stephen Du Ponceau (born Pierre-Étienne du Ponceau, June 3, 1760 – April 1, 1844) was a French-American

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 ...

, philosopher, and jurist. After emigrating to the colonies in 1777, he served in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

. Afterward, he settled in Philadelphia, where he lived the remainder of his years. He contributed significantly to work on the indigenous languages of the Americas, as well as advancing the understanding of

written Chinese Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally r ...

Early life

Du Ponceau's fondness for languages began when he was six. He studied at a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

college until he abruptly ended his education, after only 18 months, over a dissatisfaction with the scholarly philosophy taught there. When he was 17, he emigrated to America in 1777 with Baron von Steuben, who was 30 years older.

War service

Du Ponceau served as a secretary to Steuben in the Continental Army during the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

. After the war, he settled in Philadelphia, where he spent the rest of his life. Among his acquaintances were many important figures of the

, including Alexander Hamilton,

John Laurens John Laurens (October 28, 1754 – August 27, 1782) was an American soldier and statesman from South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War, best known for his criticism of slavery and his efforts to help recruit slaves to fight for thei ...

Lafayette Lafayette or La Fayette may refer to: People * Lafayette (name), a list of people with the surname Lafayette or La Fayette or the given name Lafayette * House of La Fayette, a French noble family ** Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757� ...

and

James Monroe James Monroe ( ; April 28, 1758July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was ...

Work in philosophy and linguistics

Du Ponceau joined the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1791 and served as its vice president from 1816 until he became president in 1828, a position he held until his death. He became notable in

linguistics Linguistics is the science, 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 ...

for his analysis of the

indigenous languages of the Americas Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large num ...

. As a member of the society's Historical and Literary Committee, he helped build a collection of texts that described and recorded native languages. His book on their grammatical systems (''Mémoire sur le système grammatical des langues de quelques nations indiennes de l'Amérique du Nord'') won the

Volney Prize The Prix Volney ( en, Volney Medal) is awarded by the Institute of France after proposition by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres to a work of comparative philology. The prize was founded by Constantin Volney in 1803 and was original ...

of the

Institute of France The (; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the Académie Française. It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute m ...

in 1835. In 1816, he was elected a member of the

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society i ...

, and in 1820, he was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. Du Ponceau also worked on

Asian languages A wide variety of languages are spoken throughout Asia, comprising different language families and some unrelated isolates. The major language families include Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Caucasian, Dravidian, Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Tur ...

and was one of the first Western linguists to reject the axiomatic classification of Chinese writing as

ideographic An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiari ...

. Du Ponceau stated: # That the Chinese system of writing is not, as has been supposed, ''ideographic''; that its characters do not represent ''ideas'', but ''words'', and therefore I have called it ''lexigraphic''. # That ideographic writing is a creature of the imagination, and cannot exist, but for very limited purposes, which do not entitle it to the name of writing. # That among men endowed with the gift of speech, all writing must be a direct representation of the spoken language, and cannot present ideas to the mind abstracted from it. # That all writing, as far as we know, represents language in some of its elements, which are words, syllables, and simple sounds. In the first case it is lexigraphic, in the second syllabic, and in the third alphabetical or elementary. He used the example of

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

, then called " Cochinchinese," which used

Chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ; ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters ('' Chữ Hán'') to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represent ...

, a modified form of Chinese characters. He showed that Vietnamese used the Chinese characters to represent sound, not meaning. A hundred years later, his theory was still a source of controversy.

Death

He died on April 1, 1844 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is interred at Mount Vernon Cemetery.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * *

External links

Dunglison, Robley. ''A public discourse in commemoration of Peter S. Du Ponceau, LL. D., late president of the American Philosophical Society: delivered before the Society pursuant to appointment, on the 25th of October, 1844''
From the Digital Repository of the

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its ...

. *
Works by Peter Stephen Du Ponceau

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Duponceau, Peter Stephen 1760 births 1844 deaths Burials at Mount Vernon Cemetery (Philadelphia) Linguists from France Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences French jurists French philosophers French people of the American Revolution Justices of the Louisiana Supreme Court Pennsylvania lawyers United States federal judges appointed by Thomas Jefferson 19th-century American judges French male writers Members of the American Philosophical Society French emigrants to the United States Members of the American Antiquarian Society People of colonial Pennsylvania