Sun Yirang (; 1848–1908) was a

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

Chinese philologist. A native of

Wenzhou Wenzhou (pronounced ; Wenzhounese: Yuziou �y33–11 tɕiɤu33–32 ), historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province in the People's Republic of China. Wenzhou is located at the extreme south east o ...

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 ...

province, he retired from official employment early in his life to devote himself to scholarship. His most important works are ''Mozi Jiangu'' (墨子間詁), a corrected, definitive edition of ''

Mozi Mozi (; ; Latinized as Micius ; – ), original name Mo Di (), was a Chinese philosopher who founded the school of Mohism during the Hundred Schools of Thought period (the early portion of the Warring States period, –221 BCE). The ancie ...

'', and ''Zhouli Zhengyi'' (周禮正義), an important commentary on the ''

Rites of Zhou The ''Rites of Zhou'' (), originally known as "Officers of Zhou" () is a work on bureaucracy and organizational theory. It was renamed by Liu Xin to differentiate it from a chapter in the ''Book of History'' by the same name. To replace a lost ...

''. He also contributed to the studies of the

bronzeware script Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...

and

oracle script Oracle bone script () is an ancient form of Chinese characters that were engraved on oracle bonesanimal bones or turtle plastrons used in pyromantic divination. Oracle bone script was used in the late 2nd millennium BC, and is the earliest kno ...

. His work ''Qiwen Juli'' (契文舉例), published posthumously by

Luo Zhenyu Luo Zhenyu or Lo Chen-yü (August 8, 1866 – May 14, 1940), courtesy name Shuyun (叔蘊), was a Chinese classical scholar, philologist, epigrapher, antiquarian and Qing loyalist. Biography A native of Huai'an, Luo began to publish works o ...

, was the first work of

decipherment In philology, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of texts written in ancient or obscure languages or scripts. Decipherment in cryptography refers to decryption. The term is used sardonically in everyday language to describe attempts to ...

of the oracle bone script.

Bibliography

* 『墨子間詁』 (Mozi Jiangu) * 『周礼正義』 (Zhouli Zhengyi) * 『古籀拾遺』 * 『古籀余論』 * 『契文挙例』 (Qiwen Juli) * 『名原』 * 『尚書駢枝』 * 『札迻』 * 『籀廎述林』

References

*He Jiuying 何九盈 (1995). ''Zhongguo gudai yuyanxue shi'' (中囯古代语言学史 "A history of ancient Chinese linguistics"). Guangzhou: Guangdong jiaoyu chubanshe. *''

Zhongguo da baike quanshu The ''Encyclopedia of China'' () is the first large-entry modern encyclopedia in the Chinese language. The compilation began in 1978. Published by the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, the encyclopedia was issued one volume at a time, beginn ...

'' (1980–1993). 1st Edition. Beijing; Shanghai: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe. *

External links

Biography
at Guoxue
Mozi Jiangu
an
other works by Sun Yirang
at

Chinese Text Project The Chinese Text Project (CTP; ) is a digital library project that assembles collections of early Chinese texts. The name of the project in Chinese literally means "The Chinese Philosophical Book Digitization Project", showing its focus on books ...

1848 births 1908 deaths Linguists from China Qing dynasty writers Writers from Wenzhou Scientists from Wenzhou {{China-linguist-stub