Zhengzhang Shangfang, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetZhengzhang Shangfang
Chinese linguist, known for his reconstruction of Old Chinese, topolect and phonology studies
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Yongzhong Jiedao, Zhejiang, China
About Zhengzhang Shangfang
- Zhengzhang Shangfang (simplified Chinese: ????; traditional Chinese: ????; pinyin: Zhèngzhang Shà ngfang; pronounced [???^? ??á? ?â? fá?]; 9 August 1933 – 19 May 2018) was a Chinese linguist, known for his reconstruction of Old Chinese.Zhengzhang was born ??? (pinyin: Zhèng Xiángfang) in Yongjia County, on the outskirts of Wenzhou.
- As ? and ? have the same pronunciation in the Wenzhou dialect, his personal name became ?? (Shà ngfang).
- While he was in high school, his parents changed his family name to ?? (Zhèngzhang), a combination of their surnames (Zhèng and Zhang).At this time, he became interested in historical phonology, and studied the works of Yuen Ren Chao, Wang Li and others in Wenzhou library.
- In 1954, unable to enter university to study linguistics, he began geological work in the Beijing area.
- In his spare time, he continued to develop his own ideas on Old Chinese phonology, particularly the finals and vowel system.
- In the 1960s and 1970s, he undertook dialect survey work in Wenzhou for Lü Shuxiang until he was sent to work in a factory during the Cultural Revolution.
- During a period when the factory was closed due to a factional battle in the Communist Party of China, he began exchanging ideas with Pan Wuyun and Jin Shengrong, and refined his Old Chinese system to a six-vowel system.
- Essentially the same system was independently developed by William Baxter (building on a proposal by Nicholas Bodman) and by Sergei Starostin.
- In 1980, he joined the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
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