Commemorating the 120th anniversary of the birth of linguist Mr. Wang Li (1900-1986).
In the spring of 1984, at the age of 84, Wang Li began compiling a dictionary of his "ideals." This will also be the first relatively complete one in China, the Ancient Chinese Dictionary. The planned dictionary of 1.2 million words, a huge production. This long-cherished wish, born in the years of the War of Resistance, had been brewing in his heart for nearly half a century, and he was dying of old age. The 84-year-old middle-aged Chinese wizard of speech, began that spring, studied ink at 8 o'clock in the morning, and spent 8 to 10 hours a day in a row, ignoring anything unrelated to writing, only taking a break when his assistant and wife dragged him to dinner. At a rate of 3,000 words a day, he moved toward his "ideal dictionary." ——Documentary "Master · Wang Li》
Wang Li was born in 1900 in Qishanpo Village, Bobai County, Guangxi. He went to private school at the age of 7. When mr. Li talked about the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", he talked about the impassioned place, and he took the case. Wang Li fell in love with novels and gave birth to his first ideal of becoming a novelist. After graduating from high school, Wang Li dropped out of school due to poverty, but he never dropped out of school. At night, there is no oil to light the lamp, and every day I read in the moonlight. I read a lot of books, but a pair of deep glasses stayed with him all his life.
In 1924, with the 120 yuan Xiaoyang that others helped him collect, Wang Li embarked on the road of study. Wang Lixian studied at the Chinese Studies Course of The Private Southern University in Shanghai. He published poems and novels in journals, both as a part-time worker and in pursuit of literary ideals. However, a year later, Wang Li was expelled for opposing the president's activities to restore the imperial system, and transferred to the National University where Zhang Taiyan was the president.
Wang Li (left) with classmates in Shanghai in the 1920s
In the summer of 1926, he applied for Tsinghua Guo College and studied under Zhao Yuanren. Guoyuan College has four major teachers, Wang Guowei, Liang Qichao, Zhao Yuanren, and Chen Yinke. Wang Guowei said to this young man who loved literature: "I originally loved literature, but why did I study ancient texts and history later?" Because it's something real. In order to pursue "real things", Wang Li studied linguistics with Zhao Yuanren, the "father of Chinese Chinese dialects". After graduating from the National College, Wang Li accepted Zhao Yuanren's suggestion and went to Paris, the center of world linguistics at that time
In 1930, Wang Li was in France
Studying in France is self-funded. Wang Li wanted to sell literature for a living. He began translating French literature. The Commercial Press accepted his translation. At that time, the editor of the Commercial Press was Ye Shengtao. Mr. Ye Shengtao spoke highly of his book, and he believed that Wang Li's articles were "elegantly translated and very well written", so Mr. Ye Shengtao said: "We will publish one of his books." Later, Wang Li's tuition fee in France was given by Mr. Ye Shengtao.
In 1931, Wang Li was in Paris
Wang Li returned to Tsinghua in 1932 to teach linguistics classes. In his spare time, he still writes greek and Roman literature books for the Commercial Press's "Universal Library" series, and translates foreign literary works such as the Complete Works of Molière. According to Tsinghua's charter, full-time lecturers can be promoted to professors in two years. But in the third year, Wang Li did not wait for the professor's letter of appointment. He went to ask Zhu Ziqing, and Zhu smiled but did not answer. However, Mr. Zhu's smile made him ashamed. He reflected on himself and bid farewell to "Translator Wang Li".
Soon, he wrote a masterpiece of linguistics research, "A Preliminary Study of Chinese Grammar". Wang Li recalled that Mr. Zhu was very satisfied when he saw it. He was hired as a professor in his fourth year.
Tang Zuofan, a contemporary phonologist, said in an interview, "Wang Li believes that the dictionaries compiled in the past are not very ideal, such as "Ciyuan" and "Cihai", and he feels that a big shortcoming is to list the meanings of words, regardless of primary and secondary, regardless of history. ”
In the 1930s, Wang Ligang returned from studying abroad, and seeing that the study of domestic grammar at that time was dead, he felt that most of it was a set of English grammar. The writing of an ancient people has no grammar to speak of, and Wang Li wrote bitterly, "In recent years, the lack of literacy among college students has become the most common phenomenon. It is rare for a college student to correctly apply his or her own script. In the past, people liked to use the familiar language of the ancients, and those that did not conform to traditional customs were called incomprehensible, so Chinese grammar was protected in the dark. Now, everyone is tending to be liberated and free, so the Chinese grammar is like Chinese morality, wandering in a wrong way, with destruction and no construction. ”
The couplet that Liang Qichao gave to Wang Li
In 1935, Wang Li called on the government to support the Academia Sinica or the Ministry of Education to take the lead in developing a standard grammar. He believes that 5 years can be made into a draft, 3 years fine revision, "8 years later, we will have a grammar." Although the idea is very good, and Wang Li is far more than the only one who makes the appeal, such a work has not been started for a long time. The following year, Wang Li wrote "A Preliminary Study of Chinese Literary Law", proposing to abandon imitation and use the theoretical tools of Western linguistics to seek the laws of language from the reality of the Chinese language. This article is almost a declaration that he shoulders the burden of Chinese and Chinese linguistics research.
In 1936, Wang Li (right) with his wife Xia Weixia
The study of the laws of a language must come from the reality of that language. But the actual Chinese language, like the society of the time, was turbulent and complex. The vernacular, semi-vernacular, vernacular and European vernacular, as well as a wide variety of dialects, are all overwhelming. Wang Li believes that "this is a difficult kind of work, which is a hundred times more hesitant than those who rely on Western grammar."
But at this moment, the guns of the Lugou Bridge rang out, and Japan invaded China in an all-round way. Peiping fell, and Wang Li went into exile with Qinghua to the south. On the road to exile, Wang Li felt more and more the danger that Chinese cultural scholarship and the people were in. After a two-month trek, Wang Li's family went to Changsha. All the belongings were clothes, and there were almost no books to read.
One day in October 1937, Wang Li saw a copy of "Dream of the Red Chamber" at an old book stall in Changsha, which was quaint and elegant. Wang Li suddenly realized that "Dream of the Red Chamber" is a relatively pure spoken Language in Beijing in the Qing Dynasty, and it is not the ideal material for grammar research. He bought the book in a surprise and acquired another Qing Dynasty vernacular novel, The Biography of a Children's Hero.
Fu Yuxian, a Chinese linguist and professor at Sun Yat-sen University, talked about the details of Wang Li's purchase of books in an interview. "He felt that this material was very valuable, one is that the object is very clear, there is no dialect of the miscellaneous, there is no ancient Chinese miscellaneous, so after buying these two books, he has begun to study before he arrived in Kunming," Fu Yuxian said, "He put all the rules of using words and sentences in these two works, one by one to make cards, and then summarized and sorted out, breaking through the problem that "Ma's Wentong" followed the Western framework, and completely proceeded from the actual Chinese language." Mr. Wang found that the lexical method is secondary, because we have no morphological changes in Chinese, unlike English, French, German and Russian, which have many morphological changes, so those foreign Chinese are mainly lexical, he said that China is mainly based on syntax. ”
At the Southwest United Congress (from right: Wang Li, Wen Yiduo, Luo Changpei, Luo Yong, Zhu Ziqing)
Later, Wang Li's family came to Kunming, and during the years in Kunming Longtou Village, Wang Li prepared classes during the day and wrote at night. Unable to light the kerosene lamp, he lit the soybean oil lamp, and his wife Xia Weixia borrowed some light to knit a sweater. I can weave five pieces a month to supplement my family. By the age of 80, this difficult time was still vividly remembered, and Wang Li gave a poem to his wife: "Seven provinces are running around and escaping from the fox, and a lamp is like a bean with desolation." In this situation, exactly 5 years later, Wang Li's "Modern Chinese Grammar" and "Theory of Chinese Chinese Law" came out. Subsequently, two books popularized the "Outline of the Law of the Chinese of China" was completed. By this time, Wang Li had left many firsts in linguistics research, such as the first definition of grammar: "Grammar is the structural method of the family language." ”
The war did not destroy Chinese scholarship, and Wang Li's achievements, together with Lü Shuxiang's "Outline of Chinese Grammar" and Gao Mingkai's "Treatise on Chinese Grammar", published almost at the same time, marked the maturity of the study of modern Chinese grammar in China, and soon influenced foreign scholars. Shao Jingmin, a professor at the Department of Chinese at Jinan University, said, "These three great works laid the academic cornerstone of the traditional grammar of our country in the 1940s. Mr. Wang was the first and the most influential book of his time. ”
Japan surrendered on August 10, 1945. Wang Li did not sleep all night. During the arduous years of exile in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wang Li's research has been fully rolled out in grammar, phonology, vocabulary, poetry, and dialects, and he plans for the future of Chinese and Chinese linguistics. Wang Li's article:
Otherwise, we should expect that Chinese and Chinese will flourish, and at that time, although Chinese may not be able to go to the blackboard of other people's middle schools like English, at least people's universities will also have a Chinese subject, and English, French, German and Russian languages will be equally important. At that time, did we have a good dictionary like the Oxford Dictionary for people to see? Is there a chinese Chinese method as good as The English Chinese method of Yesperson or Polm for people to see? There is a great shortage of talents in middle and Chinese linguistics... I hope that in the future, the Chinese and Chinese linguistics circles will be full of talents.
Wang Li (right) and Chen Yinke in Guangzhou in 1947
Sun Yat-sen University, which had just been demobilized, hired Wang Li as dean of literature, and the conditions he proposed for his appointment were to open a linguistics department. Sure enough, CUHK built China's first linguistics department, and Wang Li designed the syllabus and main curriculum, and invited Fang Guangtao, Yang Shuda, Shang Chengzuo, Cen Qixiang and other famous artists to teach and give lectures. In addition to teaching, he even checked the hygiene of the corridors and toilets.
In 1950, as the smoke of the war dissipated, the first batch of Chinese linguistics students graduated from the Department of Linguistics of Sun Yat-sen University. By 1953, there were only 13 students in the four grades. In the summer, 7 students graduated, which was an unprecedented event. Wang Li held a farewell party for them at home.
Wang Li's family in the 1950s
By 1954, the Chinese Character Reform Committee was established. The Government began to vigorously promote literacy reform and various types of literacy and cultural and educational work. This year, the Department of Linguistics recruited double-digit students for the first time. As soon as new students were admitted, the Department of Linguistics of Sun Yat-sen University was merged into the Department of Chinese of Peking University. Li Wei, a student at the time, said in an interview, "If there was no merger in that year, there would be no Chinese language major at Peking University today, and there would be no Chinese department of Peking University in the strict sense. ”
On the one hand, Wang Li supports application and popularization, while at the same time insisting on basic research, he believes that lexicology, semantics, rhetoric, lexicography and experimental phonetics, as well as inheriting the heritage of traditional Chinese philology, are all urgent research work. From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, Wang Li's "Ancient Chinese", "Drafts of Chinese History", "History of Chinese Chinese Dialectics" were compiled into books, and the first generation of Chinese history graduate students were also trained.
But when the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Wang Li's research and teaching came to an abrupt end.
The ancients said that those who walk a hundred miles are half ninety. Wang Li said that "ninety miles is only half of a hundred miles, because the last ten miles are the most difficult and the most valuable", "If we are blinded by narrow utilitarianism and rush to make quick gains, the Chinese Chinese dialects will not have any future for development." But Wang Li was criticized for this. The 60-year-old man was raided, criticized, the manuscript was sealed, and sent to the coal factory to pull coal for labor reform. In his diary, he wrote that "it is not tolerated in the world" and "it is not forgivable to flesh and bones." "It's so much of a change that it's painful."
But even on such days, he still insisted on thinking and researching from the materials in his memory. When he was allowed to go home, he wrote down the abdominal draft he had made during the day's labor in the dead of night. As soon as the "Cultural Revolution" ended, he took out two book manuscripts, one "Poetry Classic Rhyme Reading" and one "Chu Ci Rhyme Reading". After the Cultural Revolution, Wang Li also revised the "Draft History of the Chinese Language", which was written in the 1950s and laid out the general framework for the study of Chinese history. Finally, at the age of 84, he expanded and revised the "Chinese History Manuscript" into the "History of Chinese Phonetics", "History of Chinese Grammar", and "History of Chinese Vocabulary", which completely presented the history of the development of the Chinese language. He spent a full 7 years on this.
In November 1979, Professor Wang Li attended the National Literary Congress and took a group photo with the delegates. Front row from left: Lin Geng, Wu Zuxiang, Yang Han, Wang Li, Wang Yao
Contemporary linguist Zhan Bohui said with emotion in the interview, "Chinese intellectuals, no matter how you are, as long as my career survives for one day, I will persistently pursue it, I have my purpose of being a man, and I have my goal of being a man."
Wang Li learned English at the age of 25, French at the age of 27, and in his 50s, he learned Russian with his students until he was 80 years old when he listened to Japanese radio to learn Japanese. In the year of the end of the Cultural Revolution, the 76-year-old Wang Li wrote a poem to himself: "Man Dao Gu was rarely added to ten years old, and Yu Yong wrote a thousand articles." In order to make up for ten years, Wang Li worked even more twice later. He gave lectures at the University of Electricity, did not refuse all kinds of speeches and manuscripts, and even answered him diligently one by one when asking him for advice on how to write letters, how to learn Mandarin, learn foreign languages, and learn pinyin.
Twilight King Force
Cao Xian, who entered the department of Chinese of Peking University in 1954 and stayed in the department of ancient Chinese in the department of Chinese after graduation, said, "When he accepted the work of examining mandarin transliteration words, he was already 83 years old, and he died less than half a year after the pronunciation table was published. This was his last contribution to the modernization of the national language. So I was very touched by his spirit. ”
Mr. Wang Li
In 1984, Wang Li returned to Sun Yat-sen University for the last time in his life. CUHK invited him to give a lecture entitled "Phonetic Systems of Modern Chinese" at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Guangzhou. The 5,000-seat memorial hall was filled with 12,000 people, filling the lawn around the memorial hall. Fu Yuxian recalled, "When he saw so many people, he was very moved! At the age of 84, he spoke for an hour. More than 12,000 people listened to professional classes at a time, which has never been in the history of Chinese education, and I estimate that there has not been in the history of world education, and this is his last open class. ”
In 1986, Wang Li passed away, and the dictionary in his heart was finally completed in the hands of his students, and everyone named it "Wang Li Ancient Chinese Dictionary". Until his death, Wang Li continued to work from morning to night every day. Zhang Shuangdi, a professor in the Department of Chinese at Peking University and a doctoral supervisor of Chinese history, recalled, "Later, on a piece of paper, an envelope, he wrote, 'Zhang Shuangdi promised to help me write a collection of Haiji, what do I do, I am tired all day.'" This is his masterpiece. ”
Just a summer before Wang Li's death, Shandong Education Publishing House published "Wang Li's Collected Works". He donated more than 100,000 yuan in manuscript fees and set up the "Wang Li Linguistics Bonus" at Peking University. This was the earliest individual donation of academic prizes after the Cultural Revolution, and he himself still has the reputation of "loneliness and dignity".
Source | Oriental Morning Post
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