John DeFrancis dead at 97

snater
 January 17, 2009 at 05:48 AM posted in General Discussion

I'm surprised I haven't seen a peep on Cpod about this, but I think its something people should know about.

link to NYT obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/us/15defrancis.html?scp=1&sq=defrancis&st=cse

(might need to register)

 

or

http://johndefrancis.wordpress.com/

 

The man did a lot for the Mandarin learners in his years so I think it fitting that if someone here doesn't know of him and his work, maybe now is the time. It will probably help improve one's understanding.

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lechuan
 January 18, 2009 at 09:08 PM

One of John Defrancis' major accomplishments was the ABC Chinese-English (Comprehensive) dictionary. It was one of the first mainstream dictinoaries to sort purely by pinyin spelling. This is extremely useful for looking up words in spoken language (especially when you have no idea what the character is).

A comprehensive article on John Defrancis is here:

http://johndefrancis.wordpress.com/

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pearltowerpete
 January 17, 2009 at 06:18 AM

Hi snater

Thanks for bringing this up. I have to admit, I'm not especially familiar with DeFrancis' work, but he was certainly a titan of sinology.

The most striking thing about the Times obit was the shameful hardship he endured because of the Communist witch hunts. If we needed it, it's another reminder of the folly of politicizing knowledge and attacking intellectuals.