Exploration On The Studies In Chinese Phonology Of Lin Yutang

Chinese famous writer Lin Yutang is also a translator, besides, his study of Chinese phonology can be regarded illustrious too for his doctorate researches is linguistic relevant. And as we know he has been accepted the historical comparative linguistics academic training in the University of Leipzig in Germany and in the year1923obtained a Ph. D. After returning home from study abroad, Lin Yutang has been trying to merge the western linguistic theories and Chinese traditional phonology.Afterward he published a series of papers about phonology which mainly focuses on the reconstruction of Old Chinese sound and rhyme, the phonic shifting of ancient dialect and ancient dialect region division. Lin Yutang gained some fruitful results in phonology study, and done a great contribution to Chinese phonology, especially to the transition from its traditional stage to a modern one. Unfortunately, in new era, academic study about Lin Yutang’s Chinese linguistic research, especially the research of Chinese phonology is not thorough. In this paper, through the analysis of the results of Lin Yutang’s phonology research, I try to appreciate the evaluation of his contribution in the history of Chinese phonology as objectively as possible.