The Chinese Characters' Reform And The Studies In Phonology Of Qian Xuantong

As an outstanding thinker and revolutionist in the New Cultural Movement, Qian Xuantong is also an excellent language expert. When he was studying in Japan, he accepted the historical comparative linguistics academic and became Zhang Taiyan's student, working on the Character, Phonology and Exegesis. After returning home from study abroad, Qian Xuantong has been not only trying to merge the western linguistic theories and Chinese traditional phonology, but also applying them to the Chinese characters' reform. All efforts have made tremendous contributions to our modern Chinese standardization and the transition from phonology's traditional stage to a modern one. Unfortunately, in new era, academic study about Qian Xuantong's languages' research, especially the research of Chinese phonology is not thorough. In this paper, through the analysis of the Chinese characters' reform and the results of Qian Xuantong's phonology research, I try to comment his contributions in the language, which will make a fair evaluation as objectively as possible.