On January 2, one of the greatest modern American scholars of the Chinese language passed away.
John DeFrancis was born in the waning months of the Qing Dynasty, and first went to China during the Great Depression to seek out business opportunities. That experience, which included traveling across China on camels and rafting down the Yellow River on an inflated sheepskin raft, led to his becoming a scholar of Chinese. He taught for years at the University of Hawaii, and compiled the greatest Chinese-English dictionary in the history of humanity: the ABC Comprehensive Dictionary. He was active in scholarship and dictionary compilation until the very end, at the ripe old age of 97. For DeFrancis I say:
為吾故兄奠一壺酒
(Roughly translated: "Libate a jug of wine for my late brother." In other words, "Pour out a 40 for my dead homie." By the way, is "libate" the actual verb form of "libation"?)
RIP John DeFrancis (1911-2009)
