Father Of Pinyin, Zhou Youguang, Dies At 111; He Made Writing Chinese Simple

Father of Pinyin, Zhou Youguang died on Saturday in his home in Chinese capital Beijing, a day after his birthday. He was 111.

Youguang is known for creating system of Romanized Chinese writing some sixty years ago that became international standard. It made learning easy and boosted literacy rates in China.

Adopted by China in 1958, Pinyin though was not the first system to Romanize Chinese, but became the most widely accepted.

The system allowed standardization of Chinese names and this is the reason how capital shifted from “Peking” to “Beijing.”

In the mid-1950s he took the task of studying writing systems. Prior to it he was an economic scholar.

Pinyin was introduced in Chinese schools in 1958. The international community adopted the system as standard Romanization for Chinese writing in 1986.

A BBC report reveals before Pinyin about 85 percent of Chinese people were not able to read their language.

Zhou was born on 13 January 1906 in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. He married Zhang Yunhe in 1933. He was Chinese economist, banker, linguist, sinologist, and supercentenarian.