Yuen Ren Chao

Yuen Ren Chao (趙元任 Pinyin: Zhào Yuánrèn; WG: Chao Yüan-jen; Gwoyeu Romatzyh: Jaw Yuanrenn) (November 3, 1892 - February 25, 1982) was a Chinese phonologist and dialectologist who shaped Gwoyeu Romatzyh.

Born in Tianjin with ancestry in Changzhou, Jiangsu, Chao went to the United States with a scholarship in 1910 to study mathematics in Cornell University, and switched to philosophy later. He later gained his doctorate in philosophy from Harvard University.

When in U.S. in 1921, Chao recorded the standard Mandarin pronunciation gramophones distributed nationally (as proposed by Commission on the Unification of Pronunciation). Chao died in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

His wife, Buwei Yang Chao, authored a book on Chinese cuisine called How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, an Asia Press book from the John Day Company, which had its first edition in 1945. Yuen Ren Chao offers his insights liberally throughout the book, and making intriguing glimpses into the kind of relationship they had together.

He is also famous for authoring the essay the Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den, which is often wrongly used as an argument against Romanization of Chinese (Chao was actually pro-Romanization). The essay consists of 92 characters all with the sound shi (though in the four different tones of Mandarin), and is incomprehensible when romanized.