John DeFrancis, 97, Chinese language scholar, is dead
Eminent Chinese language scholar and professor emeritus at University of Hawaii John DeFrancis ’33 died Jan. 2 in Hawaii. He was 97.
DeFrancis authored a widely-used series of Mandarin Chinese textbooks published by the Yale University Press. Known as the “DeFrancis Series,” the texts were standards for Chinese language instruction during the 1970s and ’80s, DeFrancis’s longtime colleague John Montanaro said. DeFrancis was also instrumental in the spread of pinyin, a Roman alphabet transliteration system of Chinese characters used extensively in Chinese language study, said...
