Wang Niansun


Wang Niansun , courtesy name: Huaizu was a Chinese scholar of the Qing Dynasty.

Biography

A native of Gaoyou, Jiangsu, he worked as a government official specializing in channelization before retiring to devote himself to his studies. As an official, he is still remembered today for having the guts to impeach the corrupt high-ranked official Heshen.
A student of Dai Zhen, Wang is most famous for his commentary on the ancient thesaurus Guangya, Guangya shuzheng, which he spent a whole decade to complete. In his commentary he demonstrated his philological principle of "looking for the ancient meaning by considering the ancient sound... not constrained by the structure of the character". Although he was not the first one to point out this principle, he was the first one to demonstrate it in an exemplary manner.
His Dushu zazhi is also a philological treasure house, especially valuable for its textual criticism of ancient texts.
His son Wang Yinzhi was also an important philologist. They are often referred together as "Father and Son Wang of Gaoyou".