Jin Qicong


Jin Qicong or Aisin-Gioro Qicong was a Chinese historian and linguist of Manchu ethnicity who is known for his studies of the Manchu and Jurchen languages. His works include the first modern dictionary of Jurchen, various books about the Manchu people, and editions of the poetry of his great-great-grandfather Aisin-Gioro Yihui and his wife Gu Taiqing.

Life

Jin was born in Beijing, China in 1918. His father, Jin Guangping, was a sixth-generation descendant of the Qianlong Emperor's fifth son, Yongqi. Both his father and his second daughter, Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun, are also renowned scholars of Manchu and Jurchen. His eldest daughter, Jin Shi 金適, who is a professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing, has also engaged in research into Jurchen.
Jin Guangping entered Peking University to study Chinese Literature in 1939, but the following year went to Japan to study at Tokyo University, where he studied Jin dynasty history under Mikami Tsugio 三上次男 and Mongolian and Qing Dynasty history under Wada Sei 和田清. He graduated in 1944, and returned to China where he worked as a teacher at various Beijing middle schools for fourteen years.
In 1958 he joined the staff of the newly founded Inner Mongolia University, where he remained for the next twenty-five years, eventually reaching the position of professor. His main area of research and teaching was Mongolian history, but he also carried out research into the Jurchen and Manchu languages.
In 1983 he took up a post as director of the Liaoning Minorities Research Institute in Shenyang. During this period he founded and edited two journals, Manchu Studies 满族研究 and Reference Materials for Manchu Studies 满族研究参考资料.
Jin retired in 1989, and lived in Beijing until his death of natural causes in 2004.

Jurchen studies

Jin and his father, Jin Guangping, collaborated on a study of the Jurchen language and script, which was first published in 1964, and a revised edition published in 1980. His major contribution to Jurchen studies was a Jurchen-Chinese dictionary that was published in 1984. This was the first modern dictionary of Jurchen, and remained the only dictionary of Jurchen until 2003 when an expanded Jurchen dictionary compiled by Jin and his daughter, Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun, was published in Japan.

Works