In addition to his contributions to language, Mr. Zhou also survived three years of exile and forced labor to become one of his country’s most outspoken dissidents. “Without an alphabet you had to learn mouth to mouth, ear to ear,” Mr. Zhou told Britain’s Guardian newspaper in 2008. In the mid-1950s, Mao embarked on a crusade against “rightists,” presumed political enemies that included proponents of capitalism and economists such as Mr. Zhou. One of his students committed suicide; a good friend, he later told the Guardian, was imprisoned and also committed suicide. In 1955, he summoned Mr. Zhou to Beijing and tasked him with developing a new alphabet for China.

Source: Washington Post January 16, 2017 23:35 UTC