Father of Non-Han Chinese Linguistics Li Fang-Kuei

What is linguistics? What does a linguist do? . . . He studies the way people speak. . . . What! Thats ridiculous? Who does not know how to speak except a deaf-mute? What is there to study? Li Fang-Kuei, one of the foremost Chinese linguists in the world, encountered the skepticism of his prospective mother-in-law in the 1920s when he returned to China and wished to ask her daughters hand in marr...