Rediscovering Fu Liu: the early Sino-French phonetics network and pioneering Chinese tone research

This article revisits the pioneering contributions of Fu Liu (Bannong Liu) to Chinese tone research and the emergence of a Sino-French phonetics network in the early twentieth century. Based on archival records and dissertations, we examine how Liu, trained at the Institut de Phonétique in Paris, adapted Western experimental techniques to the analysis of Chinese tonal systems. His 1925 doctoral dissertation, recognised by the Prix Volney commission, reflected an early and sustained commitment to precise pitch contour reconstruction across dialects, an approach he would further refine through innovations in instrument design and workflow, well before the advent of digital acoustics. Upon returning to China, Liu founded the first phonetics laboratory at Peking University, developed new measurement tools, conducted large-scale dialectal fieldwork, and promoted the institutionalisation of experimental phonetics in higher education. These efforts laid the methodological and institutional foundations for modern Chinese phonetics. Finally, we situate Liu’s work within a wider intellectual network of Chinese scholars trained in Paris, arguing that this early transnational exchange not only enabled the adaptation to Chinese phonetic science, but also contributed to a broader epistemological shift in modern Chinese linguistics.