Amiot, Joseph Maria

AMIOT (wrongly spelled Amyot), ɑ̄´´mî´´ō´, JOSEPH MARIA: Jesuit missionary; b, at Toulon Feb. 18, 1718; d. at Peking Oct. 8, 1793. He joined the Jesuits in 1737 and entered China as a missionary in 1751. The reigning emperor, Kien-Lung, was hostile to the Christians, but the missionaries were allowed to proceed to Peking and to work there, if not in the provinces. Father Amiot devoted himself assiduously for the rest of his life to the study of Chinese history, language, and literature and was one of the first to give Europe accurate information concerning Eastern Asia. The results of his work were published for the most part in the Mémoires concernant les Chinois (15 vols., Paris, 1776-91), in the proceedings of learned societies, and in the Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (34 vols., 1717-76). They include a life of Confucius (Mémoires, vol. xii.) and a Dictionnaire tartare-mantchou-français (ed. Langlès, 3 vols., 1789-90).