HDong on Ling Reform in E Asia Draft 04/17/2016 1 AN ARCHIVAL STUDY ON LINGUISTIC REFORMS IN PRE-MODERN EAST ASIA (first draft 04/17/2016) Hongyuan Dong George Washington University Abstract This article first points out the shared linguistic resources in East Asia in countries including China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, and how such commonalities have created similar challenges and tasks during the linguistic reforms in the period from the eighteenth century to early twentieth century. The challenges include diglossia, digraphia, mutually unintelligible dialects, lack of spoken standards, and etc. Correspondingly the tasks include reforms in the written language, the spoken language, the unification of the two, standardization, and etc. Then by using archival materials, mostly memorials to the throne in the Qing Dynasty of China, the rationale and arguments for the aforementioned linguistic reform tasks are examined via the views expressed by high-ranking officials in the imperial government, as an important link between the common intellectuals and the emperors. The archives show that high-ranking officials had a global view for the envisioned modern languages. They also carried out empirical trial runs and formulated comprehensive list of rationale and arguments for these linguistic reforms. Key words: East Asian civilizations; linguistic reforms; language policy