[citation needed] Huang was regarded as the most important phonologist since the high Qing (1644–1912) and gained recognition at first through his literary criticism of the sixth century.
He was the first to question established theories of rhyme schemes (patterns of sounds at the end of lines in poetry) in ancient literature.
[citation needed] As the second surviving son of the family, Huang Kan showed strong interest in literature and books in general from a very young age and reportedly could memorize texts verbatim upon first reading.
[1] In 1903, at the age of eighteen, Huang Kan tested into the Hubei Liberal School, Wuchang Xuetang (“湖北普通文学堂”, “武昌学堂“).
[4] During the three years Huang Kan spent at this school, he was highly influenced by the progressive scholars and thinkers around him, and especially excited about the idea of revolution and rising up against the monarchy.
[1] Huang Kan's father was old friends with Zhang Zhidong (张之洞), the Viceroy of Huguang (a very high-ranking position in the Qing government).
And from 1911 to 1914, he focused his study in three major works,:[1] Although the writing tradition of Chinese has maintained extensive records throughout centuries, the phonetics remains a topic of much debate.
Huang reset the parameters of the phonetic development of the Chinese language ("汉语音韵学 ") to nineteen consonants and twenty-eight vowels.
[1] Zhang Taiyan once said that no other work in history of Chinese linguistics, Xiaoxue ("小学", discipline that studies ancient Chinese) has ever reached the depth of Huang Kan.[6] Huang further developed Zhang and Qian Xuantong's preliminary findings and published one of his most famous works Nineteen Sounds of Ancient Phonology《古音十九纽》in 1924.
[1][3] Although this was a widely accepted theory, scholars like Lin Yutang and Qi Peirong openly disagreed with Huang.
Lin Yutang, in his publication "The consonants that have disappeared from ancient phonology" (古音中已经遗失的声母), pointed out Huang's failure to incorporate analyses of vowels in his theory and that his line of logic constitutes a circular, thus erroneous argument.
[5] Despite his political progressiveness, Huang Kan was amongst the classicist scholars in Republican China, which employed "rigorous historicism" as method of analysis in philology giving great attention to old texts and data.
[2] The marginalized scholars including Wang Li and Zhang Shilu, practiced a comparative and historical approach in phonology and their disciples continued as rivals till recent days.
[8] Specifically, it included "General remarks on Erya (Erya Lue Shuo, 尔雅略说), which defined and explained the importance of Erya and incorporated his comprehensive summary of past analyses of Erya, including that of Guo Pu (one of the earliest writers on Chinese ancient texts from the first century); "General remarks on Shuowen" (Shuowen Lue Shuo, 说文略说), which studied the etymology of Chinese characters and analyzed the rationale of Chinese orthography; "General remarks on Shengyun" (Shengyun Lue Shuo, 声韵略说), which elaborated on the importance of phonetics and the historical change of Chinese phonetics through the multiple versions and editions of Guangyun spread across dynasties.
[2] In 1925, when he was the only professor in the Chinese Department at Wuchang Higher Normal, he refused to teach any classes as a protest to the school's proposal to hire left-wing poet Guo Moruo (a leader of the New Cultural Movement) as a faculty member.
Furthermore, for students he thought as particularly talented with great potential, he held extra smaller lectures outside of class time to discuss contemporary matters and literature.
[1] As a classicist, he was very adamant about the list of twenty-five books from classic Chinese literature that his students were required to read.
Despite his strict pedagogy, all of his students were very grateful for his dedication in teaching as he often transferred knowledge of his personal methods and philosophies in studying.
[citation needed] In 1916, when Zhang Taiyan was jailed by Yuan Shikai (a politician who attempted to restore the monarchy after Sun Yet-sen's death), Huang Kan arrived at his teaching position in Peking University.
Despite the risk of being jailed and executed, Huang moved into Zhang's house arrest in Beijing to take care of his teacher.
His eight sons were Nianhua (念华), Nianchu (念楚, died very early), Niantian (念田), Nianxiang (念祥), Nianci (念慈), Nianqin (念勤), Nianning (念宁), Nianping (念平).