In 1958, a brand new writing system was introduced in China called Pinyin. It used the Roman alphabet to help simplify Chinese characters into words.

The mastermind behind Pinyin was a professor called Zhou Youguang who'd previously worked in the United States as a banker.

Pinyin helped to rapidly increase literacy levels in China. When it was introduced, 80% of the population couldn't read or write. It's now only a couple of percent.

Despite being responsible for such an important tool in China's development, Zhou was subjected to re-education as part of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. He was forced to work on a farm in rural China.

In 2017 Zhou Youguang died aged 111. Matt Pintus has been going through archive interviews to piece together Zhou's life.

This programme contains archive material from NPR and the BBC.

(Photo: Zhou Youguang. Credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images)