Astronaut which describes it as "a hybrid of the Chinese term "taikong" (space) and the Greek "naut" (sailor)"; the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the "Shenzhou 5" spacecraft. This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese "People's Daily" since the advent of the Chinese space program. The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih () from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups. With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency
Chinese as a foreign language "Arte de la Lengua Mandarina" was published in Canton in 1703. This grammar was only sketchy, however. The first important Chinese grammar was Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare's "Notitia linguae sinicae", completed in 1729 but only published in Malacca in 1831. Other important grammar texts followed, from Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat's "Élémens" (sic) "de la grammaire chinoise" in 1822 to Georg von der Gabelentz's "Chinesische Grammatik" in 1881. Glossaries for Chinese circulated among the missionaries from early on. Robert Morrison's "A Dictionary of the Chinese Language" (1815-1823), noted for its fine printing, is one of the first important Chinese dictionaries for the