Amiot, Or Amyot, Joseph, a French Jesuit and missionary to China, born in Toulon in 1718, died in Peking in 1794. He was early distinguished for great scientific attainments and indefatigable industry. In 1750 he was sent to China, and after some stay at Macao was called by the emperor Kien-lung to Peking, which he reached Aug. 22, 1751, and never afterward left. Devoting himself to the study of the antiquities, history, languages, and arts of the Chinese and Mantchus, he annually sent to France memoirs, treatises, and translations which greatly extended European knowledge on these subjects. Among his works published separately were: Eloge de la ville de Moukden, a translation of a poem by the emperor Kien-lung, with numerous notes (1770); Art militaire des Chinois (translation, 1772); and Dictionnaire tatar-mantchou-francais (3 vols. 4to, 1789), which was edited by Lan-gles, and the types for which were cut and cast at the expense of the minister Bertin. But the greater part of his writings were included in the Memoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences et les arts des Chinois (15 vols. 4to). The list of his contributions to the first 10 volumes of this work occupies 14 columns of the table of contents.

His treatise on Chinese music fills most of vol. iv., and his life of Confucius nearly all of vol. xii. In vol. xiii. there is a brief Mantchoo grammar by him.