Chinese Studies

III. The phonetic systems representing Chinese speech sounds

Four Major Romanization Systems

Wade-Giles: The romanization system to describe Chinese pronunciation developed by Thomas Francis Wade (1818 - 1895). Wade was a British officer, a diplomat, and a Chinese scholar. He was the ambassador to China and the first Chinese professor at Cambridge University. Wade created such a system and used it when he wrote the very first Chinese textbook (Y}y1n Z* 6r J^ )in English in 1867. In 1912, Herber Allen Giles (1845-1935), a British diplomat to China, compiled a "Chinese-English Dictionary", using and adapting the Romanization system created by Wade. Thus, the system is named the "Wade-Giles system". From then on, it had been widely used by both Westerners and Chinese to represent names of Chinese people, places, or objects, and was "normally used by scholars writing in Western languages about China" (P. Huang and Hugh M. Stimson, 1975:xii). The Library of Congress had used this system for decades. However, it has switched to Hanyu pinyin since 1998.

Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR): In 1926, at the fifth meeting of the Committee of the Unification of the National Language, a Committee of National Language Romanization was formed, with Qi1n Xu1nt9ng, Y.R. Chao, L^ J&nx%, L^n Y}t1ng, Li{ F], W`ng Y^ and Zh8u Bi3nm^ng, et al as members. "In 1928, the system of Gwoyuu Romatzyh (G.R.), or National Romanization was adopted by the government and incorporated in the revised standard of pronunciation, side by side with the National Phonetic Letters, in the official dictionary Gwoin Charnyonq Tzyhhuey of 1932" (Y.R. Chao, 1947:11). (Yu Di-yong, "The World of Chinese" Dec. 1996, No.82:23)

Yale: A romanization system developed by Yale University in the 50's (? or 60's?) to teach Mandarin and Cantonese. It was "widely used in language texts" (P. Huang and Hugh M. Stimson, 1975:xii), especially before the 80's.

Pinyin: Q{ Qi[b1i first proposed to latinize Chinese when he was in the Soviet Union the 30's. On Oct. 10, 1949 the Association of Chinese Script Reform was founded, with W{ Y]zh`ng as the chairman. The project of developing the H3ny} p%ny%n system started after the forming of the Reform Commission of the Chinese Script in Nov. 1954. The plan of H3ny} p%ny%n was approved by the fifth meeting of the First National People's Congress on Feb. 1, 1958.

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